By Johnny Askounis/ info@eurohoops.net
Heading to the 2024-25 NBA Regular Season, French prospect Alex Sarr logged his first preseason appearance on Sunday.
The native of Bordeaux started for the Washington Wizards in a loss, 125-98, against the New York Knicks in Montreal’s Bell Centre.
Sarr, 19, recorded 15 points behind 6/8 field goals, including three triples. Besides huge dunks and displaying his range, he tallied four assists, three rebounds, and one block over 22 minutes.
The younger brother of Olivier Sarr, a veteran of 46 games played in the NBA as a member of the Oklahoma City Thunder over the last three years, followed a unique path to the best league in the world. Rather than college basketball, he went from the youth teams of Real Madrid to the newly established Overtime Elite league in Atlanta and spent the 2023-24 season with the Perth Wildcats in Oceania’s National Basketball League, NBL. It paid off with the second pick of the 2024 NBA draft, trailing only fellow Frenchman Zaccharie Risacher being picked up by the Atlanta Hawks.
Promising youngsters from France are piling up in the NBA, including Wizards teammate Bilal Coulibaly starting the preseason with ten points, one year after being selected with the seventh pick of the draft.
A third European starter for head coach Brian Keefe, Lithuanian center Jonas Valanciunas was held to three points. Coming off the bench, Serbian Tristan Vukcevic finished with ten points behind 5/5 from the field.
For the team coached by Serbian Darko Rajakovic, Austrian Jakob Poeltl had six points.
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