With Ratiopharm Ulm, Ben Saraf Is in the Perfect Environment

With the departure of Juan Nunez, there is a starting point guard-sized hole on Ratiopharm Ulm’s roster for the 2024-25 season where 18-year-old Ben Saraf should slot right in to run their spread pick-and-roll offense.

Ben Saraf / fiba.basketball

Ben Saraf worked wonders for his draft stock with his play at the FIBA U18 European Championships. In seven games he scored 28.1 points per game on 45/37/76 shooting splits and also averaged 5.3 assists per game. He grabbed MVP and signed with German club Ratiopharm Ulm for the upcoming season. Ulm’s current roster provides Saraf the perfect opportunity to continue to improve his draft stock and potentially be a top-20 pick in the loaded 2025 NBA Draft class. 

Saraf just turned 18 this past April, but the 6-foot-5 guard was playing regular senior minutes in Israel last season for Elitzur Ironi Kiryat Ata B.C. who finished in the bottom half of the standings. Saraf struggled, but at only 17 years old playing 23 minutes per game and taking nearly a quarter of his teams' pick-and-roll repetitions, per Synergy Sports, that’s not surprising and helped his development overall. Saraf will carry those lessons learned into this season with Ulm. 

Ulm will play in the German Basket Bundesliga and EuroCup, Europe’s second-tier continental competition. The current makeup of their roster has him slated to potentially be the starting point guard. Recent starting point guards for Ulm have been Killian Hayes and Juan Nunez. Their time at the German club helped them raise their draft stock, and Saraf will likely reap similar benefits. 

He will get countless pick-and-roll repetitions. Ulm leaned on the two-man game and spread the floor their prior two seasons under head coach Anton Gavel. Gavel left for Brose Bamberg, and Ty Harrelson is the new head coach, coming over from RASTA Vechta, who utilized the pick-and-roll just as much if not more, last season. He’ll have greater personnel around him too. Center Trevion Williams left for ALBA Berlin but Marcio Santos, who has been a dominant player in Brazil for a couple of seasons now, has come over to replace him. Santos can roll or pop and has the soft hands to catch both difficult and easy passes. 

Ulm has great spacing too. Golden State Warriors stash Justinian Jessup, returning guard Karim Jallow, and new arrival Alfonso Plummer were all knockdown spot-up threats last season. Ulm also has former Oklahoma City Thunder big Isaiah Roby who has shown improvement as a shooter and Santos was lethal from beyond the arc in Brazil last season. Ulm could play Saraf with Plummer, Jessup, Roby, and Santos. That would give him four shooters, and two bigs to run pick-and-roll with. It is everything he could have asked for. 

With his play this summer Saraf has inserted himself into the first round of some mock drafts and will be tracked closely by NBA scouts all season. With Ulm’s roster, he controls his own destiny. He’s got the perfect set-up to play his game, showcase what he’s best at, and rise up draft boards all season long.

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