France stormed their way into the Olympic finals. And, it’s not only the NBA stars who are getting the attention but also the French center, Mathias Lessort. The 28-year-old center, who was overshadowed in the initial stages of the tournament, came to the limelight in the knockouts. Especially, this French national had to eat up 4x DPOY awardee Rudy Gobert‘s minutes on the court to stand out. Moreover, Lessort could turn into a lethal threat for Team USA, which barely survived the semi-final storm.

Over the last few days, one of the buzz in the hoops community was about Gobert warming France’s bench. Looking closer into the affair, Lessort sprung out as the centerpiece. Notably, during the tight quarter-finals clash against Canada, the 6 ‘9 center put up an impressive 13 points with 5 rebounds and a block coming off the bench. Before learning more about the issue, let’s take a quick detour and find out a little more about Lessort.

Born in the French overseas department of Martinique, Lessort picked up the basketball at the tender age of 15. He started off his basketball journey with the Élan Chalon, a French professional team’s youth cadre. Four years later, Lessort signed his first professional contract in 2014 with the senior side in the LNB Elite League. After two silent seasons with Élan Chalon, the rising star decided to declare for the NBA draft in 2016, as per L’Equipe. However, later he decided against it.

Following that, Lessort continued to play in different European leagues like the Basketball League of Serbia, EuroLeague, Israeli Premier League, and ABA League. Notably, the French national’s biggest break came in with his latest stint with the Panathinaikos, a Greek team in the EuroLeague. He scored 17 points with 6 rebounds to win the 2024 Finals against Real Madrid. Currently, Mathias Lessort is on a two-year contract with the Greek side.

Mathias Lessort’s accolades

One may wonder how Mathias Lessort didn’t earn an NBA contract despite stacking his trophy cabinet. In fact, the NBA commissioner announced his name during the 2017 NBA Draft. The Philadelphia 76ers selected him as the 50th overall pick. However, Lessort never made his debut in the NBA. Instead, he continued playing in the European leagues. Nevertheless, 7 years after the draft, the French team’s coach Vincent Collet pointed his fingers at the American league and wondered why Lessort wasn’t playing there.

French coach raises questions against the NBA

Amid the French side’s entry into the Olympic Finals, Vincent Collet encountered a few American journalists. Surprisingly, leaving out the NBA stars on the side, the journalists were interested in the EuroLeague players. Speaking to one of them, Collet said, “Mathias was probably the best player in the EuroLeague this year. They won the championship with Panathinaikos, and he was not far from winning the MVP. So for me, it’s not a surprise… What is a surprise? I don’t understand why he is not playing in the NBA. I don’t know why no team in the NBA takes this guy.” 

Now that the word has spread, the NBA franchises may look forward to bringing the valuable rim protector into the league. Moreover, Lessort, who is having a fantastic year in his professional career, looks to make a clean sweep. Speaking about the gold medal game, he said, “We are in the final of the Olympics. We are not here by luck. We are here because we deserve it. Whoever we will face in the final, we will go out there and fight and try to make it as hard as possible for them to beat us. Just give everything we have on the court.” 

Well, it will be the battle for the ages. The lethal French side will take on the overpowered US side with superstars in every single position. Anyway, let’s get back to Rudy Gobert’s bench-warming issue.

Mathias Lessort strips off Rudy Gobert’s minutes

Heading into the Paris Olympics, everyone spoke about the French side’s threatening twin towers in the starting line-up, Victor Wembanyama and Rudy Gobert. While they continued to threaten the tournament, it didn’t seem to continue in the knockout stage. In quarter-final and semi-final games, Gobert played a total of 8 minutes. Interestingly, out of those 8 minutes, he played only 2 seconds in the fourth quarter.

This immediately became a polarizing topic in the NBA world. Many experts and players including Draymond Green trolled the 4x DPOY following these two games. Vincent Collet took the brave call by reducing Gobert’s minutes and split it between Mathias Lessort and Guerschon Yabusele.

Lessort, speaking of his opportunity said, “He [Vincent Collet] did a great adjustment… obviously, he told me that my minutes would probably increase in the next game, so I had to be ready. Obviously, I was ready… I’m always ready to try to help my team and give everything I have when I get on the court.” Will Collet follow the same formula against Team USA? Let us know in the comments below.

Before leaving, do watch the Dual Threat Show hosted by BG12 where Bulldogs’ Asia Avinger details her experience with Kobe Bryant, her WNBA ROTY picks, and more in the video below.