Tidjane Salaun Scouting Report
A natural shot-creator at 6'10" who plays in and out will give you a lot of draft buzz. But is the hype surrounding Tidjane Salaun real? Let's go in-depth on the NBA role the 18-year-old could fulfill
The NBA’s craving desire for size combined with shot creation, handles, and the ability to play in several roles leads us to the LNB Pro A, the highest tier in French professional basketball.
After playing in the developmental system of Saint-Charles Charenton, a Paris-based club, the 18-year-old Tidjane Salaun plays starter minutes for Cholet Basket, which isn’t common at his age.
Physical Profile
At 6’10”, Salaun has tremendous athleticism, and a long wingspan, and fits the bill of today’s all-round NBA forward. At 212 pounds, Salaun is still growing into his body. What separates him from his peers is his natural quickness and mobility.
While playing as a guard in his youth, Salaun has had a growth spurt and after 2021 things went quite fast for him as he played in his first Adidas Next Generation Tournament, a Euroleague-organized youth tournament, and the NBA’s Basketball Without Borders camp in Italy.
Although he was a dominating factor, in both tournaments, in terms of his athleticism among his peers, the challenge for Salaun is to continue doing so against experienced professional basketball players he’ll face in the Eurocup and the French LNB Pro A.
Offense
The first thing that stood out is Salaun’s strong will to score combined with a certain attitude that you don’t see in many other French prospects. While serving in an off-ball role with mostly spot-up shooting duties, Salaun gets his fair share of opportunities to show his shot creation with his activity on the court.
Despite being fairly new to basketball, Salaun is already strong in the fundamentals. Instead of waiting for the ball, he actively moves towards the ball. This is a small detail, but an important one when evaluating young prospects, as it’s a common mistake.
In the play below, Salaun attacks the closeout right at the moment by using the threat of his pull-up jumper. While powering his way to the rim, he looks stiff. The downside of his young age is that Salaun needs time to learn to use his body better in these situations.
The promising part is that the combination of his size and strength forced the help defense to crowd the paint, leaving the spot-up shooter at the elbow wide-open. In his development, Salaun will learn to consider the pass, instead of forcing his offense.
A few more of the decisions as in the play above, and an NBA team’s offensive rating will look a lot different. This will lead to it being unlikely that Salaun will play a role in the NBA right away. And that’s perfectly fine, as teams are drafting for the long-term potential.
The play below is another example of how good Salaun’s fluidity is at his age. However, his decision-making needs work. Instead of going to his left to either go for the floater-finish or stepback to utilize the space and launch the three, Salaun chooses to drive right to blow by his opponent but immediately comes across the rotating defender.
However, the quickness of his stepback followed up by the pull-up jumper is impressive and shows he can be a difference-maker at the next level if his feel for the game becomes better as he gains experience.
Another thing that caught my attention was that Salaun is moving more actively on the court when he has his mind set on creating his offense. However, in his role as a spot-up shooter, he’s nailed too much to the corner at times, which doesn’t benefit the team’s offense.
In the play below, instead of utilizing the open backdoor cut to the rim for the potentially easy two, Salaun launches a contested three, which then leads to the transition opportunity on the other side. Improvement on this end is a must-have if he wants to play on an NBA floor early on in his career.
One of Salaun’s translatable NBA skills comes in transition. With long dribbles, he gets to his spots with ease. The functionality of his athleticism is more visible in the play below. However, in terms of sample size, it’s limited and it will likely stay limited due to the character of a more half-court-minded European game, instead of the faster-paced NBA game, where we see more frequent transition offenses occur.
In terms of long-term potential, Salaun has the ball skills to be a pick-and-roll creator at the next level. The fundamentals are visible, and he makes the correct reads but needs more runway in terms of opportunity to receive the on-ball reps to develop his creating ability. Therefore, playing G League minutes is a must in his first NBA season.
In the play below, Salaun does well to sell his man that he’s exploring overhead inbound pass before the drive at the moment the screener arrives. However, the execution was poor. Instead of immediately hitting the backdoor cutter with the bounce pass, he goes for the tough midrange jumper.
With almost three rebounds in twenty minutes, Salaun shows that he can put up numbers by being physical after missed shots. An important context to add is that due to the slower-paced 40-minute European games, the total rebounds per game are less, which makes three rebounds a decent number to work with.
The play below is a great summary of Salaun when it comes to translating his defensive rebounds into good offense. Although the ball hits the side of the backboard, Salaun shows good reactionary speed to come up with the rebound after the defensive box-out.
The behind-the-back action in his dribble was impressive, however, the ball stuck to his hands too much, leading to the easy turnover and two transition points on the other side.
