If you walked into the Strasbourg gym before a practice, chances are you’d hear Frank Ntilikina, already first on the floor.
“It was kind of a funny thing. We’d walk in the locker room to get ready to practice and you’d hear someone working. We’d already know who it was before we got on the court,” said A.J. Slaughter, Ntilikina’s teammate on SIG Strasbourg of the LNB Pro A, France’s top men’s professional league.
“We’d say, ‘Man, that’s Frank.'”
Ntilikina, the highly regarded 18-year-old prospect from France, has been on the radar of most NBA decision-makers for the past 12 months. The 6-foot-5 guard with a 7-foot wingspan is projected to be a lottery pick in Thursday night’s NBA draft.
Ntilikina is already well known in his home country. “Frank Ntilikina, clone de Tony Parker?” asked one recent article in the French publication L’Equipe. Any comparison to Parker — the four-time NBA champion and the 28th overall pick in 2001, is premature for a player who hasn’t even suited up in an NBA Summer League game yet. But those around Ntilikina believe he has the physical tools, drive and intellect to one day be in the same conversation as his point guard countryman.
“He shows us flashes that he can be a really good player and he has the talent,” Slaughter says. “He just needs to get in the NBA and get in a system and work with the coaches and on his body. The sky’s the limit for him.”
Whether it’s the New York Knicks, the Dallas Mavericks, or another team with a first-round pick, Ntilikina will get the opportunity to live the NBA life in a few days. Just how he got to this point, though, is a testament to the will of his family and the singular focus that talent evaluators say is increasingly rare among today’s young players. When he does start playing in the big leagues, he will be a popular pick for many peoples fantasy basketball (https://www.fanduel.com/fantasy-basketball) teams.
Ntilikina was born in Belgium in 1998. His family had moved there from Rwanda a few years before his birth. The country had been plagued by a civil war and the atrocities of the Rwandan genocide, and Ntilikina says his mother, Jacqueline Mukarugema, left for Belgium with his two brothers in search of a better life.
“They just had to go,” Ntilikina says.
By Ian Begley
ESPN Staff Writer
