I made several trips last summer to get a detailed look at 2023 signee Papa Kante. Suiting up for New York Rens in the Nike EYBL league from April - July, this was a great opportunity to see how Kante stacked up against the very best competition in the country. 

**Note - Papa is #5 in white/blue in the clips below**

 

Finishing

Papa displays the ability to finish with soft touch in traffic. He's a solid release valve/dumpoff option against a scrambling defense that understands how to create advantageous finishing angles. He occasionally flashes the ability to be a lob threat when given adequate space as seen in the first possession of the clip above, but this is not consistently part of his offensive package just yet. 

But I do wish Kante were more violent/explosive at the rim. He's a bit too finesse-oriented with his finishing approach in my opinion. And that can lead to some struggles as seen below. 

The common theme in all of the misses above..........lower body contact on the way up. Obviously that will be mitigated with natural gains via Camp Sanderson, but I can't help but think some of it can be attributed to the sheer lack of force when elevating. The Michigan S+C program plus some increased aggression has the potential to turn him into a really good finisher in a few years given his touch and reliable hands. 

[Hit THE JUMP for the full evaluation]

Perimeter Shooting

Let's start with Papa's mechanics. The balance is generally pretty solid and there isn't much unnecessary motion. It's a rather clean shot for a HS big. The biggest flaw is the lack of verticality in the arms/ball-placement at the time of release. The clip above is paused at the relevant time to put this in proper perspective. This ball is clearly going to have a flat trajectory upon release and little chance of going in. In short, Kante's misses have the propensity to be on-line, but lack the requisite arc. 

While inconsistent, Papa did display some nice flashes as a stretch big when the arc was sufficient. Kante shot 27.3% from distance on 33 attempts during EYBL play last summer. Perhaps most encouraging is that he became progressively comfortable/more efficient as a shooter as the months went by. All the makes clipped below are in July, whereas the majority of his misses were in April.

As a shooter, Papa has shades of Jon Teske (on line/flat) and likely projects in a similar manner. We're probably looking at a kid that takes a few triples per game as a an upperclassmen that connects in the high 20s - low 30s. Not a volume pick-and-pop type, but adequate enough that the opposition can't completely ignore him. 

 

Post-Ups

Really no way around it, Kante isn't proficient as a back-to-the-basket option right now. Again, the finesse element comes into play. Nearly every post-up possession from Kante that I saw live followed the same pattern. Back his defender down with multiple dribbles then look for a turnaround jumper from 9-15 feet. And if the defender had it bottled up, kick it back out. 

Rather than settling for a shot diet that is reserved for Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon and Kawhi Leonard, Papa needs to make big improvements in terms of establishing deep position and maintaining forward momentum rather turning away from contact (see the last possession of the clip above). He needs to embrace his size/length rather than channeling his inner-guard. 

 

Free Throws

I'm not going to over-analyze, as much of what we're seeing here in terms of mechanics/projectability is covered in the first portion of the Perimeter Shooting section above. 

Arc is not really a big issue at the FT line and I think Kante settles in as a low-mid 70s FT shooter once he's playing heavy rotational minutes.