A Matter of Trust

THE RULES WERE clear in the Paris apartment of Philippe and Vanessa Raynaud. Breakfast and dinner together as a family. Study. And if time, there was basketball.

Their son, Maxime, had no issues with the priorities. In fact, he embraced them. He understood the gifts he’d been given and the environment he lived in.

In the sunlit mornings from the balcony in their seven-story apartment building, the City of Lights spread all around them and the smell of baguettes and coffee rose from the cafes on the narrow street below.

Rarely was there a need for a car in the 14th Arrondissement, with so much within walking distance. Part of the reason for choosing to live in an apartment in the city was to encourage adventures outside of it and Maxime and his older sister, Louise, took advantage.

They could explore the Catacombs – where in the 17th century, bones of the dead were moved into abandoned tunnels and quarries beneath the city – only 750 meters from their front door. Or the Observatory of Paris, the Musée de la Libération, the majestic Lion de Belfort, and open-air markets – all within a mile of their home.

There were many weekend afternoons at the Parc Montsouris, where Maxime and Louise jogged alongside their parents down the doppled paths through cedar, beech, chestnut, gingko, and even Persian silk trees. The vast lawns, lake, and many statues – even the majestic Column of the Armed Peace – were the backdrop to their adolescence. But this wonderland had its own set of walls, something teenage Maxime realized as he contemplated his future.

After one demanding day of classes at the Lycee Henri-IV secondary school, he opened the door and was greeted by his mother.

“Welcome home,” she said. “Guess what? I had a phone call from Stanford …”

Before she could finish her sentence, Maxime’s eyes opened wide. He was ready to pack his bags immediately at the news of Stanford’s interest.

“When am I leaving?” he said, before she could even finish her sentence.

This wasn’t a turn Philippe and Vanessa expected.

“We never spoke about it before,” Vanessa said. “Never. It was his dream, but he didn’t share it with us. It came as a surprise. But, for me, it was the discovery that he really had something important, something he wanted to fight for.

“That was the beauty of it. It was his discovery. So, we started to discuss -- ‘OK, Let’s make this happen.’”

A few months later, Vanessa cried at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport to such an extent that she wasn’t even able to manage a goodbye.

“We were so far away,” Vanessa said. “We didn’t know anything about Stanford, about basketball, about anything. We just want to be sure our son is safe, our son is OK. And that’s it. The rest we trust.”

On the other side of the world, Stanford basketball’s Adam Cohen and David Berkun wandered around the baggage claim at SFO looking for their 7-foot-1 freshman. Cohen, the assistant coach under Jarod Haase who discovered Raynaud, and his cousin Berkun, the team’s director of operations and player personnel, were unable to communicate by text to Maxime’s European-styled cell.

They eventually did find a tall guy in jeans with a single suitcase, which seemed to bely the fact that Maxime was leaving all that he knew – his home, his family, his country, his language – behind him for a place he’d never been.

Raynaud may have been timid or unsure, but he didn’t show it when he arrived on campus for the first time. He was “blown away,” Berkun said, by the basketball facilities and couldn’t hold in his enthusiasm for the shooting machine in the practice gym.

“When somebody has an appreciation for his surroundings, it gives you a good feeling, like he’s a good human being,” said Berkun, now an assistant coach at Illinois-Chicago. “Like he’s grateful for what’s about to happen and what he’s earned and been given. I think he was extremely grateful to be given what Stanford provided him. That I definitely remember.”

And then Raynaud stepped on the court.

“I think we were all pleasantly surprised,” Berkun said.

THE MAXIME RAYNAUD of today is the revelation of college basketball. He flies through the air for two-handed dunks – spinning to the basket off the bodies of defenders on baseline drives -- his body hanging on the rim as he screams to the rafters and sways from side to side before releasing his grip and running downcourt.

He surprises the crowd by tossing up shots from beyond the three-point line with the smooth rhythm of a smaller player, but with an unblockable reach. And the ball goes in.

He calculates the breakdown of a defense like the mathematics major and computer science minor he is -- To body up against the defender one on one, or drop a bounce pass to a teammate streaking through the lane.

