By Antonis Stroggylakis/ info@eurohoops.net
Following tenures as an NBA executive with the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Indiana Pacers, David Kahn has undertaken a new and rather ambitious basketball project in France.
Kahn has become the owner and president of newly created club Paris Basketball (formerly Paris Basket Avenir) with the blessings of Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo. The team will compete in the French Pro B (Second Division) next season by taking the place of Hyeres-Toulon that was relegated from Pro A. Kahn had to pay the sum of €1M in order to acquire the Pro B rights of Hyeres-Toulon, according to Le Parisien.
Of course, Kahn’s aspirations with the Parisienne team don’t stop at having a team at Pro B. Getting promoted to Pro A or even winning a championship title might not be enough either.
What Kahn sets as one main goal for Paris Basketball is seeing the club competing in EuroLeague in 2002 so that the French capital will finally have a representative in the top-tier European competition.
“In fact, we have two very important ones,” Kahn said when asked about the club’s objectives in an interview with L’ Equipe. “The first is to be the team that will play in the new Arena (“Porte de la Chapelle” in the summer of 2024), and play in EuroLeague in 2022. For me, it’s totally incredible that Paris doesn’t play in EuroLeague. We want to place this club on the map of the big European basketball clubs.
There are currently 16 clubs in EuroLeague. An expansion that will include German Club Bayern Munich (the Bavarians will also play in EuroLeague in 2018-2019) and potentially Tony Parker-owned French club ASVEL (Nicolas Batum is also a shareholder) with “associate wild cards” is planned for 2019-2020. And who knows what might happen in three years after that.
This is why Kahn wants to take thing step by step. “Our budget will be the average of a Pro B team (around 1.5M – 2M. It will increase when we ride in Jeep Elite, then Eurocup and Euroleague,” Kahn said to Le Parisien. “EuroLeague has confirmed to us that they want a big Paris club.”
Photo: @Anne_Hidalgo