Noah Penda Scouting Report
At 60+ pro games played, Penda offers tons of experience to his NBA profile. What's the intrigue? What will the versatile wing's role be at the next level? Find out more below.
Spending the summers of 2022 and 2023 with the French youth teams has put him on NBA radars. His combination of physicality, team defense, and interior scoring gave him a good base for Vichy-Clermont to continue to tap in on to give him a role in their first team. This resulted in Penda playing in more than 60 professional games in his young career.
At a 20-6 record, Vichy-Clermont is currently a contender for the championship in the Pro B, the French second-tier division. With 9.5 points in 22 minutes per game, Penda saw his role increase throughout the season to being the sixth man for them with playoff time around the corner.
Physical Profile
At 6’8”, Penda has great positional size to play multiple positions at the NBA level. His length stood out immediately, as he has a seven-foot wingspan. He’s quick in moving his feet and can guard on the perimeter. Penda doesn’t have the most fluid hip mobility, which can sometimes hinder him, especially against quicker opponents.
As of late, he looks stronger compared to last year’s FIBA U19 Basketball World Cup 2023. He’ll need to continue to fill out his frame in the upcoming years. With no official measurement available, he looks around the 210 to 220 pounds range. With decent verticality and a quick second jump, rebounding is one of the areas he’s impacting his team.
Offense
At 28.1% on 89 three-point attempts so far this season, Penda is an improving shooter. An important context to add to the numbers is that due to a slower-paced and less-spaced European game, it’s harder for teams to generate open looks. Nevertheless, Penda doesn’t put up reliable numbers yet but has a few areas where he can continue to develop into an average shooter at the NBA level.
Penda is slow to set his feet before pulling up for his jumper, which leads to his shots being earlier contested than he might anticipated. In the first play, we see Penda move toward the pass which is a good sign of him developing his shooting from a stand-still. However, the area of his shooting form that needs work is him lowering the ball to his waist before the release. Which he doesn’t have to do anymore.
This usually is seen in players who aren’t strong enough yet to shoot from the FIBA three-point line, which is set at 20.5 feet. It looks like a habit he picked up from his younger years. The jumper itself has a high release point, which is another good sign moving forward.
On an NBA floor, Penda will be asked to play out of closeouts as a part of his contribution to a team’s offensive rating. He has a solid burst and decent acceleration which leads to him being able to get past the average French defender. However, on an NBA floor against better athletes, Penda will likely struggle to get downhill more often than not.
His physicality compensates for a part of the above-mentioned. His strength allows him to power himself to the rim, and his handles are good enough to get his opponent out of balance in case he wants to settle for a floater or jumper finish. The third play is an example.
At 54% on 182 attempts near the rim, Penda puts up average numbers, which is a positive sign moving forward. An important context to add is that there is no three-second rule in European basketball. So a team can plant their big man in the paint, leading to a part of the reasoning behind the below-average numbers from an American point of view.
In terms of his foul-drawing abilities, the second play is an example. At 2.5 free-throw attempts per game, Penda generated most of them while attacking the rim via closeouts.
Considering it is likely Penda will play a low-usage role in the early stages of his NBA career, his off-ball scoring abilities are a crucial part of his draft profile. Penda’s advantage is that in a European game where losing doesn’t have incentives, his team mostly used him in an off-ball role. This applied to his role at the FIBA-organized youth tournaments during the last two summers as well.
Penda earned more playing minutes with his active cutting. He reads the offense very well and has great instincts in deciding when to launch for the cut. Penda does well at seeing when the opponent’s defense is ready to rotate to help, which he utilizes to make himself the forgotten man. The last play below is a good example.
Another area that supports the above-mentioned is the second play where Penda lands the field goal late in the game after the baseline out-of-bounds play. He uses his physicality well in terms of getting enough room to receive the pass and finish hard at the rim. His cutting becomes more valuable in the long run due to his improving touch at the rim.
In terms of Penda’s long-term potential, his shot-creating from the pick and roll is a crucial part for NBA decision-makers to evaluate. At 6’8”, he has solid handles and a good feel for the game as a pick-and-roll operator.
His solid burst and decent acceleration give him a solid base to create advantages off the dribble, especially when he switches to the opposing big man utilizing ball screens. What stood out is that Penda shows important flashes of being to generate paint touches as an on-ball shot creator. His decision-making in recognizing how the pick-and-roll defender will react to the screen makes him a dangerous scorer at only 19 years old, with the three plays below being examples.
Compared to his peers, the potential scalability of his offensive game is a value-riser of his NBA profile.
Another value-riser in Penda’s profile is his passing. He has a combination of touch and the fearlessness to make high-risk-high-reward passes. In the first play, he delivers a full-court skip pass to the corner shooter without any issues. As a pick-and-roll creator, he has a nag in finding play-finishers down low, using his ability to generate paint touches off the dribble. The second play is an example.
In the halfcourt, Penda stays within the boundaries of the coaching staff and doesn’t attack the rim if he doesn’t have an applicable plan. The third play shows an example. The side pass was an easy solution and not an advantage he created, but an NBA decision-maker should appreciate that he’s selective in which sets he’s attacking the rim, and where he decides to keep the ball moving.