In the Atlantic Coast Conference, Stanford’s new home and the stronghold of big-time college basketball, Raynaud is leading a team predicted to finish 17th of 18 in a preseason poll to victories against traditional powers. And with each one, Raynaud is good for 20 points and nearly 12 rebounds a game, raising his profile as a potential All-American, ACC Player of the Year candidate, and possible first-round NBA draft pick.

“I said very early, he’ll probably have the best season of any guy I’ve coached,” said Kyle Smith, Stanford’s first-year Anne and Tony Joseph Director of Men's Basketball, in his 33rd season coaching the college game. “And he has.”

The son of biotech engineers, Maxime was raised through family traditions -- a heritage of farming and woodworking on his father’s side, and aristocracy and high military rank on his mother’s. The combination has provided an appreciation for humility and simplicity as well as a thirst for learning and achievement.

“You can choose any path,” Vanessa told her children. “But strive to be the best in whatever you do.”

Maxime played some basketball, but swimming was his sport, winning medals at the French youth championships. It wasn’t until age 13 that he began to take basketball seriously, joining his first club, Saint Charles de Charenton St. Maurice, over the Seine River and outside Paris.

The commute took Maxime an hour by Metro to a low-income area for 2 ½-hour practices three nights a week, with games on weekends. For the return, Philippe, with dinner in hand, drove Maxime home. Maxime ate with his plate of food perched on his knees.

Often the only Caucasian on his club teams, and certainly the only one from the 14th Arrondissement, Maxime was introduced to the idea that sport is not always just a pastime.

“Most of the kids rely on basketball to make it out,” Raynaud said. “As a kid who didn’t lack for anything, it was hard for me to see what the sacrifices are and what people are willing to do to get to certain points in their life.”

On road trips, some teammates subsisted on half a baguette for a full day. After a teammate rolled his ankle, the player’s family could not afford crutches.

Raynaud saw how hungry his teammates were for success because they had so much at stake. Their competitive fire fueled his own.

It wasn’t long before Raynaud caught the attention of the national team. He won a silver medal with France at the 2019 FIBA Under-16 European Championships in Italy. And he earned selection to the 2020 FIBA U17 World Championships in Bulgaria, though the tournament was canceled due to COVID-19 pandemic.

Beginning at age 14, Raynaud played against future NBA No. 1 draft pick Victor Wembanyama. They joined forces when Raynaud joined a higher-level club, Espoirs Nanterre. Yet they continued their rivalry, not on the basketball court, but on the chess board.

“In chess, if you’re actually better than the other person, unless you blow it like crazy, there’s no way they’re going to beat you,” Raynaud said. “And there’s no way he can beat me. I cooked him every time.”

IN FRANCE, AROUND age 16, every sportsman must make a decision – to turn professional and give up on school or to focus on academics and give up on sports. The demands of each are too great.

Maxime saw the all-encompassing nature of the academic route through Louise, who for two years spent every day studying from 7 a.m. to midnight for the French Baccalaureate, the national exam that determines what level of higher education you are eligible for, and opens or limits your career path.

It’s life changing.

Maxime was torn. He loved astrophysics – the mathematical aspects and the science behind it, and found a feeling of poetry in it. Stuck at home during COVID, he escaped into the Internet by playing chess and taking part in math contests online. Maxime loved basketball too, but he understood that he was put in the best secondary school in France for a reason, and it wasn’t basketball.

Even though Raynaud did receive some recruiting interest from American universities, it wasn’t something that he or his family took seriously. Only a top academic school would make sense and, even then, it would take a lot to pull him away from France.

Cohen, now an assistant coach at Xavier, first noticed Raynaud in 2019, at the U16 Euros. However, it was the Adidas Next Generation U19 Tournament in Valencia, Spain, in December 2020, where Raynaud averaged 12.8 points and 8.7 rebounds and finished in the top three in scoring, rebounding and blocks among the best in Europe, that cemented Stanford’s interest.

The phone call from Stanford represented a solution. With Stanford, and its world reputation for athletics and academics, there was no need to choose between the two. It just came down to Maxime’s willingness to leave.  

