By Antonis Stroggylakis / astroggylakis@eurohoops.net
Jakarta, Indonesia – France star center Rudy Gobert acknowledged and assumed the share of responsibility he feels that comes with his significant role at the national team, following the disappointing and very early exit from the 2023 FIBA World Cup.
“I hold myself accountable at the highest level,” Robert said when asked by Eurohoops at what level he feels accountable for this shocking elimination. “That’s part of being a leader. That’s part of who I am. And a part of the player I’m also on the court.”
Gobert, a three-time NBA DPOY, is one of the biggest stars of the French national team, along with New York Knicks wing Evan Fournier and Los Angeles Clippers forward Nicolas Batum, also the captain. He’s definitely the most decorated NBAer among the three, having also three All-Star nods in his resume.
France expects from Gobert to primarily be a heavy-hitting all-around force on defense and a fierce rim protector that will act as a pillar of the team’s rear. These are his specialties after all, his bread and butter.
In this year’s World Championship and during the critical defeats to Canada and Latvia that brought this historically upsetting result, Gobert didn’t really show much of what defines him as a player and didn’t brought any truly positive impact whatsoever on the floor.
Gobert had 8 and 9 points respectivelly vs. Canada and Latvia while grabbing 9 and 7 rebounds. He took – and made – just one shot, a dunk, in the eliminating loss to the Latvian side and overall didn’t seem aggressive enough on the offensive end.
There’s the fact that France didn’t have an experienced playmaking guard to consistently run pick n’ roll tricks with Gobert save for Nando De Colo. Thomas Heurtel, for example, among the absentees due to the ‘Russia ban,” had 7.1 assists in last year’s EuroBasket and was a feeding machine for Gobert who averaged 12.8 points on 7.6 attempts in the tournament.
Gobert wasn’t going to open the big box of “Ifs” and touch who was missing or who was not for France. He just felt like making his self-criticism.
“Obviously, the best thing you can is first of all look at yourself in the mirror and see how you can be better,” Gobert added.
There’s already a lot of self-reflection in the French national team camp and an effort to mentally regroup after this shocking elimination.
France will look to to turn this massive letdown into a vehicle of metamorphosis ahead of the huge challenge that are the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.
“We didn’t have guys pointing fingers,” Gobert said. “Everyone is trying to look within first. And that’s how we’re going to get better. And then keep communicating as a group and get better and learn from the mistakes, learn from the mistakes, learn from the losses.”
Fournier has already discussed that France needs to take the procedure of the 17-32 classification games seriously. Gobert feels the need to at least enjoy those matches and that are left for his team in the World Cup.
“We’ll try to have fun,” Gobert said. “We must be grateful to play the game we love. So we must have fun. And build. Build good habits. Never lose the joy, never lose the fun. We’re lucky doing what we do. We have tough losses sometimes. But we got to learn from it and keep going.”
Photo: FIBA World Cup