An area of improvement with flashes of him being able to do it is shown in the last play. The defense puts pressure and he’s able to dribble himself into space to deliver a tough pass to the corner. The other side of the coin for playing professionally at such a young age is that teams pressure him often when he’s playing as the pick-and-roll ball handler. The pass itself was a tad too strong, which is something he has to work on. However, he did show good execution in this play.
Defense
As a defender, Penda mostly stands out as a team defender. At the NBA level, he’ll be asked to defend closeouts and rotate quickly in a faster-paced game compared to Europe. Penda has a good understanding of positioning, which helps him to be an above-average team defender despite his young age.
In the first play below, he does well to position himself near the high post, using his long wingspan to try and limit passing space to the ball handler who’s trapped near the corner. He sticks with his assignment near the elbow and does well in contesting the shot timely after the ball handler gets the bailout pass off.
An area of development for Penda is his ball-watching which sometimes occurs, especially when staying on the floor for longer periods. He has a consistent motor, but his focus isn’t as consistent. This isn’t an issue in the early stages of his career, but it says something about him potentially handling long NBA minutes in the early stages of his career.
In the second play, Penda becomes more reactionary to what the ball handler does, leading to his positioning not being as good as it normally is. He’s too close to the painted area, where the possession started well of him positioning himself near the painted area. This resulted in a late closeout on his part.
An important detail in Penda’s profile is his footwork. His defensive footwork developed rapidly in the last two seasons. Playing heavy pro minutes gives him an advantage in separating himself from his peers on this end. In the last play below, the ball is kicked out to the elbow shooter. What stood out on Penda’s part is that in his closeout, he sets his pivot foot aggressively in front of the shooter, giving him a cushion to vertically leap in more comfort for the hard shot contest.
When defending against cutters, at times there’s a trend of insecurity in Penda’s game. This makes him vulnerable against backdoor cutters, with the first and third plays below being examples. The reason is his tendency to ball-watch at times. The insecurity comes into play when he’s used as the weakside defender. It looks like that brings an extra level of pressure to his desire to make winning plays at all times.
However, an area that mitigates the above-mentioned is his ability to rotate when he’s not defending the weak side. In the second play, he does well in rotating to the ball handler who drives into the interior, trying to collapse the defense. Penda missed the cut from his assignment, but in his defense that should have been a rotation from his teammate.
In general, Penda’s defense against cutters has a good base of him rotating timely and recognizing rotations, but serving as a weakside defender is not a strong suit in his NBA profile.
At 1.7 personal fouls in almost 23 minutes per game this season, Penda shows that he can keep himself out of foul trouble. An NBA team could utilize his point-of-attack defense, especially considering the more switch-heavy game compared to Europe.
As earlier mentioned, Penda’s defensive footwork is one of the strengths of his profile. When defending in isolation, we see this particular aspect coming back. He does struggle against quicker players, as shown in the last play below. But a positive is that he’s sliding his feet very well and keeps most opponents in front of him. In this case, he uses his long wingspan very well in contesting the shot.
In the first two plays, Penda continues to slide his feet well and counters every change of direction or spin move the opponent throws at him. At the NBA level, his size, length, and ability to move his feet will make him a useful defender in the early stages of his career. Thus raising the value of his NBA profile.
In a switch-heavy NBA game, teams will ask Penda to serve as a pick-and-roll defender as well. His decision-making is a work in progress and needs more reps to make him serveable at the next level. In the first play below, he gets outplayed by the pass fake and explosion to the rim by his opponent. However, Penda going over the screen to switch was the right decision.
As a screen navigator, Penda’s tendency to ball-watch makes it harder for him to keep track of incoming screens, with the last play being an example. That isn’t an issue in the short run, but something he has to improve in the long run. This is mostly to make sure that an opposing team won’t target him after switches.
Another positive is that Penda is an active tagger. He tags the second screener well and drops enough to challenge the ball handler who came off the stagger. His long wingspan helped him contest the shot well, despite it going in. This is an important area of his defense that’ll serve him well at the next level.
NBA Draft Projection
At 19 years old, Penda brings a lot of experience to the table. With over 60 games as a pro and two summers with several French youth teams, an NBA decision-making has enough of a sample size to determine whether he fits in an NBA role or not.
His defensive footwork, ball handling, and passing give a franchise enough tools to test the scalability of his profile in the long run. He’s an improving shooter, but not on a level where he can plugged into a rotation on day one. He still needs more reps to grow into his role, making it likely he’ll see many G League minutes in the first two seasons of his career.
On the contrary, his physicality, rebounding, and team defense could lead to him playing limited minutes early. But the impact on a team’s defensive rating is something that’ll likely lead to it not expanding early.
He has things to clean up on defense, with the tendency to ball-watch being the most important one. However, the versatility on the offensive end makes Penda a connecting piece in a system where one or two heavy-usage scorers.
Based on the evaluation of his NBA role and the above-mentioned pros and cons, I project Penda to be a second-round pick in the 2024 NBA Draft. It’ll likely be in the latter stages due to his young age and the unknown contract situation, as a buyout fee is necessary to bring him over to the US.