Nolan Traoré has a challenging charge.
The Nets rookie point guard plays the most difficult position for a first-year NBA player but has shown the maturity, skills and confidence to be placed in the team’s cockpit and pilot the young squad. The teenager (19) has embraced the responsibility placed upon him by his head coach, Jordi Fernandez.
He is at the controls of a team that was 15-37, the 13 seed in the 15-team Eastern Conference, before facing the Indiana Pacers at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn yesterday, their final game prior to the league’s annual All-Star break.
Born and raised in Créteil, Val-de-Marne, France, a suburb of Paris, Traoré, played professionally for Saint-Quentin Basketball of the LNB Elite, France’s top league, winning the 2024-25 FIBA Basketball Champions League (BCL) Best Young Player award. He was selected by the Nets with the 19th pick in the first round of last year’s NBA Draft.
The fleet guard had a slow start to the season, but has shown great promise over the last eight games, including seven starts, before the Nets hosted the Pacers. He has averaged 12.3 points and 5.3 assists, including notching a double-double with 13 points and a career-high 13 assists in Monday night’s 123-115 home win over the Chicago Bulls. His 13 assists tied the most by a rookie in the NBA this season.
Traoré said the game has slowed down from his perception, giving him more clarity in making multiple decisions on every possession.
“With the experience, you get used to the speed, and now it’s getting better, and I hope it’s going to continue,” he said on Monday.
Fernandez described Traoré’s play as “outstanding.”
“You see the 13 assists to three turnovers!” he exclaimed. “He touched the paint constantly. Obviously, his speed is a factor, but he was always under control if he had to keep his dribble alive, and he made the right play over and over and over.
“So, it was great to see, and like you said,” Fernandez addressed a reporter, “and (Nets forward) Noah (Clowney) said, his teammates benefited from it. So, great to see. That’s part of development, and we have to keep growing. We have to keep getting better.”
Clowney also praised Traoré’s play.
“Nolan was making the right play to start, and whether that was getting downhill, making a spray, scoring, hitting the pocket and letting us play with the advantage, he was getting us an advantage and letting us play off it, and when you play like that, it’s really easy,” he said.
“Making the read, learning that his superpower is his speed and using it, taking advantage of it, not trying to force anything, just taking what the defense gives him.”
After last Thursday’s NBA trade deadline, the Nets waived 24-year-old guard Cam Thomas, who was their second-leading scorer. The team moving on from Thomas, whom they drafted with the 27th overall pick in 2021, was expected after not offering him a multi-year contract extension on his rookie deal. Thomas was signed by the Milwaukee Bucks.
Brooklyn rookie guard Egor Dëmin was named to the Castrol Rising Stars roster as part of All-Star Weekend taking place in Los Angeles. That game will be played tomorrow night.
The Nets will return from the break on the road next Thursday to play former Nets players James Harden, Jarrett Allen, Dennis Schroder and the rest of the Cleveland Cavaliers, who are also led by the franchise’s former head coach, Kenny Atkinson.
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