France did something in the 2024 NBA Draft that it had never done before: it took the first two picks. Zaccharie Risacher went first to the Atlanta Hawks, and Alexandre Sarr followed at No. 2 to the Washington Wizards, turning June 26, 2024 into a night that will stay in French basketball history.
The scale of it mattered because the top of the draft had long been closed to France. Victor Wembanyama had been the first French player taken No. 1 only a year earlier, and before 2024 the country had never placed more than one player in the NBA top five. On this night, that ceiling disappeared in one sweep.
Risacher, 2.06 meters and formed at Bourg-en-Bresse, was the first selection after Atlanta inherited the top pick through the lottery. Sarr, a 2.16-meter interior player who passed through Toulouse and later joined Real Madrid as a youth player, became the next name called. The pair gave France the first two spots, something no country had done before in the NBA Draft.
The French run did not stop there. Tidjane Salaün also went in the top 10, and four French players were selected in the first round. Seventeen French players had registered for the draft, so the result was not just a headline about two names at the top. It was proof that the country had enough depth to force its way into the heart of the lottery and the opening round at the same time.
That depth has been building for years through French development structures and youth pathways inside professional clubs, with INSEP often at the center of the pipeline. The broader trend was already visible in Victor Wembanyama’s rise, but the 2024 draft pushed it into a new category. France was no longer producing isolated prospects. It was landing multiple players in the places that shape how a draft class is remembered.
There was still a small crack in the celebration. The country had never had more than one player in the NBA top five before 2024, so the one-two finish was not the product of a long-established habit. It was a break from history, not a continuation of one. That is what made the evening feel so abrupt, and so significant: France did not just arrive in the conversation, it took over the first two lines of it.
By the start of the 2025-2026 season, France had 19 players under contract in the NBA, a sign that the draft night surge was feeding a wider presence in the league. Rayan Rupert was later called into the France team to prepare for the 2027 World Cup, another reminder that the same pipeline is still producing players beyond the draft. The question now is not whether France can place talent in the league. It is how many more nights like June 26 it can force out of the system.
