2025 Prospect Spotlight: Noa Essengue

[Jamaaliver]

Noa Essengue | Forward | Ratiopharm Ulm

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Height: 6' 9"
Weight: 194
Age: 18

Comparisons:

• Nic Batum - Batum has shape-shifted in his career, excelling in a range of roles on different teams. Essengue has the versatility to be like that too.
  
• Al Farouq Aminu - If Essengue doesn't develop creation skills then he still has role player upside to fall back on like Aminu did for his decade-long career.

STRENGTHS
Fluid athleticism: Essengue just looks like an NBA player with enormous arms and graceful movements on the floor, whether he’s using an off-ball screen to slingshot toward the basket or sprinting in transition to ready for a lob dunk.

Drive game: He’s such a natural with the ball in his hands, using spin moves, euro-steps, and other fluid maneuvers to get into the paint. There, he can take off-balanced, wrong-footed layups and use either hand, or get flashy with Giannis-style scoop layups to score. And if he has room to leap, he can loudly dunk. All of these skills give him major face-up scoring potential, especially if he can successfully develop a perimeter jumper.

Shooting progress: Over three consecutive years, he’s gone from a hackable nonshooter to a player making 24.4% of his 3s and 70.1% of his free throws. The numbers aren’t great, but they’re a notable improvement. His form looks smooth, and he has good touch on layups and floaters near the basket. Maybe his upward trajectory continues in the years to come.

Passing: Essengue has a strong feel for the game. He pings the ball around the floor with decisive passes within the flow of the offense. He shows creativity with interior wrap-arounds and over-the-head passes out of the post to shooters across the court.

Versatile defense: Multi-positional defender who can switch onto smaller, quicker players or hold his own against larger ones. He can also be plugged into different positions, whether he needs to chase someone off screens and close out on shooters, or focus on offering help defense at the rim. He’s extremely active off-ball, showing strong focus rotating at the rim or getting his long arms in the passing lanes to rack up deflections.

CONCERNS
Shooting: He has made progress but still hasn't proven he can be an effective floor spacer. Developing into a reliable shooter would unlock so many of his talents. It’s the key to his future.

Strength: He needs to fill out his lean frame, which would make him even more of a threat scoring at the rim and further enhance his defensive versatility. As of now, he can get overpowered on defense or get forced to take layups shying away from contact.

Fundamentals: He drives into traffic too often, which shows how his game still lacks polish. Unsurprising considering his youth, but an area that he needs to address in the years to come.

Yahoo Sports

[Jamaaliver]

Noa Essengue (Ratiopharm Ulm, PF)

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Previous Mock Position: 15
Size: 6'10", 198 lbs
Age: 18
Nationality: France
Pro Comparisons: Jabari Walker, Precious Achiuwa

Potentially the youngest prospect in the draft, Noa Essengue averaged 14.0 points in March and enters April with seven three-point makes over Ulm's last three games.

At 18 years old, totally raw without too much functional ball-handling for creation or reliable perimeter shot-making, he has still found a way to contribute 10.8 points and 4.9 boards against pros.

There may be teams more interested in a prospect who brings a sure thing right away, like playmaking, shooting or shot-blocking. But given his 6'9" size, age, production and room to improve his 23.6 percent three-point percentage, there will also be teams that see a good high-floor, high-ceiling bet.

Bleacher Report

[Jamaaliver]

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[Jamaaliver]

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[CP War Hawks]

Draft him, package picks if you have to.

[Jamaaliver]

Draft him, package picks if you have to.

I'm still familiarizing myself with him.
What kind of upside are you seeing with him?
Any player comps?




I suspect he'll be available to us with the Sacramento pick...

[Jamaaliver]

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[Jamaaliver]

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[Jamaaliver]

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[Jamaaliver]

Read on Twitter

[CP War Hawks]

Draft him, package picks if you have to.

I'm still familiarizing myself with him.
What kind of upside are you seeing with him?
Any player comps?




I suspect he'll be available to us with the Sacramento pick...

J Dub

[Jamaaliver]

Draft him, package picks if you have to.

Any player comps?

J Dub

Jalen Williams?
From OKC?!?!?

Spoiler:

[CP War Hawks]

Williams best case, Mcdaniel worst case.

[Jamaaliver]

Williams best case, Mcdaniel worst case.

I can see that Jaden McDaniels comparison...

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[HMFFL]

Noa Essengue at #14 please!

Sent from my SM-S928U1 using RealGM Forums mobile app

[CP War Hawks]

Williams best case, Mcdaniel worst case.

I can see that Jaden McDaniels comparison...

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Hoy sht, look at how bad Luka is at defending. He's arguably worse than Trae here.

[jayu70]

Williams best case, Mcdaniel worst case.

I can see that Jaden McDaniels comparison...

Read on Twitter

Hoy sht, look at how bad Luka is at defending. He's arguably worse than Trae here.

Read on Twitter

[Jamaaliver]

Noa Essengue at #14 please!

Noa seems to have a similar physical profile to Zacch.

I think Noa has more variety to his game, though. If we bypass him in the draft, I feel certain Spurs will nab him with our pick at #14.

[Jamaaliver]

Noa Essengue | 6-9 forward | 18 years old | Ratiopharm Ulm

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Essengue is starting to turn things on in France, with multiple 20-point outings over the last month. The 6-9 forward is a terrific athlete who moves exceedingly well for his age. He’ll be the second-youngest player in this draft class behind Cooper Flagg -- averaging 12 points, 5.2 rebounds, 1.3 steals and 0.8 blocks per game since Jan. 22.

The questions here are largely around his polish. The jumper is starting to fall, as he’s made 35 percent from 3 in that window, but there are real mechanical issues regarding his base and balance that teams think will take a lot of time to work through, despite his solid touch. Additionally, while his defensive playmaking numbers are strong and he’s shown improvement throughout the year, his overall impact on that end isn’t all that high. He gets beaten more often off the bounce than you’d expect for this level of athleticism, and his help instincts waver.

Still, he’s a young player clearly coming along well regarding his development. Don’t expect Essengue to be a valuable player next year in the NBA, but he could develop in time to be one of the better players in this draft class if he lands with the right organization.

The Athletic

[CP War Hawks]

https://youtu.be/0h0NEe5AY8g


Super long tape on NE if you wanna deep dive. He's a better shooter than you'd expect. Starting to see many similarities to Scottie Barnes.