By Aris Barkas/ barkas@eurohoops.net
Frederic Fauthoux has already created a reputation in his first 10 years as a coach. The former player and seven-time French League champion added two more domestic titles as an assistant coach with LDCL ASVEL Villeurbanne before taking the next step as a head coach for Mincidelice JL Bourg en Bresse.
And the French club is already turning heads in the 7DAYS EuroCup as the only remaining unbeaten team in the competition. Not a bad start in a very unpredictable season with no clear favorites for the trophy.
Considering, however, the career of Fauthoux, who since his playing days as a point guard seemed destined to become a coach, this is hardly a surprise.
Already thought of as an elite coach at improving players – Fauthoux has helped develop, among others, Real Madrid‘s Vincent Poirier – it was just a matter of time before he made a splash on the top level as a head coach.
After all, Fauthoux was handed the reigns as a head coach at the top level for the first time by legendary point guard Antoine Rigaudeau, a former EuroLeague champion with Virtus Bologna.
The two of them had been teammates on the French national team and when Rigaudeau made the decision to become a head coach with Paris-Levallois in 2015, he brought in Fauthoux as an assistant.
Just three months into that season, Ridaudeau decided that he did not want to be a coach and left the team to Fauthoux, who had already won titles as a head coach in lower divisions. It proved to be the right choice.
Fauthoux remained on the same bench until the summer of 2020, when he left despite having one year left in his contract, to join ASVEL as an associate head coach. When Tony Parker calls, you simply don’t say no.
Fauthoux once again left in order to become a head coach again, this time for Bourg and it was the right match. Replacing Savo Vucevic, the uncle of Bulls center Nikola Vucevic and a legendary figure in French basketball, wasn’t easy, considering the success the club had by reaching the playoffs in last season’s EuroCup.
Fauthoux proved to be up for the task. After playing under some of the best French coaches in history, including Michel Gomez, Jacques Monclar, and Claude Bergeaud, and now working with another former coach and the current sports director of Bourg, Frederic Sarre, Fauthoux can be – if he is not already is – the heir to this tradition and the man who will be the next big thing on the French and EuroCup benches.