After a Slow Start, Nolan Traore Is Finding His Groove

Nolan Traore didn’t take France’s LNB by storm right out the gate, but after a rocky first two games, he has begun to assert himself as one of the league's best and stake his claim as a prospect who can compete for the top spot next summer.

Nolan Traore / fiba.basketbal

Nolan Traore’s strong play for Saint Quentin to close out the 2023-24 LNB season and at the 2024 Adidas Next Generation Tournament Finals solidified his status as one of the top prospects of the 2025 NBA Draft class. The summer offered plenty of speculation of what he might do in his final year before the NBA: a lucrative NIL deal, sign with a EuroLeague club, become a Next Star in Australia like LaMelo Ball did, or stay at the club that had already made it clear they believed in him - Saint Quentin.

Traore did exactly that, and for the first two games of this season, it wasn’t smooth sailing as he took over as the starting point guard. 

In fact, 12 points, seven assists, and nine turnovers were the cumulative stats in Traore’s first two games. He was dribbling into traffic, struggling with ball security, and the three-pointer wasn’t falling either. He was 1-of-6 from deep in those first two games. Since then, Traore has begun to ascend to one of the best players in the LNB. 

Saint Quentin is off to a 4-1 start and over their last three domestic games he’s averaging 15.6 points, seven assists, and only 1.7 turnovers per game. He’s shooting 51 percent from the field and 40 percent from deep. After those early season blunders, Traore has turned into the dominant on-ball creator and scorer many expected him to become. What’s been even more impressive is that his defensive effort and intensity have stayed at a high level through the ups and downs of the first month of the season. When his shot wasn’t falling, he was still executing rotations, helping rebound, and more. 

Over the next month, Saint Quentin will face EuroLeague newcomers Paris Basketball in domestic league play and have a home-and-home with Spanish club Tenerife in the Basketball Champions League. These will be good tests for Traore. If his strong play continues against these opponents he’ll be making an early strong case as the second-best prospect in this class. If he can help Saint Quentin reach a final this season, or even the semifinals of the LNB or Basketball Champions League he might have an argument to be in the same tier as Cooper Flagg. 

That final outcome is unlikely, and regardless of what Traore does something probably has to go wrong for Flagg for there to even be a discussion of someone else going first overall. But Traore seems to have his sights set on making it a battle. Plenty of NBA team front offices will love to see that competitive spirit. It’s one of the many factors that’s making Traore arguably the best point guard prospect since Cade Cunningham or Scoot Henderson. He is at least in the same class as them already and when the draft comes around he might be even better.

For the Flagg hopefuls who miss out on the Duke forward, Traore will be much more than a consolation prize. He currently looks like he’ll comfortably be a franchise-building block and alongside the likes of Victor Wembanyama, Zaccharie Risacher, Alex Sarr, and other young French stars they might one day be capable of capturing a gold medal for Les Bleus at the Olympics after they’ve finished with silver in back-to-back tournaments.

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