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Monaco (AFP) – Top Euroleague scorer, Elie Okobo straightened his winding trajectory in France, three years after leaving it for his thwarted NBA dream. In Villeurbanne, who travels to Monaco on Tuesday (6:00 p.m.) for the shock of the Elite, the leader has found at 24 the instinctive basketball of his beginnings.
Between the best points average of the Euroleague (18.5) and the 35 passed to Panathinaikos (2nd best total of the season), Elie Okobo recalled that he could score, a lot. A reminder only because Monaco had already paid the price during the 2018 play-offs.
That night, the Pau-Orthez player – where he was trained – had stacked 44 points, a performance that opened the doors to the NBA. Drafted in the second round by Phoenix, the hope of French basketball was then burnt to the Suns. First setback since his meteoric debut in France.
“In 2013, in the Final 4 of the French U17 championship, he was huge. The best player in the tournament,” remembers his cadets coach in Bordeaux, Arnold Bouazza.
Having become responsible for the category at Elan Béarnais, he swears to have done “lobbying, scrambling” for Pau-Orthez to recruit him in 2014.
One against one
“It was the same type of player, brush AFP Arnold Bouazza. At the end of each training session, he was doing half an hour of one against one. And this is still the case. Thirty minutes a day, in eight years, that starts to make. “
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After Devin Booker in Phoenix, he is now acquainted with Kymany Houinsou and Victor Wembanyama in Villeurbanne. “To be very comfortable in certain gestures by dint of repetitions, develops to AFP Elie Okobo. Victor (2.18 m, editor’s note), with his long segments, allows me to gauge my game against very large sizes . “
An unusual soloist game for a French leader. Evidenced by his “floaters” (mid-distance bell shots) at the end of the dribble and his “step-back” before a long shot, an NBA-style manager developed very early.
“He had nothing to envy on this side to the American players of the pro team. It was quite astonishing”, remembers for AFP Julien Martin, the hopeful coach with whom he was champion of France 2016 in Pau-Orthez. “In his first match in the category, he scored 21 points. Arrived at Elan Béarnais, he smashed everything. It was easy.”
Until Phoenix … With the Suns, he achieved a 2018-2019 season “rather honorable for a first NBA year” observes his agent Hirant Manakian, supporting figures: 53 matches with almost 18 minutes of play on average .
“He then injured his right ankle but not badly enough for it to require an operation,” he told AFP.
“It’s something that did not prevent me from playing, except that physically, I was at 60% of my capacities, describes the person concerned. It was frustrating: to be able to attack the circle, the big ones, the exteriors , it takes explosiveness and power. “
“Severe” Covid
Added to that is the recruitment to his post of Ricky Rubio. His minutes melt away. The Covid-19 interrupts this second season and, just before the resumption in the Orlando bubble, Elie Okobo contracts it “severely”, according to his agent.
“He lost weight, he was bedridden for several days, he explains. And as he was weak, he injured his ankle again.”
At the end of the exercise, Chris Paul lands in Phoenix in a trade with Rubio and the Suns part ways with Okobo. For lack of anything better, the French found himself in the G League, the NBA development league, and passed on the operating table last March after an anonymous season.
“I received after a message from Tony (Parker, owner of Villeurbanne, editor’s note) asking me what I was thinking of doing this year”, says Okobo, who opted for the Asvel “because everything stuck”. “If I return to the NBA, it will be in a safe and framed project. I have to know the players and the + coaching staff +.”
With TJ Parker, he has a longtime admirer-coach, to listen to Arnold Bouazza, who graduated at the same time as him in 2015: “TJ told me + I would love to have a player like Okobo +”. He is no longer the only one.
© 2021 AFP
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