Mock Draft: Raptors Select High-Upside Frenchman in 1st Round

Toronto Raptors are expected to draft Tidjane Salaun as a high-upside forward in the first round of the 2024 NBA draft

Tidjane Salaun playing for the U18 French national basketball team / FIBA.com

There’s nothing really impressive about Tidjane Salaun’s stat line this season.

The 6-foot-9 forward averaged nine points per game while shooting 37.3% from the field, 32.9% from behind the arc, and 76.7% on just over two free-throw attempts per game. He turned the ball over more often than he recorded assists on a French-league team that sits at 17-17.

But the 18-year-old Salaun is one of the youngest prospects in this year’s draft class and has shown flashes of being the kind of moldable high-upside prospect that the Toronto Raptors may want to take a shot on in the middle of the first round.

“He's a wing with size who is an emerging shooter and plus-defender with a good motor,” wrote CBS’s Gary Parrish who has Salaun pegged to Toronto at No. 19. “At this point in his career, he's more of a spot-up shooter than an off-the-bounce shooter. But Salaun is still only 18 years old, point being there's plenty of time to expand his game on both ends for a Toronto franchise that's still likely multiple years from competing in the Eastern Conference again.”

Salaun is a project.

He was a non-shooter in 2022-23 who has shown development as an off-ball player. His shooting stroke looks good, but Salaun tends to take unnecessarily tough shots that have hurt his shooting efficiency.

Defensively, Salaun has the physique to be a versatile wing defender who would give Toronto another forward to play alongside Scottie Barnes. If he fills out his body as he matures, he has a chance to be an impactful defender, but his defensive IQ needs a lot of work.

Toronto has taken chances on players like Salaun in the past.

Bruno Cabaclo most famously fit the profile as a young, raw prospect the Raptors thought they could develop in the G League and Salaun would need a similar kind of plan for the teenage Frenchman. Drafting Salaun would be a high-risk, potentially high-reward pick for Toronto, but considering how far the organization is from contending right now, a home-run swing like Salaun might not be a bad idea.