Alex Sarr: The (un)disputed Number One

The Frenchman is not your typical NBA center, nor your typical first overall pick, but that doesn't mean that he can't be the best player in the draft.

Alex Sarr is the top player on our Big Board, and as of April 11th, he was the only player that was ranked number one by more than one mainstream big board. In the jumbled mess that is the 2024 NBA Draft field, Sarr is the closest thing to a consensus number one that we have.

The discourse around Sarr, however, doesn’t feel like the type of discourse that we generally have around the players projected to be selected with the first overall pick. There’s little hype and much reluctance to crown Sarr as the top guy in the draft, which, in my opinion, has to do with the fact that neither the average NBA center nor the power forward looks or plays like Alex Sarr does.

Sarr is by all means a skinny center, currently listed at 7’1” and 216 pounds. Let’s use current NBA players to put it in perspective, filtering for every player 6’11” or taller who’s listed under 230 pounds.

Now, let’s filter out some names. We take out Skapintsev first, who played a grand total of two minutes in his career so far. Then, we remove players who have decidedly different archetypes to Sarr’s—namely, Aldama and Petrusev, who weren’t really drafted as full-time rim protectors, and Jabari, who was drafted as a forward/big wing.

That leaves us with two (future) stars (Victor Wembanyama and Chet Holmgren), an impact player (Evan Mobley), a solid starter (Nic Claxton), two perpetual projects (Bol Bol and Aleksej Pokusevski), and a career benchwarmer (Jaxson Hayes).

In this piece, we’ll use those players with a similar body type and their pre-draft profiles as a sample to shed some light on where Sarr stands among them, and find out if their careers can be indicators of a path to NBA success for Sarr.

---

When talking about the projected number one pick, we need to remember that teams at the top of the draft are generally more risk-averse than we think. That’s how Andrew Wiggins goes over Joel Embiid, how Ben Simmons goes over Brandon Ingram and how Deandre Ayton goes over Luka Doncic. In each case, teams decided to take a player with a higher floor over the player with the higher upside because historically, high-risk bets have not been made with the number one pick. 

Before we get to his ceiling, then, we need to understand Sarr’s floor, which has a lot to do with his defensive impact.

Sarr has the optimal physical tools to protect the rim, standing at 7’1” with a 7’5” wingspan; he wreaks havoc around the rim with his size, length, mobility, and quickness to react to plays happening in his vicinity.

With his combination of physical tools and awareness, Sarr was able to block 3.1 shots per 36 minutes and keep opponents to 0.830 Points Per Shot around the basket: marks that compare favorably to a good number of players in the sample. In addition, Sarr has one of the lowest foul rates in the sample, thanks to his quickness and accuracy to target and find the ball for blocks.

His rim protection was especially important for Perth, a team that was downright atrocious at containing dribble penetration and needed Sarr to do a lot as a help defender around the basket. He was routinely acting as the low man, rotating from the weak side corner to contest shots.

It was a matter of scheme for Perth: with most teams in the NBL having the spacing to play five-out, it’s understandable that Perth’s strategy centered around contesting the three-point shot. It was, however, also a matter of necessity, as Perth didn’t have other playable bigs on roster. Sarr had to play most of his minutes alongside former Arizona forward Keanu Pinder, who is decidedly a four and does very little in terms of helpside rim protection.

The scheme proved to be somewhat successful for Perth, as they held opponents to 32.3% from three-point range. In turn, they provided zero help from the strong side corner on drives, and roll men were rarely tagged. That left Sarr to his own devices cleaning up whatever he could once opponents got to the paint.

It’s no wonder, then, that Perth was one of the worst defensive teams in the league when it came to defending pick-and-roll roll man plays, giving up 1.137 points per possession, according to Synergy. However, they compensated by limiting those plays to only a 5.6% share of all defensive play types. On the other hand, Perth was one of the best defensive teams when it came to pick-and-roll ball-handler play types, where they held opponents to 0.787 points per possession.

Perth’s most efficient scheme against pick-and-roll plays was switching, which had a lot to do with Sarr’s amazing ability to move his feet and stay in front of ball-handlers, containing penetration and forcing opponents into difficult pull-ups.

Sarr is at his best when he’s at the level (i.e. one arm behind the level where the screen was set), as he had some issues when defending the player right by the line of scrimmage. It’s not because of a lack of quickness or mobility; it’s about positioning. Sarr has a tendency to align too close to the screen, if not right behind it, which took him out of plays and made it possible for quicker players to beat him by turning the corner.

When opponents are able to get by him, Sarr doesn’t give up on plays, being quick to turn his hips and move laterally, staying attached to ball-handlers on their way to the rim. If drivers are quick enough to get a step on him, he’s able to recover with chasedown blocks. His size also comes into play here. While he’s skinny, he’s still 7’1”, and drivers had a hard time creating any sort of space out of physicality against him. 

