2022 international class

[clyde21]

looks pretty **** loaded

Carlos Alocen
Ibou Dianko Badji
Adem Bona
Abramo Canka
Malcolm Cazalon
Ousmane Dieng
Matthieu Gauzin
Ariel Hukporti
Nikola Jovic
Mojave King
Yoan Makoundou
Jean Montero
Mario Nakic
Yannick Nzosa
Roko Prkacin
Kai Sotto
Matthew Strazel
Jayson Tchicamboud
Fedor Zugic

not including international guys like Banchero and Diabate playing in the NCAA.

[tmorgan]

Banchero is a scary good prospect.

[coutournant]

Another interesting prospect is french forward Kenny Baptiste from Le Mans. Still raw but very intriguing.
He was a 6 ft guard when Le Mans recruited him from the French West Indies at the age of 15.
He blossomed two years ago at the U19 FIBA world championship wher he was measured at 6'7
He's now listed at 6'9, and still growing almost 1 inch per year... his frame is very promising, and he was measured a +6 inches wingspan at Albert Schwetzer Tournament, so it should be 7'3 now
Actually he plays at forward spots, and may become a PF.
His strength are defense, offensively he is raw but has the fluidity of a guard and a promising shooting form.
He has currently the same level than Makoundou, but I think he has a better upside due to his late growth and physical profile

[lars_rosenberg]

not including international guys like Banchero and Diabate playing in the NCAA.

Paolo Banchero was born and raised in the US.
He has chosen Italian citizenship because of his father and so he can play for the national team, but I wouldn't call him international.

[RollingWave]

Fanbo Zeng's playing for the G League ignite, likely the next Chinese player drafted.

I like his game a lot, probably the best prospect out of China since at least Yi Jianlian, especially considering the fit (Zhou Qi had higher profile, but the fit was questionable, Zeng's skill set look like it should fit almost anywhere if it works out) the game makes a lot of sense for the modern game.

Though unknown how he scales up to the physicality, that's an unknown for most prospects, he's not uber thin pole, but obviously still relatively on the thinner side.

The profile at least offensively looks quite good, a bouncy 6'8~6'9 lefty but pretty ambidextrous (finishes really well both ways.) , rise up well off one or two feet (quite a bit of putback dunks in traffic etc.), the shot especially looks clean and he gets up high for his release. Looks like he has a good feel for the game in terms of passing and getting offensive rebounds too.

The problem is that I'm not quite sure who he defends (assuming he scale up physically ok obviously.) he's kind of a upright straight 4 type, probably not fast enough side to side to guard wings and clearly too thin to guard bigs (his shoulder is on the thiner side suggest he would never get super buffed), he has enough hops that you can probably hide him ok and not be a total disaster, but obviously then the offense needs to be worth it.

The problem is that while he played in Windemere Florida for Highschool for his sophomore year I didn't seem to see much in terms of high-level competition in his tapes, so it's unknown how he really do against better players, everything from how the shot looks and how much it goes in (47% from 3 and 84% from the line.) suggest he should really be able to shoot it, and that alone combine with his size and hop probably already suggest he's a serious rotation player (and that's also a skill set that's a lot easier to fit into almost any team's rotation. so the floor looks high.) but he needs to obviously be able to actually hit those shots when the physicality scales up. His general skill set also looks more likely to be an off-ball guy but the problem is we've also never seen him play with a real better PG/initiator so a lot of things are unknown, I am projecting that he should be able to do a lot of offball play pretty well, but we'll see.

What to look for him in the G League is probably that
1. can he hold up physically, i saw a decent amount of his play over the last year in China but that's a hard barometer to judge, he looks more built which you'd guess would be the case anyway for most kids at that age.
2. can he defend anyone? and not just the occasional weak side shot block, he's pretty sure to get some of those. I'm concerned other teams would just try to post him up and put him in a goal (granted the whole Ignite team is suspect to that heh) or he just generally gets destroyed on ball and in pick and roll, he gets blocks but a lot of that is over eager help rotations (but then again, this is really hard to judge for highschoolers.)
3. can he hit shots consistently against stronger defenders? well, the G league isn't exactly the pinnacle of defense, so if he can't even do that...
4. can he fit into an offball role well? that's probably in line with his ability to hit shots though.

Watch on YouTube

(his game yesterday in China's domestic U19 tournament, obviously not the greatest competition ever but you can see him flash a lot of the skills I talked about, shot looks good to me in terms of balance / consistency / release speed and point and it went in too. the bounce is obvious, especially the second jump is really impressive. he showed a lot better handle here than a year ago with some pretty good shake and behind the back moves etc, I doubt that's a serious part of his game in the NBA but there's an outside chance of that. he was getting all sorts of blocks here and with his second jump etc I'm pretty sure he'll get some in higher level too but obviously not to this degree. )

[GimmeDat]

Lots of international prospects in the NBL next year. Mojave King, Ariel Hukporti, Ousmane Dieng, Hugo Besson, Kai Sotto, and there'll be another one announced I believe today as well (he's an int. who withdrew from this years draft).

It seems the NBL might be accepting a paid broadcast deal, which they've desperately needed to continue to grow the league financially. This is good news for the league, but may mean the end to free game streaming on twitch.

[clyde21]

Lots of international prospects in the NBL next year. Mojave King, Ariel Hukporti, Ousmane Dieng, Hugo Besson, Kai Sotto, and there'll be another one announced I believe today as well (he's an int. who withdrew from this years draft).

