France men’s basketball coach Vincent Collet is shifting to an advisory role after leading the team to the last two Olympic silver medals.
Collet will be a special adviser to the national technical directorate for the 2028 and 2032 Olympic cycles, the French basketball federation announced Monday. He is still available to pursue an NBA assistant coaching job or a EuroLeague coaching job.
“I remain a coach,” he said, according to a translation of a French national team Q&A. “I also think that I will coach again one day. I don’t feel done, not finished.”
Collet, 61, took over as French head coach in 2009 after the nation missed qualifying for the Olympics in 2004 and 2008 after taking silver at the 2000 Sydney Games.
Under Collet, France qualified for four consecutive Olympics, made the quarterfinals at each Games and was runner-up to the U.S. at the last two Olympics.
In Tokyo, France became the first team to beat the U.S. in Olympic play since 2004, doing so in group play. In the final, the U.S. won 87-82 in the closest Olympic men’s basketball final since 1972.
In Paris, Victor Wembanyama made his Olympic debut and kept France in the gold-medal game until the final minutes. France cut the U.S. lead to 82-79 with three minutes left before Stephen Curry hit four three-pointers to seal a 98-87 victory.
Collet also coached Wembanyama’s club team in France before Wembanyama was drafted by the San Antonio Spurs last year.
“We are facing a reconstruction,” Collet said of the national team. “This year we went to the Games at a crossroads with the end of a generation and the emergence of a new one. For the Los Angeles objectives that are looming, we will have to build on a young generation that is perhaps the most promising we have ever had.”
