Detroit Pistons: Setting realistic expectations for Sekou Doumbouya

Physical profile

Doumbouya will turn 19 in December and is listed at 6-foot-9 with a 6-foot-11 wingspan and an 8-foot-11 standing reach. To put this into perspective, Siakam, a usual comparison for Sekou, is listed at 6-foot-9.5 with a 7-foot-3.5 and 8-foot-11.5 respectively.

Those measurements are old. Jonathan Givony listed him at 6-foot-9 in his scouting report two and a half years ago. That can only mean two things. Doumbouya hasn’t grown much in two and a half years, which means he probably won’t grow anymore, or the measurements are wrong and he’s already taller than listed. We’ll probably find out which is which when training camp starts.

And he’s strong, says Sean Sweeney to Vince Ellis:

"“He’s strong … at a very young age,” said Sweeney, a Pistons assistant who is running the summer league team for the second straight year. “He has some strength you can feel when you’re going against him doing different things, how much pop he’s got, power. He’s got big hands and obvious athleticism. I think the people have seen in tapes of him or watched him on YouTube. You can see the has some athletic ability."

Doumbouya is a really good athlete. The first thing to notice is his speed in the open court, with or without the ball. He basically treated his opponents like traffic cones. His lateral quickness at that size is fairly impressive and could be his biggest strength going forward.

On the glass, he beat opponents to the ball using quick jumps. He showed an ability to catch balls out of his area but his rebounding numbers were not good at all.

He can explode off of one or two feet with little space to finish over the rim but he didn’t show an elite max vertical. Finishing against NBA contact is always a question with international guys.  He can definitely get up there but I don’t see him being an elite leaper.

However, he does show great quickness on his jumps which is usually more valuable than jumping extremely high. This is an impressive chase down goaltend.

And this is a really quick second jump right there.

Overall, the French teenager seems to be a really fluid athlete with a very strong frame for his age. His combination of speed, agility, jumping ability, size and strength is fairly rare even in the NBA and that’s exactly the reason everybody raves about his potential.  However, we haven’t seen his physical tools used against NBA competition, which is why he is such a mystery.