As shown by my extensive FIBA World Cup preview last summer, I love to promote international basketball teams and players. Most American NBA fans don’t know a lot (if anything) about international prospects that are drafted (unless they’re a top 5-10 pick like Luka Dončić and Victor Wembanyama). This is one international player player that isn’t at the top of draft boards but is still an intriguing prospect.
Ulrich Chomche 2024 NBA Draft Profile
Background
Ulrich Chomche has a very interesting story. He grew up in a relatively small and remote village in the West Province of Cameroon. He had never left before he was 13 years old, which is when he also started to play basketball. The most popular sport in his native Cameroon is soccer by a very wide margin. Many of Chomche’s 16 siblings played soccer. He was recruited by a coach at NBA Academy Africa, a facility located in Saly, Senegal. There he developed on and off the court, going from a boy in a remote village who had never touched a basketball to a legitimate NBA prospect.
Early Career
He is the youngest player in this year’s draft class. He’s so young that he barely reached the age requirement. He was born on December 30, 2005. That means there’s not a very big sample size to look at. He’s a mysterious prospect to look at. But there is a lot in that small sample size. He won the Defensive MVP Award during the Basketball Without Borders camp located in Cairo, Egypt in 2022. Back in December he and his close friend Khaman Maluach (a Duke commit and a projected top 3 pick in next year’s draft) represented the NBA Academy Africa very well at the G League Winter Showcase, leading the team to two wins that impressed the many NBA executives and scouts that were in attendance.
Strengths
All of the talk around Ulrich Chomche is about the enormous amount of potential that he has. Sports Illustrated has called him one of the best all-around athletes in this year’s draft class. He has elite physical tools while standing at 6’11” and has a 7 foot 4 inch wingspan. He has excellent mobility for someone of his size, which is very valuable for the kind of player that he is in today’s NBA. While playing in different events and in three games in the Basketball Africa League he showed his elite defensive skills, especially his shot-blocking ability. Chomche’s ceiling on defense is very high. Due to his great athleticism and mobility, he can develop into an elite rim protector (as he’s already shown) as well as being able to guard smaller players out on the perimeter.
He has shown some great flashes of offensive potential, but he isn’t there yet. But those flashes reveal what kind of player he could be with time to develop and get better with the best coaches and players in the world.
Weaknesses
Chomche is incredibly raw. That was known. Then reports from the Nike Hoops Summit in April indicated that he may be even more raw than previously thought. He is almost certainly going to start his career in the G League. With how raw of a prospect he is there are currently a lot of holes in his game on offense. He needs to shoot better more consistently. He can also be turnover-prone. Chomche needs to improve some of his fundamental skills as well.
NBA Comparison
It is hard to make a comparison right now. The best one could be sort of like Nic Claxton. Like Chomche, Claxton needed a couple of years of development after being drafted nad has now become a very solid starting center.
2024 NBA Draft Projection
Ulrich Chomche could be selected anywhere from the late first round to one of the last few picks overall. He would be the first NBA Academy Africa graduate to be selected.
