As we gave some indication already in yesterday’s cigarettes, it is now official that the there are some important changes in the coaching area of French basketball. Le Mans will lose Vincent Collet to ASVEL.

As yesterday already announced, ASVEL Villeurbanne agreed to a three year deal with Vincent Collet, actual coach of the Euroleague team Le Mans. The team from the suburbs of Lyon is one of the better structured French teams and has big plans for their future, like building a NBA-like arena. Now, with the addition of Collet, who moves to Villeurbanne together with his assistant Pierre Tavano, ASVEL will try to reach the best possible sportive situation for Collet to start in the summer.

With Collet leaving to Southern France and Nicolas Batum ready to enter the NBA Draft, the Euroleague team from Le Mans has some serious trouble for next year. Well, the already have a successor for the coaching and it will be the Rookie JD Jackson who will take over. Jackson has signed a two year deal with the team where he won the 2006 French Championship as a player and has worked with last season in order to prepare his coaching future.

According to the official transcript of the press conference, there were even some journalists that had some doubts about the capacity of Jackson to take over the club. ;-) To this, the president had a direct reply: "Vincent Collet has never coached before he signed with Le Mans. He has learned and we have seen the results. I have no doubt that JD Jackson will continue the work started by Vincent Collet. It is a change in the continuity."

Well, I hope for Le Mans that it will work like that. And by the way, Nicolas Batum has declared that he has to give something back to his team before leaving to the NBA because the Le Mans team has done so much for him. So can Le Mans win another National title this season? At least, all the factors that questioned the future have been clarified now.