NBA Draft: What Does Dame Sarr’s Decision To Stay With Barcelona Tell Us?

Dame Sarr, the future of Italian basketball, opted to stay with Barcelona for the 2024-25 season. Does this tell us anything about his future?

Dame Sarr / Nis - OS Mika Antic (Serbia)

After a decent showing at the U18 Eurobasket this summer, Italian wing Dame Sarr has opted to stay with Barcelona for the 2024-25 season. The move was not necessarily a surprise but does go against recent trends that have seen most prospects leave Europe to further their development. It’s hard to pinpoint what would make Sarr stay with Barcelona since there are pros and cons to the decision. 

Sarr is still very young, turning 18 this past June and that means he still has a lot of time to develop in his career. By choosing to stay with Barcelona, Sarr can take time to focus on himself and commit to a more catered individual training routine. He won’t be a regular in Barcelona’s rotation -- far from it. But he will have access to their professional facilities and staff which are among the best in Europe. Sarr will have ample support in his efforts to improve his shot, and his handle, and provide overall polish to his game. He’ll have access to fantastic trainers who can make sure he’s putting on weight properly, keeping himself in shape, bulking in the right areas, and more. 

Additionally, he’ll spend a whole season with high-level professionals. Jabari Parker, Alex Abrines, Nico Laprovittola, Kevin Punter, Chimezie Metu, and plenty of other top-quality EuroLeague players are who he’ll be training with and against every day. He’ll learn directly from them, and get a chance to see how these players operate both on and off the court where, at such a young age, he’ll have plenty to learn.  

Barcelona has helped shepherd quite a few players into the NBA over the past quarter-century. Marc & Pau Gasol, Anderson Varejao, Mario Hezonja, Alex Abrines, Kostas Papanikolaou, Tibor Pleiss, and most recently Tomas Satoransky. A key difference for Sarr is that most of these players joined Barcelona in their early 20s and had a regular role in the rotation. Most of them spent their development years elsewhere. 

This is what raises questions about Sarr’s decision. While the developmental benefits of staying with Barcelona exist, it is highly unlikely this helps his draft stock at all, which is currently erratic. Some mock drafts have him as high as late in the first round, most have him in the second round, and some don’t name him at all. By choosing to stay with Barcelona, Sarr’s draft stock will probably continue to vacillate as almost all assessments of his growth this season will be theoretical.

Why would Sarr want that?

Given how strong the NBA Draft class is, Sarr may care less about how high he is selected and care more about who selects him and how open they are to letting him control his development plan for seasons to come, and what that process looks like. Sarr’s goal may be to simply be selected by an NBA franchise he prefers this summer and stay stashed with Barcelona, continuing his development there for multiple seasons until he becomes a rotation regular before eventually coming to the NBA. 

Additionally, Sarr could still opt to wait until the 2026, 2027, or 2028 NBA Draft if he desires. While his lack of playing time will inhibit Sarr’s ability to directly impact his draft stock, he could move up due to a litany of prospects simply underperforming this season and leading an NBA team to decide to use their pick on him as a project instead. If the inverse happens, and it seems unlikely he gets drafted whatsoever Sarr could withdraw and enter a future draft instead. 

Conclusion:

Dame Sarr bucked the trend of many European prospects leaving the continent for their development. By staying with Barcelona he has taken a more patient approach that maximizes the overall number of options available to him for the next few seasons. As such a young and raw prospect, that is probably what’s best for Sarr while staying with a club that will be able to provide everything he needs off the court for his development. 

---

Want to join the discussion? Like Draft Digest on Facebook and follow us on Twitter to stay up to date on all the latest NBA Draft news. You can also meet the team behind the coverage.