It seems the NBL might be accepting a paid broadcast deal, which they've desperately needed to continue to grow the league financially. This is good news for the league, but may mean the end to free game streaming on twitch.

Dieng choosing to hit up the NBL was kind of a weird play

[GimmeDat]

Lots of international prospects in the NBL next year. Mojave King, Ariel Hukporti, Ousmane Dieng, Hugo Besson, Kai Sotto, and there'll be another one announced I believe today as well (he's an int. who withdrew from this years draft).

It seems the NBL might be accepting a paid broadcast deal, which they've desperately needed to continue to grow the league financially. This is good news for the league, but may mean the end to free game streaming on twitch.

Dieng choosing to hit up the NBL was kind of a weird play

Definitely didn't see it coming. Curious to see how New Zealand use him.. could easily see him struggling to figure out his role. But excited he's in the league and looking forward to watching him.

[tundraknight]

Yannick Nzosa and Ibou Dianko Badji both look like they have excellent physical profiles for the center position. Both are very raw though.

[tundraknight]

I wouldn’t be surprised if Nikola Jovic gets selected in the Top 5. With his elite passing ability and size on the perimeter that scouts love. I’m not sure what his 3P% is, but his 3 point shot doesn’t look bad either.

[God Squad]

I wouldn’t be surprised if Nikola Jovic gets selected in the Top 5. With his elite passing ability and size on the perimeter that scouts love. I’m not sure what his 3P% is, but his 3 point shot doesn’t look bad either.

He looked like a monster in the U19. I can easily see him push top 5, because he's that good. It's the jumper that leaves more to be desired, but the form doesn't look bad in the slightest.

[BlazersBroncos]

I wouldn’t be surprised if Nikola Jovic gets selected in the Top 5. With his elite passing ability and size on the perimeter that scouts love. I’m not sure what his 3P% is, but his 3 point shot doesn’t look bad either.

I would be surprised if he wasnt a top-5 pick. He is a great talent.

[UcanUwill]

I wouldn’t be surprised if Nikola Jovic gets selected in the Top 5. With his elite passing ability and size on the perimeter that scouts love. I’m not sure what his 3P% is, but his 3 point shot doesn’t look bad either.

I would be surprised if he wasnt a top-5 pick. He is a great talent.

Not to be that ignorant foreigner, but man do these Yugo countries need more names or what. Every other player is named Nikola now, and their last name differs by like one letter, wtf man

[freestyler34]

Adem Bona Highlights from U19 World Cup

Watch on YouTube

[peZt]

Adem Bona Highlights from U19 World Cup

Watch on YouTube

If he was just an inch or two taller he'd be the fastest and quickest legit center sized player ever. The only legit center sized player who can actually defend PGs.
I hope being 6'9 won't limit his potential cause right now he doesn't really have the skillset to play the 4.

[Hal14]

Adem Bona Highlights from U19 World Cup

Watch on YouTube

damn, he looks like a problem. Someone commented on that video saying he was gonna be in 2023 draft instead of 2022. anyone know for sure?

[Hal14]

Adem Bona Highlights from U19 World Cup

Watch on YouTube

If he was just an inch or two taller he'd be the fastest and quickest legit center sized player ever. The only legit center sized player who can actually defend PGs.
I hope being 6'9 won't limit his potential cause right now he doesn't really have the skillset to play the 4.

seeing him listed at 6'9" and 6'10", depending on the site.

Either way, the NBA is going smaller with its centers. Bigger slower centers are seeing less minutes, especially in crunch time and in playoffs.

Robert Williams is only 6'8" but has a 7'6" wingspan and 40 inch vertical so he plays much bigger. And williams is a beast. he's been plagued by injuries but last season was top 10 in the entire NBA in PER, TS%, FG%, Win Shares Per 48 Minutes, Offensive rating, defensive rating, BPM, rebounding % and blocks %....at age 23. You look at that first alley-oop play in this Bona video and he might have similar measurements in terms of wingspan and vertical leap..and Bona is clearly a step quicker than robert williams..plus Bona can actually put the ball on the floor and he actually has post moves..and Bona can actually shoot the 3.

[Hal14]

I wouldn’t be surprised if Nikola Jovic gets selected in the Top 5. With his elite passing ability and size on the perimeter that scouts love. I’m not sure what his 3P% is, but his 3 point shot doesn’t look bad either.

I would be surprised if he wasnt a top-5 pick. He is a great talent.

I like Jovic. I think he is a really good player but at this point my top 5 is pretty locked in as these 5 guys (in no particular order)

Holmgren
Hardy
Griffin
Banchero
Duren

Granted, it's still crazy early and I haven't evaluated everyone yet but at this point these are my top 5. I can definitely see Jovic being top 10 but definitely not higher than any of the 5 guys listed above - especially given the fact that Jovic is not an elite run/jump athlete, I'm not sure how good a defender he is and he shot 26.6% last year which is low for a SF..

[UcanUwill]

Season hasnt even started, its weird to have your top 5 locked in at this point.

[Hal14]

Season hasnt even started, its weird to have your top 5 locked in at this point.

Ok well someone said they will be surprised if Jovic doesn't go in the top 5 picks. I simply said that at this point I can't see him being rated higher than holmgren, banchero, griffin, duren or Hardy. That's all..