Career : F.WEIS has began to play
basketball in a little team near his hometown. Quickly, his uncommon height made him
remarked by French basketball authorities and he entered INSEP (National Institute for
Sport and Physical Education) at age 15 where he played in French 3rd professionnal
division for 2 years (against adults teams). At age 17 he signed for CSP Limoges one of
the best French 1st division teams where he slowly finished his basketball learnings
gaining more minutes each year to become the major player of the team and one of the major
player of France National Team. Unfortunately, he has been suffering, for years from back
problems which made him missed the last games of the 3 last season and lots of games of
the French National Team. In order to solve these problems he undertook surgery this year.
He just came back to training for Eurobasket 1999 last week (he's a little bit overweight
and in poor shape and the French coach wonders if he could be able to play Eurobasket end
of June). Scouting : The main qualities of F.WEIS (for a NBA team) are his height
combined with his technical European formation (very good defense, mobility, speed and a
solid shoot even from 5 m) and his 5 years of professional European and National
experience which made him played against the best centers in Europe.
However, F.WEIS has still a lot of progress to make : Physically speaking, he lacks
some muscle and may have some difficulties playing big NBA centers. He is no Sabonis at
the moment ! His attitude on the field isn't always combattive. He sometimes tends to
think that as he is the tallest player in France he has nothing to fear from other players
and lacks what we in France call Gnack (some sort of fighting spirit). His game has still
to improve when he is back to the basket and he still has a tendency to make too much
fouls.
In conclusion : F.WEIS is a good prospect for a NBA team needing a tall center with
good technical skills. However he might not be ready to play in NBA next year and has to
undertake a physical program before. Perhaps the best way will be to have him drafted and
let him one more year in Europe with a physical following by the NBA club.