Sarr might be the rare case of a seven-footer who is more effective in switches than in drop, a coverage in which the Frenchman was usually unsuccessful. This was, in part, a by-product of Perth’s scheme: with no help from anywhere in pick-and-rolls, Sarr was defending one-on-two on these scenarios. On the other hand, drop coverage put one of Sarr’s limitations on display, which is his lack of elite vertical pop when he’s backtracking or at a standstill, which made him exploitable on lob plays that he wasn’t able to disrupt.

Now that we’ve established Sarr’s spot as a player who is tasked with contesting absolutely every shot at the rim while also being a key cog in a switch-heavy machine, it’s easy to understand one of the reasons why Sarr wasn’t able to dominate the defensive glass: he was simply never in a position to do so.

The numbers being so low for his size and role, however, indicate that there are clearly aspects where he could improve. Sarr could certainly be more active flying in from the perimeter and helping with rebounding, something that doesn’t show on tape nearly enough. Nevertheless, it wouldn’t surprise me if this was also the result of the scheme of a team that, as I mentioned previously, didn’t assign a ton of (human) resources to interior defense.

When it comes to rebounding, the biggest room for improvement is a physical one: he needs to get stronger. While he’s a high-motor player who fights for rebounds and positioning inside, his impact around the basket can be limited by his lack of strength. He’s skinny, as we established, but also possesses thin legs and a high center of gravity, which makes it hard for him to establish position and hold his own against opponents in the paint.

It’s no surprise that Sarr was simply out-muscled by opponents at times. When watching the offensive rebounds given up by Perth during the season, it’s telling that a good number of Sarr’s lowlights happened against fellow draft prospect Ariel Hukporti, one of the strongest and most imposing players in the NBL who collected 10 offensive rebounds in 47 total minutes of play this season against Perth.

Even with his physical limitations and despite what the numbers suggest, I still think there’s untapped potential as a defensive rebounder for Sarr, and the main reason is that the Frenchman was the best offensive rebounder of the sample, with some margin.

The main reason why Sarr was so prolific as an offensive rebounder is that, despite not being the strongest nor the most explosive athlete off a standstill, he possesses tremendous quickness to identify and position himself in the open space. He utilizes this ability in the offensive glass by finding the gaps in coverage around the rim, and getting to the optimal spots to get rebounds.

This quickness to find the open spaces and the issues to create space for himself are two characteristics that permeate through Sarr’s entire offensive profile.

When it comes to scoring in the paint, Sarr moves really well without the basketball and makes himself available in the dunker spot for easy catch-and-finish opportunities near the rim, showing great timing and awareness to create separation from his defender, finding the optimal time and place to receive the ball.

The offensive rebounding and the catch-and-finish opportunities in the restricted area have been, by far, the most consistent aspects of his scoring profile as of this point, because his offensive output in other areas has been concerning.

Among the sample, Sarr has one of the lowest percentages of rim attempts that are dunks with 28.6%. More concerningly, he had really low efficiency in rolls to the basket, where he generated only 0.938 points per possession, according to Synergy.

In order to understand the origin of Sarr’s limitations as an interior finisher, we need to first go on a small tangent and look at what he’s able to do in space, with and without the ball in his hands.

Sarr is an impressive play finisher in transition whose elite level of open-court speed allows him to beat opponents and get to the rim with a ton of momentum for easy baskets. If Sarr receives the ball early in transition, he’s also able to utilize his above-average fluidity as a ball-handler to get by opponents on his way to the rim.

Even if Sarr is a fairly fluid ball-handler for his massive height, he does have his limitations. He’s not exactly upright with the ball in his hands, but he’s not able to get low with his dribble in the way that, for instance, Wembanyama is able to. This makes his dribble a bit rigid and, at times, causes him to turn the ball over as his body moves faster than his dribble allows him to.

The ball slows Sarr down to a degree, and it becomes difficult for him to generate momentum when he’s forced to dribble, which combined with his inability to generate enough power or quickness with his first and second steps, limits him as a drive creator. This allows quicker bigs and stronger forwards to stay in front of him and force him into tough “let’s-just-throw-it-up-and-see-what-happens” type of floaters.

Sarr is clearly at his best when he catches the ball in stride, where he’s able to generate enough power and utilize his size to create space against opponents and get to the rim. As skinny as he is, if he’s covered by opposing wings or forwards, Sarr can utilize the size difference to create space on drives out of sheer physicality. In these situations, Sarr also proves to be a mismatch for opposing bigs, being quick to identify the open space and utilizing dribble moves and footwork to get to his spots.

This aspect is the main cause of Sarr’s limitations as a pick-and-roll finisher. He’s not always able to generate enough power when catching the ball inside the arc, which combined with his difficulties to generate space against contact due to his lack of strength, makes it easy for opponents to contest and force him into tough shots.