The lack of maturity in his game is visible. However, with all the important flashes he has shown, improvement in the future is imminent. Therefore, the negatives will weigh less in determining his draft value, mostly thanks to his athletic tools.
When evaluating his offense, it’s hard not to see a potential all-round-scoring NBA forward who can play multiple positions. The million-dollar question is how long will this take to develop.
Defense
When looking at his defense, the potential to be a good defender at the next level is there. At 6’10”, he slides his feet well, opening the door to guard up to four positions. His mobility is another plus asset that’ll make him an interesting piece for NBA coaches to work with when developing their defensive schemes.
The biggest challenge in Salaun’s profile is that his feel for the game at the defensive end isn’t at a pro level—yet. Basic mistakes such as overhelping on defense, missing rotations, and ball-watching are all present in his profile.
In the play below, the opponents force a switch leading to Salaun rotating to the rolling screener, allowing the weakside to remain fully open for the spot-up shooter. He uses his wingspan very well in the last-second closeout, but the gap was too large to overcome.
What NBA teams can expect can be seen in the play below. Salaun does a great job in keeping his balance and slides his feet well to force the driver to attack the corner, instead of through the middle.
The bump absorbs the contact and with incoming help-defense, he forces the pass, and the impressive part is where Salaun moves like he’s five inches shorter to follow the ball-reversal and contest the shooter above the break.
The amount of ground that’s been covered is what’ll work to his advantage on an NBA floor with more spacing. He won’t be asked to do this in every defensive possession, but the ability to be able to do it presents great value at his size.
Being a point-of-attack defender won’t be a primary task at the next level. Therefore, focusing more on his off-ball rotations was a part of this assessment. When it comes to his on-court character, the play below is a good summary.
Salaun foresees the pick-and-roll ball-handler targeting the driving lane in the middle here. By keeping more distance from his assignment, Salaun is in a good position to rotate. I like how he immediately reacts when the ball-handler creates the separation he needs.
Salaun isn’t afraid to play hard when he needs to. Using his long wingspan he forces the runner-finish, and I like how he draws the charge by moving away from the rim to make sure the ball-handler has to initiate the contact to be able to get his runner off.
Salaun does have to get better at transitioning to offense after making his defensive play. In the play below, he rotates well and shows off his solid defensive footwork. The combination of his quickness and ability to match physically against the ball-handler is a good sign moving forward.
The concerning area is Salaun picking up his dribble and bailing himself out with a sloppy pass after the jump. This is the result of the ball-handler actively asking for the ball after Salaun had the rebound.
Despite the multi-positional character of his game, Salaun has to focus on passing in transition, and then focus on getting in position. While I want to avoid limiting his freedom at the next level, an immediate pass was the correct read to make here.
Thus far it’s a small sample size, but Salaun in the point-of-attack is another potential game-changer for him. Being able to switch to guards and making winning plays is one of the most valuable things a prospect at 6’10” could have.
In the play below, Salaun slides his feet very well against the guard making it clear he sees the matchup as a mismatch he wants to take advantage of. Salaun does an excellent job in forcing the ball-handler to his right, taking the bump to derail the scoring opportunity.
The pumpfake was the only thing left, and unfortunately, in the heat of the moment, the lack of experience is yet again the keyword here. However, flashes like these show what Salaun can do for an NBA team once he improves his feel for the game and decision-making.
Salaun’s projected NBA role will have him guarding against handoffs, which will have a more important role in today’s NBA offenses, with the Sacramento Kings being a prime example.
Despite a limited sample size, there was a form of consistency in the defensive decision-making. In the play below, Salaun tags the cutter and switches to the ball-handler. In terms of his communication on defense, these are the things that are needed consistently.
Upon switching to the ball-handler, Salaun plays with confidence, benefitting his game. At the next level, this will pay dividends once he’s ready to play minutes on an NBA floor.
NBA Draft Projection
Drafting Salaun means swinging for the fences in terms of long-term potential. Although it’ll likely take a few seasons of developmental minutes, Salaun does have the talent to be an All-Star-level player when everything clicks.
He’ll still be 18 years old on draft night, making him one of the youngest players in this class. However, with a need for more experienced players in general, this doesn’t have to be an advantage for Salaun.
If everything clicks, Salaun has the tools to be an All-Star and a top offensive producer in the league. With his athletic tools and the above-mentioned reasons, I see a plus-defender down the stretch in him as well. However, how long the “if” part of his profile will take is too uncertain at this stage, therefore this will cost some draft stock.
Although I believe in Salaun being a top-10 player in terms of talent, I project him to be picked in the latter stages of the first round in the 2024 NBA Draft