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Yahoo Sports’ Draft Live crew reacts to the Brooklyn Nets’ selection of Saint Quentin guard Nolan Traoré with the 19th pick in the 2025 NBA Draft.
Brooklyn’s pick is in maybe they go a different route than what we thought about Nolan Traore, the Frenchman, a guard, KOC, I’ll come to you first on this.
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Give me a grade.
Uh let’s give it a B+ considering that team and where they are.
I think Traore, similar to what I said about Demon, this is a good situation for him because it’s a clean slate roster.
You go there, you can develop, work on your weaknesses, and I think the best comparison for Traore is Dejounte Murray because Murray, when he came out of Washington, he was just a speedster, got wherever he wanted, uh, in the floor, but his look, if you look at Murray’s shot chart, it was like red everywhere, inefficient at the basket, inefficient in the paint, inefficient from the perimeter.
That’s what it’s like with Trore now.
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He can’t score efficiently from anywhere, but he gets anywhere he wants on the floor, fastest player in the draft class, but also knows how to play with pace.
And so I think for the Nets pairing him with them and you get two dramatically different types of ball handlers to develop with your young roster, see how things go in the future, and maybe one of them pops up and turns into a star.
I’m actually a huge fan of Tray Ori because I, I think that when we talk about skilled guards, Jeremiah Fear is #1.
He was number one for me.
I think Traore is.
The second most skilled guard in this class.
What I mean by that?
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The ball is on an absolute string, very, very tight handle.
He is very creative, can find ways to get to the paint.
You mix that with his speed that KLC talked about.
I mean, this young man has a lot of intrigue.
Does he shoot the ball well?
Not really.
Only 31% from the three last year.
Defensively, is he great?
He’s solid, he’s OK, but at 64, he has great size because of his speed.
I think that he can turn into a pretty decent defender, or at least the reliable.
defender, but his playmaking in the pick and roll, this change of pace, his quick burst when he comes out the pick and roll, puts the defender in jail, that first step right there to be able to create and get to the rim, I think that he does that almost as good as any guard in this draft class.
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So I think there’s a lot of intrigue and a lot of upside with this young man.
I don’t hate this pick.
I like Trayor.
Uh, one thing that I found really fascinating, I wonder if the Hawks got bad intel because I heard they really liked him and when they traded down from 13.
And you sent and you allowed the Pelicans to take Derrick Queen.
Were you under the assumption that this kid was going to be there for you at 23?
And then the Brooklyn Nets snatched him up?
I’m very, very fascinated until I got on that today was that that was one of the main things that I heard that the Hawks were very high on this kid.
