He wasn’t the chosen one. He wasn’t a particularly gifted athlete. He was not a precocious talent. Fabien Causeur was a Zinedine Zidane fan, but he played basketball and was committed to work to the death. Over the course of his career, he has demonstrated some rare qualities such as the ability to play great when it counts the most (“I played some bad finals honestly, but it’s true that I played well most of them”, he says), to win a lot (in France, in Germany, in Spain, internationally) and to seize opportunities. He had the first one in Le Havre, the second in Cholet where he won the French championship and was the league’s MVP; then to Vitoria where they reached the Final Four (he was injured and didn’t play, a terrible blow); to Bamberg and finally to Real Madrid. You don’t play seven years at Real Madrid if you’re not a special player. Fabien Causeur is a special player. At a certain point during this interview, he will say something relevant: “Olimpia has followed me for many years”. It’s true: after the end of his stint in Vitoria, injured, he was close to signing for Milan. It was the summer of 2016. He came to Milan, but the agreement fell through at the last moment because Fabien wasn’t ready yet. He would have been, eventually. And a year later he went to Real Madrid where he witnessed the growth of a player named Luka Doncic up close, in his last European experience before taking off to Dallas. He has won the EuroLeague championship twice: in 2018, against Fenerbahce, he scored 17 points in the final game. Coach Pablo Laso ultimately said that without taking anything away from Doncic, he, Causeur, should have been the MVP. In 2023, against Olympiacos, he won his second EuroLeague after scoring 11 points in 17 minutes in the championship game. We should add a semi-final win against Barcelona when he had 18 points in 2022 and a semi-final loss against CSKA in 2019 when he went 6-for-6 on twos. He played for Real Madrid for seven years and landed there at 30. He played for the national team alongside legendary players such as Tony Parker or Boris Diaw. Now he is in Milan. As Kyle Hines once said, the end of his career is near, but precisely for this reason he wants to enjoy this magnificent journey to the fullest.
Fabien, let’s start from Le Havre.
“I wasn’t considered gifted enough to become a professional player. I was a quiet kid, I wasn’t particularly talented, and I wasn’t athletic. But I was a hard-working player who gave 100 percent in every practice. My coach in Le Havre (Christian Monschau) really liked this. So, at a certain point he tried me in games. It went well. Then I also had a lucky break, because another player got hurt and I had more minutes than I expected. This is how it all started. That first season I played really well, I became the young player with the most minutes in the entire French league. At that point I gained great confidence in what could happen in the future.”
Cholet is where you became an important player, someone who the French league was going to struggle to keep.
“Cholet was a big change for me. Once my first professional contract finished, I went to a more ambitious team, a place closer to home, so my parents could see me often, which was nice. And we immediately won the French championship that first season. The feelings you get when you win something for the first time are always special. I have great memories of those moments. As a player, winning the championship is like making a dream come true.”
The following year you were name the MVP of the French league.
“In Cholet I built confidence in my abilities, then I went to the national team and found myself playing with Boris Diaw, Tony Parker, these players. For two months I was with them, I learned, gained experience. When I returned from that experience everything seemed easier. I no longer had them by my side, but I had all the advice they had given me and at that point scoring was easier, defending was less complicated. My whole game went to another level and, yes, I became MVP of the French league. That was the moment I decided that I had to try to move up further, to try to play in the EuroLeague, at a higher level.”
Alfredo Salazar signed you for Vitoria.
“He’s the scout there, the man who signed me and who continues to sign excellent players. Over the years I have cultivated a great friendship with him, we always see each other when I play against Baskonia, we talk, he is proud of what he is doing, he makes the players feel important not only as athletes but also as people. He is a special friend to whom I owe a lot. I was excited to go to Spain, back then. In Cholet I had gotten into the habit of following the Spanish league. It was the place I wanted to go to, I liked the type of basketball they played. Freedom but also tactics. I thought that, to grow as a player, this would be the perfect place for me to evolve. I had several offers to be honest, but Vitoria was a club known for allowing players to focus only on basketball and move up. If you do well in Vitoria, then you will have the chance to go and play for the big teams. That was the plan. It wasn’t easy, because I didn’t speak Spanish at the time, I had to learn a new language, adapt to another culture and to a coach like Dusko Ivanovic who is known for his toughness. I was also a little scared at first. But in the end, I learned a lot from the players who were there. The coach was hard on the young players, and I needed help. I had it.”
