Last month’s NBA Draft Lottery was highly anticipated, for it provided a better probability of which NBA team would get the right to draft the expected number one draft prospect of this year’s class, the 19-year-old Frenchman Victor Wembanyama.

But this is a story beyond just a Number One pick. It’s about the intergenerational story told in Basketball Empire: France and the Making of a Global NBA and WNBA for, contrary to some media analysis, over the past 25+ years France has become a main pipeline for talent into the North American leagues. This didn’t happen overnight, nor is it a “new” phenomenon this year.

Learn more as I spoke to CNN Sport, BBC World Service SportsHour (around 27:00) and France24.