It’s not surprising that Sarr also has limitations to create his own shot in crowded spaces, namely the low post, where his aforementioned lack of strength and high center of gravity, makes him unable to back down opponents in the paint, forcing him into tough, contested looks.

Some of the most intriguing and highlight-worthy flashes of his game, however, occur in these post-up situations, where he’s able to drain fadeaway turnaround jumpers, or utilize his handle to create space against defenders for mid-range pull-ups.

Sarr took 1.9 dribble jumpers per 36 minutes, according to Synergy, and made 48.3% of them, with a large majority of these shots coming from inside the arc—21 of his 29 total attempts.

Looking at his flashes of tough shotmaking from the mid-range, where he shows an interesting level of touch off-balance and off-the-dribble, it’s hard not to be excited about its potential translation to his general touch on jumpers and his overall upside as a shooter despite his percentages from three-point range.

While there are certainly things that could be fixed, I believe that Sarr’s mechanics are workable, and the key area for improvement might be how he gets into his shot. While I’m not a shot doctor, it’s clear that Sarr rarely looks fluid when he’s setting his feet and preparing the jump shot; you can almost see him going down the mental checklist of what he needs to do before getting his jumper off.

One of the reasons why Sarr was better in dribble jumpers than in catch-and-shoot attempts is that he was rarely able to cash in when his strong foot was already set by the time he caught the ball. The catch-and-shoot jumpers that he hit came mostly in situations where, just like on dribble jumpers, he had to set both feet after catching the ball. In these situations, Sarr’s jumper looks more fluid, like setting his feet after catching the ball, whether he takes a dribble or not, helps him get into his rhythm.

Does this mean that I think he’s going to become an above-average shooter at the next level? That depends on a lot of factors — namely training, time and repetition. Regardless, I do think that the ability to hit tough dribble jumpers is a good indicator of him having the tools to become at least a better shooter off-the-catch than his shooting percentages during the 2023-24 season would suggest.

The final aspect of his offense is the passing. Sarr spent his formative years in Real Madrid, the same team that trained Luka Doncic and Juan Nuñez into becoming two of best passers in the international game over the last ten years. It’s no wonder that the playmaking chops are there. Even if he won’t do a ton of live-dribble passing, mostly due to the limitations of his ball-handling in traffic, he’s someone who has the feel for the game to react to plays, and make the right reads from the post and in short rolls.

While Sarr didn’t put up a number of assists that would suggest that he should be able to do any type of offensive initiation at the NBA level, Sarr has a neutral assist-to-turnover ratio and is one of the players in the sample with the lowest turnover rate. The numbers correlate with what we see on tape, which is a player who plays with his head up, is aware of open teammates, understands the importance of the extra pass, and is able to make the right play consistently.

Outlook

The intention behind utilizing a sample of current NBA players was to remind ourselves of where they were as prospects heading into their pre-draft process and how Sarr stacks up, both against the ones that are currently succeeding and the ones that didn’t live up to the spot in the draft where they were selected.

Looking at the numbers and the film, there aren’t many areas in which Sarr is clearly lagging behind the crowd, and in some of them, he’s clearly ahead of the pack: he’s one of the best interior defenders and the best perimeter defender in the group.

His absolute floor, then, is a versatile 7’1” defender who also adds value on offense with his transition finishing, his offensive rebounding, and his feel for the game. For all the reluctance and in some cases, the sheer negativity around the fact that Sarr is a likely candidate for the number one overall pick, he offers one of the highest floors in this class.

The areas in which he statistically lags behind the sample will be the swing factors. One of them is the defensive rebounding, which could be mitigated by a scheme that offers a minimum of defensive help around the basket. The other is the finishing at the rim, which is the biggest concern when you consider not only the sub-par percentages but also the lack of versatility in his interior offensive repertoire.

If he develops in these areas and turns some of the flashes of perimeter game into semi-consistent weapons at the NBA level, Sarr goes from defensive specialist with a modicum of offensive production to a two-way impact player who would be a solid starter for nearly every team in the league.

The question then, of him being worthy or not of a #1 pick depends on how much you project that he will be able to improve starting next year.

You are, of course, allowed to be pessimistic, but before ruling out any potential development from Sarr, remember that he’s the third youngest player in the sample, being a full year younger than Holmgren and Claxton were heading into the draft.

Even with his current strengths and flaws, Sarr is not the final product; nobody is at 19 years old. His age should indicate that there’s room for him to take many steps in his development.

In a vacuum, if a 7’1” guy with the size, agility, defensive versatility, and perimeter flashes that Sarr offers were available, you would take that prospect pretty high in most drafts, namely somewhere in the Top 5.

I understand that there are different strokes for different folks and that other people might prefer other prospects, but in a draft without a surefire generational prospect à la Victor or even a clear number one like Cade or Paolo, there’s not a significant enough weakness that should bar Sarr from being at the top.