After Vitoria, Bamberg represented the only step backwards in his career. But you had physical problems back then.
“I had injured my back in Vitoria and had to miss three months of the crucial part of the season. I missed the Final Four that we had won and the entire final part of the season. For us it had been a crazy run, but I missed the end. I needed a situation in which to regain confidence, rebuild myself and play a lot. I wasn’t sure what was wrong with me, it was a complicated period, but I worked hard all summer and when I arrived in Bamberg everything went well. Coach Trinchieri helped me become a better player and we had a good group of guys who also helped me off the court, because I didn’t know Germany, and when you move from country to country the beginnings are never easy. You need all the help you can get, and I got it.”
To the point of fulfilling a dream: joining Real Madrid.
“It was like living in a dream. As a child I watched Real Madrid soccer games, I was a fan of Zinedine Zidane. When I set foot in Madrid for the first time, I thought I should do everything I could to stay there as long as possible, become one of them, help them win. Winning trophies is the main reason why you want to play in Madrid. My goal was to play at that level and then become important in Real Madrid’s wins. It has been an amazing journey, seven years long, with ups and downs, huge wins and even some failures. We lost some finals, we won others. Obviously, it was the most important period of my career so far, we won 14 titles and also for a club like Real Madrid it was a special time.”
After the first EuroLeague triumph, Pablo Laso said that you should have been the MVP of the Final Four after win over Fenerbahce when you scored 17 points, going 3-for-3 from three.
“I’m proud of what I did. All the players want to build a reputation through wins, but then in those games you have to go out there and play well. I played some bad finals, I have to be honest, but fortunately I had more finals when I played well. These are games in which you feel the adrenaline flowing through you, because you know that you have worked all year to be on the court at that very moment. And you want to bring home the trophy, find a way to do it, with a defense, scoring points, whatever it takes to win. I hate losing. During the season there are always ups and downs, but when the big games come you have to be the best version of yourself.”
But the MVP was Luka Doncic.
“He is amazing. I played with him for a year, and we shared a room; so, I can say I spent a lot of time with him. I didn’t imagine he would establish himself so quickly. When he went to the NBA, I remember telling him that the first year would be complicated, difficult. And instead, he impressed everyone from day one. The level of maturity he already had at a very young age, the control of every move or situation made you acknowledge that he was not a normal player, but a special one. It was a joy. You don’t’ see players like him very often.”
In France, however, it is a special moment, every year the draft sends some French super talent to the NBA.
“We have many high-level athletes, but the difference is that now they are all more skilled than they were before. Everyone knows how to dribble, everyone can shoot well, they are constantly evolving. When you have great athletes who know how to play the game you are also able to do special things and we in France can do many good things now.”
Is Milan representing a kind of restart?
“I don’t think it is a restart, but a continuation. A phase in which I intend to continue my career by joining a historic club, a great organization, where I want to continue winning. I have never won the Italian league, I have never won the Italian Cup, I want something that I don’t have yet. I know I’m near the end of my career and I intend to enjoy every moment basketball has left for me. I want to enjoy it, share my experience to the younger players, teach them something if I can, find a way to make them improve. And overall, I want to win and enjoy this experience.”
What will you bring to the group?
“I can certainly pass on my experience. I think I will talk more than I did in Madrid because we had so many experienced players there. There are young players here, two very talented young point guards who need to learn. The coaches will take care of it of course but sometimes having a teammate on your side who can help you is good. This is part of my job this year, on top to playing well especially the big games. Olimpia has followed me for many years, everyone knows what I can do. They brought me here for the qualities I have.”
Any tips from Chacho?
“We talked a lot. I am a curious person, and even over the last two years he has always told me about Milan, how a special place it is, a great organization, great fans. When Milan contacted me, I immediately called him, I have two small children, a boy and a girl, and I wanted the best situation for them, but he told me that everything would be perfect.”
