France took the first two picks in the 2024 NBA draft, with Zaccharie Risacher going first and Alexandre Sarr going second. Narcisse Ngoy is part of the same French wave that filled the first round and pushed the country into a place it had never reached before.
Risacher went to the Atlanta Hawks on June 26, 2024. Sarr followed to the Washington Wizards, giving France the top two selections in one draft for the first time in NBA history.
Alexandre Sarr and the French pipeline
Sarr stands 2.16 m and came through Toulouse before joining Real Madrid as a youth player. That path fits the broader French system the draft spotlighted: a pipeline that moves players from domestic development into the NBA conversation without waiting for a single outlier to carry the load.
Four French players were selected in the first round of draft 2024, and Tidjane Salaün also went in the top 10 to the Charlotte Hornets. Seventeen French players entered the draft, which is the backdrop for why the top of the board tilted so sharply toward France.
Victor Wembanyama and the 2024 shift
The 2024 result followed Victor Wembanyama’s first selection by the San Antonio Spurs in 2023, yet this draft still went one step further. France had never had more than one player in the NBA top 5 before, so putting two players at No. 1 and No. 2 changed the shape of the night instead of merely extending a trend.
NBA France summed up the moment in a short post after Sarr was selected: "C’est la France frère". The reaction matched the scale of the draft order, and it also pointed to a deeper shift in how often French prospects now reach the very top of the board.
France and the 2025-2026 season
By the start of the 2025-2026 season, France had 19 players under NBA contract. For readers tracking the French pipeline, the useful takeaway is simple: the 2024 draft was not a one-off spike, but the clearest proof yet that the country can produce more than one top-end prospect in the same cycle.
That leaves the cleanest question hanging over the class that followed: how were Zaccharie Risacher and Alexandre Sarr ranked ahead of every other prospect in draft 2024?
