After three years, the NBA returned to Paris for a regular season game. The matchup placed the Chicago Bulls, who famously made a trip to France with the Michael Jordan-led team in 1997, against the Detroit Pistons. The modern-day Bulls, led by Zach LaVine and DeMar DeRozan, led the entire way to a 126-108 win.
LaVine poured in 30 points, DeRozan dropped 26, and the third piece of the Bulls Big 3, Nikola Vucevic, added 16 points, 15 rebounds, and six assists. For the Pistons, Bojan Bogdanovic dropped 25 points.
“Maybe the air up here was good for me,” LaVine said to ESPN in the postgame.
The game mirrored that of an All-Star game, as far as attendees, courtside and throughout the arena was Pharrell Williams, Magic Johnson, projected No. 1 pick Victor Wembanyama, Lil Baby, Pistons legends Ben Wallace and Rip Hamilton, Bulls legend Joakim Noah, and many more.
“I don’t want to quite compare this to All-Star,” NBA commissioner Adam Silver said, “but it’s the closest thing to a European All-Star Game that we have.”
The NBA is a growing international game. There are nine French players, the last four MVP awards have gone to international players (two each for Nikola Jokic and Giannis Antetokounmpo), and four of the league’s best scorers – Luka Doncic, Joel Embiid, Antetokounmpo, and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander – are from outside the United States.
