Bilal Coulibaly, DC’s Frenchie, dreams of the Games after a successful season

“ I wasn’t good at all! »: Bilal Coulibaly remembers with a big smile his childhood and his first “spoon shots”, to try to slip the ball into the basket, far from imagining that he would one day land in the nets of the NBA and probably of The french team.

“ As the weeks went by, dribbling was already much better and I was able to shoot normally. ”, the ball above his head and the broken wrist to guide him. A young player from Courbevoie, in the Paris suburbs, Bilal was 11 years old at the time.

Eight years later, his arms have grown and so have his legs. They carry the 2.03 m height of a young adult recently settled in Washington DC.

“ The dream “, admits Bilal Coulibaly, his tall relaxed body sitting on a chair in the center of the team’s training ground in the American federal capital, for an interview with AFP in April.

For his first season in the NBA, the “rookie”, the name given to the new kids, played a series of matches, 63 in total, and showed a very promising face, before suffering a fracture of his right wrist in early March.

“ It should be good for the Games », he hopes as coach Vincent Collet must announce his list on May 16.

Collet, his former coach at Levallois, was able to see Coulibaly this winter during his American tour. “ He only wishes me happiness », smiles the player.

“He was jumping everywhere”

Strong in defense, aerial play, great maturity and Olympian calm, Coulibaly has entered the hearts of Wizards supporters this season, despite the franchise’s new disappointing season (15 wins, 67 defeats, 14th and penultimate in the Eastern Conference ).

His new coach Brian Keefe, called during the season, found him “ very mature for his age “.

“ I’ve always been someone who wanted more », assures the person concerned. After each match, he dissects his actions. And each time finds a gesture, a positioning, a shot to improve. “ My friends say I’m too hard on myself! », smiles the winger.

This work, enhanced with a zest of pleasure, propelled the native of Saint-Cloud, near Paris, to the top, who will celebrate his 20th birthday on July 26, the day before the Blues enter the Olympic tournament. When he was little, he already had the need to exercise. “ When I went to pick him up from school, sometimes people would say to me, “Bilal is a little agitated.” », remembers his father, Makan Coulibaly.

“ In the square below, it was the same, he jumped and climbed everywhere », he smiles.

As an outlet, he chose judo. The victories keep coming, Bilal is good, but “ a need to change » the fate of the tatami mats.

Football ? The first balloon his father bought him was black and white. But when registration comes, no more places in the local club.

Friend of “Wemby”

So Bilal tries the orange ball, love at first sight. “ I was smart to counter him when I was two heads taller than him, but the situation quickly changed », laughs the father again.

In 2017, Bilal won his first French champion title in the blue and yellow jersey of the under-13s of Hauts-de-Seine. The winger then shares the same colors as his friend Victor Wembanyama, who is already two heads taller than all his teammates. Bilal dreams of the NBA, even if his parents only half believe in it.

Their destinies linked, Coulibaly finds Wembanyama in 2022 with the Metropolitans 92 of Levallois. Both are then drafted in the summer of 2023, number one for “Wemby”, heading to the San Antonio Spurs, and number 7 for “BC” in Washington.

Bilal traces his path in the capital in the media shadow of the 2.24 m “Wemby”. “ I like to be a little behind », he assures in his deep and calm voice.

Friend with his teammates Deni Avdija and Anthony Gill, Coulibaly, a homebody, likes to play consoles, go shopping and, “ because it is necessary», enjoy, from time to time, a burger, which is not worth his mother’s lasagna when she visits him.

An almost ideal table, where all that is missing is obtaining the permit, after having already validated the code. And an Olympic selection.