Sent off with chants of « MVP, MVP, » the American put on a show and secured victory for his team against the Brooklyn Nets (111-102). Among the personalities in attendance were Kylian Mbappé, David Beckham, Marco Asensio, and Sabrina Ionescu.
Third Lackluster Chapter It marked the third time that the French capital hosted an official NBA game. It made its debut in 2020, featuring Giannis Antetokounmpo on the court, observed by basketball legends Michael Jordan and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in the stands.

That Milwaukee Bucks-Charlotte Hornets matchup took place weeks before the pandemic hit, leading to the postponement of the second chapter in the French capital until 2023. With a ‘vintage’ Detroit Pistons-Chicago Bulls showdown on the bill, the spotlight was on Magic Johnson and Victor Wembanyama, representing the league’s glorious past and promising future, sharing a symbolic embrace in the stands.
A year later, with the 7-foot-4-inch, 20-year-old giant already with the San Antonio Spurs, dominating the league’s highlights night after night, this Cleveland-Brooklyn matchup, featuring two Eastern Conference playoff contenders, felt somewhat underwhelming.
« The Golden Age of French Basketball » Before the game, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver took the stage: « We are in the golden age of French basketball, with 14 players in the league, including Victor, the number one draft pick, who tonight recorded his first triple-double. »
There was little evidence of that ‘golden age’ on the court, with two of the only four teams out of the 30 in the league that do not have Europeans on their roster, awaiting ‘Wemby’s’ return for the ‘Paris Game 2025’. It took some time to warm up the atmosphere at the Accor Arena, in a French capital experiencing its first serious cold snap of the season. Eventually, all 15,000 seats were filled, with prices ranging from 355 to 665 euros, including a commemorative Cavaliers towel carefully laid out on each seat. The NBA show took care of the rest.
The Sting of the Spider The game began, and ‘Spider’ Mitchell, the standout of the evening, displayed leadership from the tip-off, clearly outshining Mikal Bridges (26 points), the Nets’ main man.
The four-time All-Star, capable of scoring 71 points in a game, is a candidate to join the ‘Dream Team’ for the 2024 Paris Olympics, led by the likes of LeBron James, Kevin Durant, and Stephen Curry.
On the court where Olympic medals will be awarded in eight months, the shooting guard offered a clinic in drives and transition mastery. He garnered most of the crowd’s ‘Ohhh!’s and finished with an impressive stat line: 45 points, 12 rebounds, 6 assists, and 4 steals. The blemish of the evening came at the start of the fourth quarter when Nic Claxton enthusiastically celebrated Brooklyn closing the gap to ten points and collided with Tristan Thompson, sparking a brief collective scuffle, with grappling and shoving in a large circle at center court.
Once tempers were cooled, with a technical for Claxton and ejection for Thompson, Mitchell treated the crowd to another spellbinding performance and gracefully capped off his night of glory along the banks of the Seine.