Nolan Traore Finds a Way To Help Saint-Quentin Win Despite Underwhelming Stat Line

Saint-Quentin and Nolan Traore opened their season with a bang, defeating last season’s French LNB Pro A Champions AS Monaco at home. Traore struggled offensively but remained engaged on both ends of the floor and found ways to help his team win.

Nolan Traore, Saint Quentin | fiba.basketbal / FIBA.com

It wasn’t the season opener everyone was hoping for from French point guard and projected top-5 pick Nolan Traore. It wasn’t an easy opponent either, though. Saint-Quentin opened their LNB Pro A season against reigning champions AS Monaco who even without star-guard Mike James are still a handful. They surprisingly managed to come out on top, 68-66, even though Traore put in a lackluster performance on offense finishing with two points, three assists, and four turnovers on 1-of-9 shooting. The box score line is frightening, but there’s a glass-half-full perspective to take away from this one. In the face of adversity, Traore still found ways to help his team win. 

For starters, this was a tough opponent. No James doesn’t mean Monaco is suddenly lacking in talent. Fringe NBA players still take up the majority of their roster such as Elie Okobo and Nick Calathes, who Traore was often matched up with as well as young guard Matthew Strazel who impressed at the Olympics this summer. That’s a tough group to contend with at any time of the season, let alone the opener. 

Add in the help defense Traore was seeing from Vitto Brown, Terry Tarpey, Jaron Blossomgame, and others and you can’t fault Traore for falling into some bad habits. He was forcing his shot, making bad decisions with the ball in his hands, and missed a few open looks you expect to fall regularly as the season goes on. But he did show some adjustments. For example, after turning the ball over on a charge early in the game he appropriately passed out of this scenario later on showing his ability to make adjustments to defensive schemes. 

Traore probably should have had more than three assists too. He set up plenty of teammates for good looks from both beyond the arc and at the rim and they simply couldn’t convert. Monaco packed the paint well defensively and made it difficult to finish at the rim with their size and length. In other matchups, some of these are probably two points pretty quickly. 

Traore got a rough whistle too. Star calls are not a thing in Europe, especially not for a 19-year-old, Luka Doncic shot less than four free throws per game his final season at Real Madrid, but some of these were egregious. Traore attacked the rim well in this game and deserved to be rewarded for it at least a couple of times. Ending the game with zero free throw attempts was a harsh outcome. 

The most positive play from Traore in this game came on the defensive end. He was very engaged, and communicative, and had an overall positive impact on that end from the point guard position. He matched up well with Calathes, Okobo, and Strazel. He anticipated help positioning and at times looked like he was helping to deep but it happened regularly enough that it looked like it might’ve been a part of Saint-Quentin’s scheme. He switched down a low couple times too and held his own against much bigger and stronger opponents, and was in full sprints when he had to recover defensively. 

A rough whistle, bad shooting night, and some failed conversions from teammates could make any player sulk on the other end and blow assignments and coverages but Traore stayed locked in for every second he was out there. We’re not spinning this as a good game for Traore, it wasn’t, that stat line speaks for itself. But persevering in the face of misfortune gives us a good look at his overall mentality and commitment to winning. If that continues throughout the season, in good games and bad ones, it tells us what Traore’s character is like in addition to the talent level that he’s already proven for over a year now.

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