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Florent Pietrus Florent Pietrus

Florent Pietrus joined the Pau-Orthez training center in 1996. He was followed by his brother Mickaël in 1997, and together, they quickly asserted themselves as two of the greatest hopes in French basketball.

The eldest of the Pietrus brothers, Florent was part of the Pau generation of players, led by Claude Bergeaud, which won almost every possible championship title in France between 2001 and 2003. After the departure of Boris Diaw and his brother for the NBA in 2003, he spent a last season in Pau, winning his third title, before moving to Spain.

There, Florent Pietrus won the King’s Cup in 2005, and in the following season, he won the Spanish championship with his club Unicaja Malaga. He then joined another Spanish club, Estudiantes Madrid. At the beginning of the 2008-2009 season, he signed with Valencia Basket Club. Florent was back to France in 2013, and signed with the SLUC Nancy before joining the BCM Gravelines in 2016.

Additionally, he has been one of the senior players in the French national team for more than 10 years. His defense and his striking presence on the boards made him one of the principal architects of France’s third-place finish at the European Championships in 2005. In 2011, he became European vice champion and won the actual title in 2013. He has won two medals (bronze this time) at the World championship in Grenada in 2014 and at the European championship in 2015.

Florent has just stopped his international career at 230 selections and 14 years spent with the French National Team. At 36, he is to this day the third most capped player of the French National Team history. He will retire from professional basketball just at the end of the 2017 season.