Is Victor Wembanyama playing in the 2024 Paris Olympics?

2024 Paris Olympic hosts, France, will have their star man for the tournament. San Antonio Spurs big and reigning 2023-24 NBA Rookie of the Year Victor Wembanyama will play for Les Bleus. France qualified for the Olympics as the host nation and Wembanyama will be making his Olympics debut.

Wembanyama, also known as Wemby, will be leading the way for a stacked French roster. He is joined by Rudy Gobert, Nicolas Batum, Bilal Coulibaly, Evan Fournier, Frank Ntilikina, Nando De Colo, Guerschon Yabusele, Andrew Albicy, Matthias Lessort, Isaia Cordinier, and Matthew Strazel.

Head coach Vincent Collet has been playing Wemby and Gobert together in France's warm-up games. The towering duo is, without question, the greatest interior defensive duo of all time. Which is good, because France is going to need it.

Victor Wembanyama joining France at 2024 Paris Olympics in debut

France has top-level talent but their ability to potentially grab the gold medal - they got silver at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics - will depend on what they get out of their guards. De Colo and Fournier remain the team's best perimeter offensive players despite both being over 30 years old and thus, struggling to stay in front of opposing guards. Andrew Albicy offers more of the same. Former New York Knicks first-round pick Ntilikina and Strazel offer more defensively but are question marks on offense and could potentially clog things up for Gobert and Wemby.

Collet used the same starting lineup in France's first two warm-up games, going with Strazel, Cordinier, and Batum alongside Wemby and Gobert. Expectations are high for France heading into the tournament, and they did come up short in both of those games. France could opt to start one of De Color or Fournier over Strazel potentially, and potentially start Batum over Cordinier as well. The backcourt conundrum is one that will need to be solved if France wants to return to the gold medal game.

France's first game at the Olympics will come against Brazil on Saturday, July 27. They are in Group B with Brazil, Japan, and reigning World Champions Germany. They should prevail from this group comfortably but Brazil has regularly pulled off upsets at FIBA tournaments meaning France will need to be at their best from the opening game.