2024 NBA Draft Scouting Report: Pacome Dadiet

With all the buzz labeling the 2024 NBA Draft a weak one, it has created opportunities for plenty of prospects to rise - or fall. One prospect who has capitalized on this is Ratiopharm UIm’s Pacome Dadiet. The French wing was not a regular in the defending German champion's rotation to start the season but earned a spot early on and blossomed in it. 

His physique is impressive for his age and a real asset in the European game. He’s strong, long, and has decent speed for his size. Ulm regularly tasked him with guarding opposing wings and guards. He had his highs and lows, occasionally making his opponent's life very difficult on that end of the floor, and the lows mainly came against guards. More on that later. With the flashes he’s shown defensively many are buying in on Dadiet’s upside there, but there’s plenty of cause for caution too. 

Heading into this season, most concerns about Dadiet’s game were on offense. Would he become a reliable enough jump shooter? Would he develop touch around the rim to pair with his athleticism to improve as a finisher? Was his handle tight enough? As teams respected his shot more would he learn to cut and score in other ways?

Dadiet answered these questions sufficiently this season, helping Ulm to another strong showing in the German Basket Bundesliga — albeit, they did not repeat as champions. His offense is not elite, but checks the boxes of what you need him allowing interested teams to consider betting on defensive upside. 

Dadiet has improved throughout the season and hit new peaks in the closing stretch. His play has locked him into almost every respectable mock draft out there and even gotten him into the first round of others. Comparisons to fellow Frenchmen Zaccharie Risacher trying to equate the two have occurred but are largely rooted in recency bias. Risacher had a cold stretch while Dadiet had a hot one. But comparing the two is a pointless exercise. Each is their own player, with their own skills and mentality that NBA teams will be looking to learn more about as the 2024 NBA Draft inches closer. 

Pacome Dadiet NBA Draft bio

Height: 6-foot-8

Wingspan: 6-foot-9

Standing reach: 8-foot-11

Weight: 210

Birthdate: July 27, 2005

Position: Wing

Offensive Role: Floor spacer and cutter

Defensive Role: Secondary stopper and general disruptor

Projected draft range: Late first to anywhere in the second round

NBA Draft Highlights

Strengths: 

Dadiet cemented his spot in Ulm’s rotation by becoming a reliable off-ball threat, who could play off Juan Nunez pick-and-rolls, who can knock down spot-up 3s, attack closeouts, and even showcase some well-timed cuts. He shot 36 percent from deep this season on 137 attempts across all competitions but shot 44 percent on 52 no-dribble spot-up attempts per Synergy Sports. 

He’s got good form, a bit of a dip but a good-looking release overall. He was 40 percent on guarded spot-up attempts and 50 percent unguarded, decent splits overall. He gets a lot of his looks from the wing and seems most comfortable there. For a young player, he has great timing on his lifts from the corner to the wing for catch-and-shoot opportunities. It’s an impressive skill for his age. 

Dadiet can attack closeouts too, again, especially from the wing. A lot of his offense comes from the wings generally. He’s very direct as a driver so far and doesn’t really change direction or finish as aggressively as you’d like him to but he has shown he can finish with both hands, make the occasional good pass when drive help comes, and even has a floater and midrange game he’s developing. 

The one area where Dadiet regularly uses his physical attributes to the best of their ability is in transition. He runs the floor well with the ball, and without it, and has better court vision in this environment too. He regularly looks to push the ball ahead and fill in at speed as a trailer. 

On defense, Dadiet has less guarantees. There are flashes of stellar on-ball defense and moments where he positions himself perfectly to help and make a play. But it’s mostly flashes, and not consistent with there being plenty of rough moments on this side of the ball. This is completely understandable for a prospect who will be 18 on draft night, but worth highlighting given the comparisons to Risacher some have floated — who has been consistently elite on the defensive end pretty much all season. 

Dadiet does guard his position well. His on-ball defense versus other wings is incredibly reliable. He confidently matched up with Vladimir Lucic and Isaac Bonga in their games against Bayern Munich this season, two high-level wings overseas. You’d like him to be more physical, but he moves his feet well for his size allowing him to comfortably stay in front of his man and contest without fouling on drives, something he’s developed a knack for. 

Weaknesses: 

As we begin to discuss weaknesses, let’s stay with defense. As we said before, Dadiet guards his positional class well especially on ball. So well, that Ulm has tasked him with guarding down this season and taking on opponent point guards. In their games against Bayern Munich, they had him take on Sylvain Francisco — one of the quickest and smoothest guards in Europe. He held his own a couple of times. 

But also got cooked a couple of times. Again, Francisco is the top end of quickness and shiftiness for European guards, and Dadiet is only 18, so perhaps expecting lockdown defense is excessive. That’s fair, but in matchups against middling Bundesliga teams, he struggled to stay in front of their guards too. 

What’s most concerning in these clips is how slowly Dadiet opens his hips. It almost looks like he’s dragging it open to try to slide with his match-up, instead of popping it open and getting into his slide quicker and using his size advantage to cover more ground. He doesn’t shift quickly generally, when he slides in one direction it seems to take him an extra split-second to balance and slide back the other way. 

