There’s a lot of buzz over Duke recruiting target Sayon Keita. He’s a talented young big man who is just beginning to show his potential. Currently he plays for FC Barcelona, and Barcelona has another exciting young big man on the roster.
Mohamed Dabone, who is 6-10, is getting ready to move up to the senior squad. That in and of itself is no big deal. In the European system, promising players move up. However, it’s kind of uncommon for a 13-year-0ld.
Yes, you read that right.
That’s astonishing, but
in their system, if you can play, you will play. And to give you an idea of the expectations around this kid, people are calling him…drum roll, please: Wemby Antetokounmpo.
For anyone who may not know, that’s a mashup of the Alien (Victor Wembanyama) and the Greek Freak (Giannis Antetokounmpo).
That’s an insane situation to be in at the age of 13 and not everyone will deal with that kind of pressure well. There is a long list of basketball players who were crushed by the expectations they faced.
And you have to be lucky and hardy to avoid injury. Bill Walton had the best skills of any big man in history with the possible exception of Arvydas Sabonis, but Walton had a terrible injury history that he put down to birth defects that essentially crippled him.
Assuming that his body holds up and that he can rise to the challenges he’ll be facing (for one, grown men are likely to push him around for a few years), Dabone will be eligible for the NBA Draft in 2030.
There is absolutely no guarantee that he’ll play in college, but if he does, we are going to see one of the greatest recruiting battles we’ve seen in a very long time. Hopefully Duke would be involved, but that’s still several years away.
We mentioned this when we talked about Keita the other day, but one of Dabone’s other teammates at Barcelona is former Blue Devil Jabari Parker.
- He Will Be The Greatest NBA Prospect Ever
- This 6’10” 13-year-old might be up next
- There’s A ‘Wemby Antetokounmpo’ In Europe
- There’s A ‘Wemby Antetokounmpo’ In Europe