Alexandre Sarr the Next Star or Under Par?

Is Alexandre Sarr the next star?

Being a top-five pick in any NBA draft comes with the added pressure of every eye around the league watching each and every performance you put in, especially in the first few games you play in your new team's jersey. For number two pick Alexandre Sarr that is no exception and questions are being raised if he is ready to go to the next level or is he not quite ripe.

Much has been made of Alexander Sarr and his NBL 24 season as a Perth Wildcat. The 7’1 French Sensation landed on Australian shores as the 19th best prospect heading into the 2024 NBA Draft and after a successful season for the Perth Wildcats he finished with averages of 9.4 PPG, 4.3 RPG and 1.5 BPG in 17.3 MPG. This would ultimately wind up with Sarr being called up to the podium with the second pick in the NBA Draft by the Washington Wizards and making NBL history as the highest picked NBL Next Star so far.

There were many questions in the lead up to the draft, is he going to be the number 1 pick? Will he be a star player? What is his ceiling in the NBA? And last but not least, what can he produce at the next level?

Listen to the full podcast on your favourite app.. or right here.

Some of those questions have been answered during his small showcase so far at the NBA Summer League, where some of the best young talent get to show the world what they can do. Sarr has had an impressive start so far and has showcased what he can do on the defensive end at the next level. Yes, right now he is playing against other rookies or players fighting for the last roster spots, but the hunger and need to perform is something that will be the exact same in the NBA throughout the season.

On debut in the Summer League against the Atlanta Hawks and Pick 1 Zaccharie Risacher, Sarr and the Wizards would walk away 94-88 winners. Sarr would finish the game with 12 points, 7 rebounds, 4 assists, 1 steal and 4 blocks, stuffing the stat sheet in an impressive way.

It wouldn’t all be the same high praises for Sarr in game 2 of the Summer League against Pick 3 Reed Sheppard and the Houston Rockets. The Wizards would eventually go down 109-91 to the Rockets off the back of Sheppard’s 22 points, 6 rebounds, 7 assists and 5 steals, whilst Sarr struggled with 8 points, 4 rebounds, 2 assists and 2 blocks.

The Frenchman then struggled with his range in his third game of the Summer League Series against Portland and that is putting it nicely. Sarr went 0/15 from the field, 0/7 from three and 0/2 from the free-throw line in an offensive performance to forget. The 19-year-old did put in the effort off the ball though with a team-high 9 rebounds and 3 blocks along with 3 assists and a steal.

The statistics for Sarr have been a little up and down so far offensively, but the the alarm bells rang defensively in his game against Houston when his light frame was no match for the bigger body’s in which the Rockets had. His inability to be able to hold his own inside, missed timing on block attempts and lack of rhythm on the offensive end, have really opened the door for some criticism already.

Ryan Tucker, co-host of The Basketball Fix Podcast had questioned, has Sarr got the mongrel inside of him to compete with some of the biggest, toughest and best players in the world?

The lucky thing for Sarr right now is that he is 3 games into a 10-15 year NBA career and all of these questions will be answered and so much more. One thing we do know is that he has found his feet at every level he has played in, he can play against bigger and more experienced players in professional leagues and he has all the characteristics of a great NBA defender for years to come.

It all leads back to one question, “Is Alexandre Sarr the Next Star or Under Par”.

Alex Sarr wasn’t the only NBL Next Star taken in the NBA Draft, we also saw AJ Johnson (Pick 23, Milwaukee Bucks), Bobi Klintman (Pick 37, Detroit Pistons) and Ariel Hukporti (Pick 58, New York Knicks). At the conclusion of the NBA Draft, NBL Next Stars Trentyn Flowers (Los Angles Clippers) and Mantas Rubštavičius (Golden State Warriors) were signed to NBA deals as undrafted NBA rookies but it’s uncertain where they will end up, will it be back in the NBL, overseas or in the NBA.

The 2024 NBA Draft will be seen as a major success for the NBL and the Next Star

program, which is going from strength to strength in the past 4 years when it was first introduced to extinguish the G-League Ignite program.