Calvin Barrett is a writer, editor, and prolific Mario Kart racer located in Provo, Utah. Currently writing for SB Nation and FanSided, he has covered the Utah Jazz and BYU athletics since 2024 and graduates from Utah Valley University in the Spring.
I think I’ve found my drafting blind spot.
The period leading into the NBA Draft tends to become silly season for basketball fanatics. Everyone is a talent evaluator, and like houseflies to the flypaper, it can be easy to find oneself enamored by one “under the radar” prospect that may slide beneath the initial death beam of lottery selectors and find himself starting his NBA journey with a pre-loaded competitive squad.
Every season, NBA onlookers helplessly witness as unrecognizable rookies hit the pro hoops circuit to the aroma of burning rubber. Hitting the court already halfway to 60 mph. Flying to the rim. Knocking through a rapid release 3-ball. It’s not uncommon to see one of these unfamiliar youngsters fill up the box score for 20, and such occurrences can be gut-wrenching for teams who whiffed on such talent earlier in the draft order.
Every team has a list of draft night “home run swings” sitting in their back pocket.
If talent scouting were an exact science, the best players would be selected in order, one through sixty. But call it faulty scouting. Call it poor player development. Call it willful ignorance. Every team has a list of draft night “home run swings” sitting in their back pocket.
Logic irrelevant, sometimes infatuation can get the best of us, and heaven help me, I think I’ve found my drafting blind spot.
Essengue flings a pass across the court.
Photo by Bruno Dietrich / City-Press GmbH Bildagentur via Getty Images
Noa Essengue 2025 NBA Draft Profile
Measureables: 6’9” 194 lbs
2024-25 Stats: 12.4 pts | 5.3 reb | 1.4 stl | 64.6% TS | 29% 3PT
I’d like to introduce you to Noa Essengue, a wiry French forward who’s spent the past two seasons hooping across the Atlantic with Ratiopharm Ulm in Germany.
He’s already gathered something of a cult following among draft circles, and his raw, unearthed potential to become one of basketball’s most enigmatic participants has a vegemite response from the general public. Love it or hate it, Essengue is an inevitable force soon to hit the National Basketball Association.
The best word I can use to describe Essengue is slippery. And I mean that as a compliment. Using his string cheese build, this Euro forward uses his frame in an almost fluid motion. Every burst is a flash flood, and every cut is swift. His opposition has been forced to be swept off in his current or learn to ride Essengue’s rapids.
On offense, Noa employs a deceptively tight handle for an individual as thin and long as he is. Squirting between closing out defenders like a wet bar of soap within a tightly-gripped fist, the more the defense attacks, the further he flies.
Essengue’s movements send him hovering above the court and to the rim like a specter over the hardwood. And while he doesn’t boast the most diverse dribbling package, he’s naturally comfortable with the basketball. The building blocks for a promising development cycle are present, especially when taking his very apparent athleticism and a fearless hunger for the rim into account.
Essengue’s movements send him hovering above the court and to the rim like a specter over the hardwood. And while he doesn’t boast the most diverse dribbling package, he’s naturally comfortable with the basketball.
But step outside the three-point arc for a moment, and this basketball wraith appears a bit more like a thirteen-year-old wearing a cut-out bed sheet (aren’t you a bit too old to do Halloween if you’re going to do it this half-heartedly?). Far from a long-range threat, and still very raw, teams will face a struggle of patience in bringing along his still hypothetical jump shot (a hypothetical that is becoming more of a likelihood rapidly with every passing year).
The key to unlocking Essengue’s potential will be leaning on his strong defensive upside to instill the necessary confidence to share the floor with the greatest athletes in the world. His effortlessly comfortable skill set shines on the defensive end, where his plus wingspan and dynamic athleticism will likely translate seamlessly to the NBA game.
The footspeed and coordination to keep pace with guards, with the size to muck up a big man’s lumbering flow, he should be a highly switchable and reliable defender, given the proper guidance at the next level. In the 2024-25 season, he averaged 2.1 steals per 36 minutes and nearly one block as well.
His ascent as a prospect calls to memory the draft journey of Bilal Coulibaly, current Washington Wizard and former teammate of Victor Wembanyama with the French-based Metropolitans 92. Essengue shares a roster with fellow draft classman Ben Saraf of Israel, and has likewise seen his name rise through draft lists rapidly as we approach selection night.
Don’t be surprised if Essengue fever likewise spreads to the level of top-10 buzz.
Many fans hate the word “project” when snagging a player in the first round, as those types so rarely pan out as originally hoped, but you’re working with a great hand if you take a chance on this French prospect.
This project — well, rather projection — could haunt teams that pass him up on draft night. If he slips to the Utah Jazz in the late first round, they would do well to snatch up this fascinating specimen.