Cover Photo via YMCA Paris Instagram.
One hundred thirty years ago, on December 27, 1893, the first basketball game played outside North America was held in Paris, France. It was the first step in a global movement recently celebrated with World Basketball Day—one that Philadelphia now has a unique tie into thanks to its very own Batman, the 76ers’ French swingman Nicolas Batum.
Batman rises when signaled to provide an assist, a nickname Batum earned early in his professional career. It’s a moniker he famously embodied at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics with an epic block in the France vs Slovenia semifinal’s dying seconds, which sent Les Bleus to the final.
Batum now exercises this trait with the 76ers. The veteran is known for his on-court abilities, role fomenting team chemistry, and late-career renaissance. But less known is how he is a product of France’s openness to outside cultures and unique ties to the United States, French Antilles and Africa, a mix that’s infused NBA, WNBA, and NCAA hardcourts for decades.
Batum was born in Lisieux, in the northern French department of Normandy, a region well acquainted with Americans thanks to WWII-era history. But his hoops dreams took flight elsewhere, in Le Mans, a small city 90-minutes west of Paris.
Lanky, tall, 13-year-old Batum had yet to grow into his frame when he arrived at the youth academy of professional club Le Mans-Sarthe Basketball Club (MSB) in 2001. He was quickly nicknamed “Bambi” for a perceived reserve. Yet, club officials recognized his particular flair for the game; Batum’s basketball IQ developed and he rose to the attention of the senior team coach, Vincent Collet, himself formed by the club’s particular sense of culture.
Bill Cain on the cover of L’Équipe Basket, June 11, 1975. Photo via Gallica.fr
It was a culture open to other basketball styles. MSB was one of the first to sign U.S. players under 1968 rule changes that doubled the number of foreign players on rosters from one to two. Men like New Yorker Bill Cain, who helped the club win three titles (1978, 1979, 1982) years after amassing the second-most single-season rebounds in the Big Eight (396) at Iowa State University in 1970, (second only to Wilt Chamberlain).
These players engaged in different types of sports diplomacy: communication, representation and negotiation through the sporting realm. More popularly associated with governments, sports diplomacy is about the ways that people can better understand each other and develop team chemistry through cultural, technical, or knowledge exchanges. This occurs nightly in the NBA, where more than 25% of players are international, including last year’s MVP, Joel Embiid.
Le Mans 1981-82: Vincent Collet (#13) and Bill Cain (#15). Photo: Basket-Ball May 1982, Gallica.fr
Cain was part of the wave of U.S. players who dribbled on French courts. Derided or lauded by journalists of the era as an “American colonization” of the game, these young men imprinted France’s basketball, which was influenced by—but did not outright adopt—the U.S. style. Cain impacted Le Mans as arguably the best U.S. player of the era, and taught teammates, including with a young Collet, his techniques and work ethic.
“ I was at home [watching that NBA Finals match]...After that, I went to play basketball like crazy for three hours.”
Collet grew up in a basketball-loving family, but it was Philadelphia’s May 16, 1980 Finals match against the Los Angeles Lakers that left an indelible impact. It was the first NBA game that he watched on television—and he was smitten.
Le Mans cultivated a variety of styles as it built community and culture, influenced by an American coaching accent. When Collet took over as head coach in 2000, he brought game know-how inspired by its ami américain, while foreign players continued to introduce new ideas on- and off-court. That imprinted the club, including its 16-year-old protégé Batum, elevated by Collet to the senior team. This exposure helped orient Batum, who Collet still thinks of as his first “basketball son,” towards what playing with and against Americans (and the NBA) might be like.
Batum shared his enthusiasm for the rue de Trévise court with CNN International in January 2020. “You could sense there was some history in this [place]” he said of what its like to play on the world’s oldest basketball court. Read more here.
Bambi became Batman and crafted a multidimensional career, including experience playing in the world’s oldest court in Paris, where 130 years ago basketball was exported.
Batum brings a hoops family DNA that reflects an openness to other cultures, one that’s impacting the game and is imprinted by Philadelphia. It’s a reminder that, as we celebrate basketball as a cultural movement, it’s about more than a game. It’s about engaging and exchanging with others to better understand them and our world today.