Joan Beringer Has the Skillset To Become the Defensive Anchor NBA Teams Desire

French center Joan Beringer has emerged as one of the best center prospects of the 2025 NBA Draft with his combination of size, athleticism, instinct, and defensive talent. At 18 years old, he has the skillset NBA teams are looking for.
Joan Beringer
Joan Beringer / fiba.basketbal

Comparing Joan Beringer to Rudy Gobert, on its surface, is lazy. Gobert is not the only elite defensive center of the last decade-plus in the NBA, and Beringer being French doesn’t automatically make him follow in Gobert’s footsteps.

But here’s a stat that makes the comparison worth considering. 

In Gobert’s final pre-draft season, 2012-13 with French club Cholet, he played 30 games across France’s top-division LNB Pro A and EuroCup, the second-tier continental competition of European basketball. In those 30 games, he posted a block rate of 7.6%. 

Joan Beringer, in 32 games for the Adriatic League (the domestic competition consisting of teams from Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, and Bosnia & Herzegovina) club KK Cedevita Olimpija — who also plays in the EuroCup — he has a block rate of… 7.6%. 

There is a comparison to be made between Beringer and Gobert, and it does go beyond the fact that both are French centers, who excel at the defensive side of the ball. Beringer was a fringe name for the 2025 NBA Draft at the start of the season, but he has quickly blossomed into Cedevita’s defensive anchor and moved up draft boards accordingly. 

In a game at the end of December against EuroLeague club Partizan Belgrade — who boast former NBA players like Carlik Jones, Duane Washington Jr., Aleksej Pokusevski, and others — Beringer finished with a modest stat line of two points, two blocks, and six rebounds. That feels unimpressive across 24 minutes, but Cedevita won the game on the road and Beringer played a huge part in the victory. 

Working with his teammates, he nearly neutralized Partizan’s pick-and-roll game. Cedevita implemented a hedge and recover strategy and Beringer’s size, length, and quickness allowed him to cover the ground necessary to prevent Partizan’s guards from turning the corner and penetrating the defense and also cut off passing angles to the roll man. Partizan would be forced to rotate the ball on the perimeter, and by the time they found a new post-entry angle, Beringer had recovered to the roll man. There was no mismatch, no clean look at the rim, no paint touch, and a significant amount of time had come off the shot clock, all thanks to him. 

When Partizan guards beat their man in isolation on the perimeter, they would be met at the rim by Beringer. Jones opted to try a floater in the first half that barely left his hand before Beringer spiked it away with ease. He swatted an Isiaha Mike layup attempt earlier in the game as well. 

On offense, Beringer doesn’t carry the skill set of fellow potential 2025 NBA draftees Bogoljub Markovic or even Johann Grünloh, but he appears to know how to thrive within his limitations. He goes into dribble handoffs, screens, and re-screens for Cedevita’s guards, and crashes the glass hard to try to create extra opportunities. He didn’t get to show it against Partizan, but he does offer a vertical threat through lobs as well. 

Beringer is a defensive anchor; at only 18 years old, he is capable of dominating that end of the floor for long stretches of the game and also stays out of foul trouble — he committed one foul in 24 minutes against Partizan. On offense, he plays to his strengths, using his body to create openings for others and keeps his own scoring opportunities primarily above the rim. It’s a simple comparison, but that does sound a good bit similar to Rudy Gobert. 

French basketball has been the primary competitor to Team USA for most of the past decade. With the likes of Victor Wembanyama and Bilal Coulibaly thriving in the NBA, Zaccharie Risacher and Alex Sarr developing, and the 2025 NBA Draft alone projecting to have potentially four first-round picks it appears that trend will continue.


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Andrew Bernucca
ANDREW BERNUCCA

Andrew has covered professional basketball overseas for the better part of six years. He has written scouting reports, profile pieces, news briefs, and more. He has also covered and writen about the NBA as well during his time as a journalist.