NBA Draft: Noah Penda Should be in First-Round Pick Consideration

The 6-foot-8 French wing has had a phenomenal start to the 2024-25 season and his priors prove that his production thus far is no fluke.

Basketball for use as a generic image. / Gary Cosby Jr. / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Noah Penda is a 6-foot-8 and 225 lbs 19-year-old wing playing for Le Mans Sarthe Basket in the LNB Pro A French league. By all accounts, Penda isn't currently projected to be a first-round pick. Among all major outlets, he is unranked by three (Bleacher Report, CBS Sports, and Tankathon) and ranked at No. 40 by one (Jonathan Givony of ESPN). Here's why he should be considered one.

Going back to his priors before the 2024-25 season, Penda has had a history of being a strong physical force. During his 2020-21 season, he posted a 2.8 block rate, 9.1 offensive rebound rate, and 0.21 free-throw rate. During the 2021-22 season, that rose to a 4.2 block rate, 10.6 offensive rebound rate, and 0.38 free-throw rate. While those numbers dipped to 2.6 block and 9.5 offensive rebound rates (his free-throw rate still rose to 0.46) during the 2022-23 season playing in a higher league (LNB Pro B) for the first time, the block rate rose back to 4.0 in 2023-24, as he posted 8.0 offensive rebound and 0.40 free-throw rates alongside that.

Those are a lot of numbers. What's the summary?

Dating back to his age-16 season, Noah Penda has had a history of elite offensive rebounding, shot blocking, and foul-drawing, indicating strong applied physicality and athleticism at a young age that scaled up to higher levels of plays. This is the first part of Penda's strong profile.

The second part is his strong feel. Since 2020-21, Penda has posted assist rates of 13.7, 19.2, 9.7 (first season in LNB Pro) and 15.9 in each season. Alongside that, he's posted assist-to-turnover ratios of 1.0, 1.2, 1.0, and 1.7 in each season. He's also posted steal rates of 3.9, 5.1, 2.7, and 3.1 in each season while only fouling more than two times per game in one season.

Again, a lot of numbers. What does all this mean?

Noah Penda has a history of high-assisting with low-turnovers, the volume at which depending on his role and usage at each level, indicating high-level processing and feel for the game. This translates to the defensive end, where grabbing steals (and blocks) at an elite rate without fouling requires an intersection of great processing and hand-eye coordination.

Putting the two parts together, applied physical force and feel for the game at a youthful age, and you have yourself an integration of skills that has consistently outperformed predraft developmental expectations. Avinash, better known as @100guaranteed on Twitter, was the one to recently discover and tweet about this theory:

the most important precocious skill integration is oreb-assist-stocks

this is the ultimate functional athleticism x feel proxy, a synthesis of skills that exponentially raises ceiling beyond perception of raw box stats/bpm

lots and lots of instructive developmental stories here pic.twitter.com/DDygc9Bg7p

— avinash 💯 (@100guaranteed) July 18, 2024

The foundation of this theory makes a ton of sense. Rangy, athletic wings with an intersection of applied physicality and feel for the game (and even an ounce of shooting touch) at a young age possess larger margins. What does that mean? Essentially, they gain more avenues towards impact at earlier points in the NBA, which open up more avenues for development down the line. Herein lies the basis of belief in Noah Penda.

He's maintained his impressive integration of stocks (steals plus blocks), offensive rebounding, and assists this season, posting a 3.0 steal rate, 5.8 block rate, 8.3 offensive rebound rate, and 17.2 assist rate with a 2.1 assist-to-turnover ratio in nine games. On top of that, he's shot 70.8% from the line on 24 attempts so far as he looks to continue his year-over-year improving touch (39.4% on 66 attempts in 2022-23 to 66.9% on 139 attempts in 2023-24).

Penda has averaged 10.1 points, 4.8 rebounds, 2.8 assists, 1.4 steals, and 1.3 blocks in just 27 minutes per game this season. If he keeps this production up, it would be hard to deny his case as a lottery pick from a pure statistical lens, given the historically favorable results from his archetype.

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