Roca Team collapse leaves French basketball without its standard-bearer
By Zak Jackson, MonacoViews Editorial
The president of the Ligue nationale de basket says the competition has lost its driving force following the Roca Team's dramatic fall from grace.
Philippe Ausseur, president of the Ligue nationale de basket, did not mince his words ahead of the season-opening Supercoupe at Roland-Garros on Saturday. The LNB, he said, has lost a locomotive with the Roca Team's collapse - a stark admission from the man who oversees the entire French top flight.
The scale of the fall is difficult to overstate. Last season, the Roca Team swept all four available titles in France, a clean sweep that made the Salle Gaston-Médecin the centre of French basketball. That dominance has now given way to a crisis serious enough for the league's own president to publicly mourn the club's absence from contention at the start of the new campaign.
For Monaco residents who packed the Gaston-Médecin through those title-winning seasons, the contrast with the mood around this year's opener is sharp. Whether the club can rebuild the squad depth and financial stability that underpinned that four-trophy haul remains the central question hanging over the Principality's basketball scene as 2026-27 gets under way.