Real Madrid has made the signing of French center Petr Cornelie (2.11 meters tall and who turned 27 this Tuesday) official for next season. He is a player with characteristics similar to those of Anthony Randolph, who will be off the court for almost the entire season after suffering a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee in the first match of the ACB final on 13 December. June.
Cornelie, whose arrival to the team had been rumored for weeks, is a power forward who averaged 17.8 points and 12.8 rebounds in the G-League last season and who stands out for being a good rebounder, with a good shot three-point and versatile. The French international comes from the Grand Rapids Gold of the G-League (the League associated with the NBA), where in the last season he scored 2.2 triples per game with a 36.7% success rate.
The new madridista player, according to the club, was trained in the lower categories of Le Mans, with which he debuted as a professional and was chosen Best Young Player in the League in 2014-15. Later, he defended the shirt of Levallois Metropolitans, and again of Le Mans, before making the leap to Pau Orthez in 2019. In 2020-21 he signed 14.4 points for the French club (with a 44.2% accuracy in the triples) and 7.9 rebounds per game. Numbers that earned him the jump to the NBA with the Denver Nuggets, the franchise that had chosen him in the 2016 draft.
There he has been alternating the NBA with the G-League. Cornelie won the silver medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics with the French team. Cornelie is Real Madrid's fourth signing, after Bosnian forward Dzanan Musa, Croatian power forward Mario Hezonja and Spanish point guard Sergio 'Chacho' Rodriguez.