Dadiet struggles with physicality at times too, and appears to not be as strong as he looks. There are a few examples of opponents simply bullying him on drives to the rim, and just barreling him down until they can get a shot off. 

Dadiet’s off-ball defense doesn’t grade out too differently. Again, he has moments where he anticipates well, reads the game, positions himself to make the right play, and does so! In one clip below he’s ahead of rotations and offers a strong contest that forces a miss on a Carsen Edwards drive, and on another one, he wisely doesn’t close out on a non-shooter, so when the ball rotates and the corner man drives he ends up going into traffic and committing an offensive foul. 

Those moments of high-level, professional basketball IQ on the defensive end are worth buying in a young prospect but like we said — it’s flashes. There is bad to counter the good here. Dadiet tends to overhelp, in several ways. Sometimes he helps for no reason at all. Sometimes he helps one pass away when he shouldn’t, and sometimes he drifts too far over and can’t rotate back to his man in time. 

His processing speed on this end isn’t great generally. He falls behind on rotations, which isn’t uncommon for young players, but he tends to stay behind when this happens and chase the ball in a circle instead of accurately assessing where help is coming from since he got lost, and where he needs to fill in. He even messes up simple X-out rotations, something that will not be tolerated at the NBA level.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, these might be harsh critiques for such a young prospect who is already playing professionally. They probably are, but it’s worth noting he is very clearly behind in this area compared to Risacher and even Tidjane Salaun. 

Dadiet has shown the most growth on offense this season. At the top, we discussed how he has become a reliable shooter and cutter and has learned how to adequately attack closeouts. His transition game has been impressive too. This has primarily been his role for Ulm — a team that loves to shoot the 3 and has plenty of reliable initiators and creators to take on that responsibility thus making it something Dadiet hasn’t been asked to do often. 

But he has gotten enough minutes this season to end up in situations where he needs to put the ball on the floor more, try to create his offense or initiate, and try to create for others. The skill level he’s shown in this area has varied from somewhat impressive, to not quite concerning. 

His handle, for example, is not bad. It’s tight and mostly under control, he’s not prone to getting stripped and seems to have enough dexterity with both his hands but did seem uncomfortable bringing the ball up against pressure from Andreas Obst who is more known for what he does on the offensive end than the defensive end. 

But Dadiet isn’t someone you’re drafting with the hopes of him becoming a point forward, so ideally he’s not ever bringing the ball up against full-court pressure anywhere close to regularly. In the halfcourt, Dadiet’s handle is better but still not a reliable size-up tool that he can use to generate his own offense or advantages generally. He’s added a bit of a stepback to his bag but it’s not something he can utilize efficiently yet. His crossovers generally lack burst — they don’t shift his defender or create room for him to get separation and attack. Generally, his handle is safe, not sexy. 

Because of the lack of overall creation opportunities, it’s hard to gauge Dadiet as a passer. He’s certainly not a bad one based on what we’ve seen this season. He rushes the occasional decision and makes a turnover, but that’s pretty common for an 18-year-old. 

Dadiet sees most easy passes and makes them, particularly in transition but also in the halfcourt. He usually knows how to find the open man when he makes his wing drives against closeouts if help comes. It’s nothing mind-boggling, and paired with his mediocre handle it seems unlikely that he ever greatly improves as a playmaker but making the right pass regularly is something plenty of pros, even in the NBA, still struggle with. 

Lastly, while Dadiet is a solid spot-up shooter we did not get a good look at his movement shooting this season. Ulm rarely had him come off screens so any teams that work him out should have him take plenty of reps as a movement shooter to see how he does and how his form looks.

Final summary: 

Pacome Dadiet is likely worth the swing anywhere in the second round, and the deeper you get the closer it gets to being a no-brainer. With his skillset primarily being off-ball instead of on-ball, he could also be worth gambling on in the first round if you believe the following about his defense. 

1. His defensive weaknesses are standard for his age.
2. His overall IQ and work ethic will allow him to work through these weaknesses relatively quickly in an NBA environment. 
3. His impressive physique will eventually match his defensive mentality. With experience, his comfort with physicality will grow and he will lean into that side of his game instead of too easily letting others push him around. 

A first-round selection means you fully buy-in to his offensive skillset as well. The spot-up shooting is real, the movement shooting can get there, and his ability to attack closeouts will only get better as he develops as a finisher and begins to make his floater and mid-range pull-ups consistently. And with more space and pace in the NBA, he will only have more opportunities to score in transition and as a cutter. 

That outcome is not far-fetched, and would likely put him in a spot where he could be the fifth or sixth-best player on a potential contending team, maybe even fourth. A good best possible outcome comparison for him is probably OG Anunoby. But to expect that would be unreasonable. Dadiet seems destined to become a reliable NBA role player on the wing who will have his highs and lows throughout his career — something like Reggie Bullock or Jae Crowder. 

That’s good value with a second-round pick and in the right environment, could be the perfect eighth or ninth guy for a team that goes deep into the playoffs. Dadiet is good, and taking a swing on him in this class is understandable, but a warning track fly ball is probably the end here. Not a home run.