Because the process began late and during COVID, recruitment came in the form of videos and Zoom interviews. Maxime was so intent on Stanford that there was no alternative in his mind, no safety net, no Plan B.

“It was Stanford or nothing else, from the very beginning,” Vanessa said.

And if Stanford hadn’t come along?

“He would have continued the classic academic path in France,” she said. “And I’m not sure he would have been fully happy.”

But it happened, the best of both worlds. Raynaud was the last addition to a top-20 recruiting class alongside Harrison Ingram, Jarvis Moss, and Isa Silva.

“I left everything I knew,” Maxime said. “I went to the same school for seven years. I had a great team. I understood things, I had friends, I knew what I enjoyed in Paris. I knew how I was going to run my life … When I left, I lost all of this.”

Berkun took responsibility for Maxime as part of a culture of family that Haase created. Berkun became a confidante, and Raynaud was willing to listen when Berkun told him a hard truth after Maxime’s sophomore year: As skillful as you are, you are not maximizing your potential.

“Maxime was never the most consistent in terms of his habits on the court,” Berkun said. “He also didn’t have the consistent intensity you need to succeed at this level on a day-to-day basis. Our staff had serious talks about it. You have all these big goals, but your habits right now don’t match it.”

A look at Raynaud’s season-by-season statistics show steady improvement. He averaged 4.5 points and 3.8 rebounds as a freshman and now 20.4 and 11.7 as a senior. What you can’t find in looking at those numbers is a turning point, though there unmistakably was one.

 

“What Maxime needed to do was be consistent,” Berkun said. “Whatever his workout routine was going to be for the offseason, he needed to be committed to it.”

Berkun taped a laminated message to Raynaud’s locker, under a red underlined heading of “UNCOMMON,” with words from Super Bowl-winning coach Tony Dungy.

“The truth is that most people have a better chance to be uncommon by effort than by natural gifts,” it read. “Anyone could give that effort in his or her chosen endeavor, but the typical person doesn't, choosing to do only enough to get by.”

The three-page message concluded with these words: “Take ownership. Whatever it takes. No excuses, no explanations.”

The first step, in Berkun’s interpretation of “uncommon,” was to start small. A 30-minute workout every day that you don't miss.  Listen more, argue less.  Be present, because it goes by fast.  “That’s a win,” he said.

Every day, at the same time, before practice, after practice and before games, the two worked together. That meant 150-200 made game-shots every day – post work, floaters, three’s … He worked so hard and so often these shots became instinctual, natural.

There were other things Raynaud worked on, but consistency was what really mattered. That was the message constantly pounded into him. 

“That’s the biggest thing I can say,” Berkun said. “He didn’t miss a day. And the WAY he worked, it was totally different. More intensity, more maturity. You could feel him turning a page. The best part about it is Maxime could feel it too, and he wanted to work at it more.”

Raynaud was convinced “the process will always take care of the outcome,” he said. “It doesn’t have to be flashy, it just needs to be consistent, and that’s really what makes me good. The more you work, the more you want to perform. You don’t want this to go to waste, so maybe you have more of a killer mentality.

“As much as I love learning and chilling with friends, when it comes to basketball, I don’t mess around. I want to win and I want to be better than you … I want to be the best.”

COACHING TRANSITIONS CAN be awkward affairs, especially in the era of NIL and the transfer portal. College athletics now lean on immediacy and discourage patience.

Before Smith was named head coach on March 25, 2024, five returnees already had entered the transfer portal, including Raynaud, an All-Pac-12 second-team selection.

Smith, the 2024 Pac-12 Coach of the Year at Washington State, wanted all five back, but his first priority was to convince Raynaud to stay.

Smith met or spoke with each player. “This is what our program’s like,” he explained. “This is what we’re going to be. If it doesn’t appeal to you, I get it. But I think it’s going to be pretty fun.”

Smith’s message to Raynaud included an example of how a player of similar style could flourish in his system. Mouhamed Gueye, a 6-11 forward, thrived under Smith at Washington State and became a second-round pick and the 39th player selected in the 2023 NBA Draft.

Raynaud, whose NBA prospects were becoming increasingly real, always was willing to listen, even while remaining open to overtures from other schools.

Smith felt the team’s 7 a.m. open gym was the best place to gauge interest from his portal players. If they truly were interested in returning, they would be there. If not, maybe Smith should reconsider his efforts to bring them back. Raynaud, however, was a regular.

Philippe and Vanessa always deferred to Maxime on anything basketball. They had their own ideas on what they felt Maxime should do, but kept to themselves. This was his decision alone. Their job, they always felt, was to support their son and his coaches. Not to question.

But, inside, they saw the same qualities in Stanford that drew Maxime in the first place. Those things hadn’t changed, even if Maxime’s priorities had shifted more heavily to basketball.

“All along, there was a loyalty, a sense of giving back,” Vanessa said. “We have always been conscious of this feeling about Stanford. This is like living a dream.”

Still, Smith waited.

“I was stressed,” he said. “In retrospect, I think he always wanted to stay here, but it was hard, it was hard on him. He’s not that guy at all. He’s a lover, man. He loves Stanford. He loves his teammates.”

On April 12, Smith received a phone call and listened in confusion while Raynaud uttered a phrase in French.

“What does that mean?” Smith said.

“I’m coming back.”

Smith let loose a scream.

“It was more of a relief,” Smith said. “It was like, Oh, thank goodness.”

Why did he return? “This feeling of home is really important, I believe,” he said. “I got used to it here. I finally was in a space where I thought I could explore my full potential. That’s something I was not willing to give up for only one year. And when you work three years for a degree, you have to go get it.”

SMITH FINALLY HAD his cornerstone, but not much else. Only six players remained on the roster. Besides Raynaud, there were redshirt freshmen Aidan Cammann and Cameron Grant, redshirt sophomores Ryan Agarwal and Jaylen Thompson, and junior Benny Gealer.

“It was a little weird when we first started,” Gealer said. “We all didn’t know what to expect.”

Transfers and freshmen were unavailable until the summer quarter. So, for the spring quarter, these six – The Hexanal, as coined by associate head coach Eric Reveno with an eye toward the six-carbon straight-chain aldehyde of that name – would be the foundation of the program.

“Amen,” said Smith. This was not a tragedy, it was an opportunity.

“We need you guys,” Smith told them. “You’ve got a three-month jump on everybody. You’re going to set the standard. You’re going to establish the culture.”

Without Raynaud, the plan may have failed. Everything was based on trust and faith, rather than history, and without a coachable Raynaud, the first step may never have been realized.

“Bottom line is, if he’s buying into us – everyone knew he was the best talent – he’s made it really easy for the others to fall in line,” Smith said. “And that’s not always how it goes with your best returning player. I didn’t have to prove myself to him. Thank you!”

The first lesson? Here’s your stance. This is how we guard.

“The basics … a lot of foundational drills, stuff we were doing in high school,” Gealer said. “Stuff that a lot of teams don’t even work on.”

Get low. Slide your feet. Layups. More layups. Running. Conditioning. Intensity. Defense. Defense. More defense.

“The funny thing is, not much has changed since then,” Gealer said.

“I really don’t think the work is the most essential part,” Raynaud said. “I believe it’s how you do the work.”

If Raynaud went somewhere else, he might not hold the leadership position that Smith entrusted him. Not all his improvement has come on the court. He’s more vocal, he leads by example, he just plain works hard.

“I knew he loved Stanford,” Gealer said. “He’s created a legacy here. All the guys that stayed at Stanford love Stanford as a school. We appreciate it. And that was one incentive – that we wanted to play for each other.”

Even from afar, Berkun sees the confidence Raynaud plays with, his intelligence on the court, and the impact that he is making at Stanford, in the ACC, and around the country. Berkun also acknowledges the untapped potential that remains to be gained and why Raynaud’s future seems unlimited. But he also sees a player and a person who is grounded and grateful.

“Stanford is legitimately the perfect place for Maxime,” Berkun said. “To be frank, it’s not a perfect fit for some. It can be challenging. But Maxime found a perfect, and I mean perfect, place for what he believes in, what he needed, and what he values.”

Faith. Trust. It goes both ways.

“We are very thankful to Stanford,” Philippe said. “That’s forever.”

Stanford is thankful too.