Sidy Cissoko, the Forgotten G League Ignite Prospect
There is absolutely no doubt who the best NBA Draft prospect is from the G League Ignite, Scoot Henderson, but the conversation around the second best may be more complex than many thought coming into the season.
Leonard Miller was the No. 28 overall prospect in the 2022 recruiting class and by some was going to be the best “Miller” in this NBA Draft class.
Not only has Sidy Cissoko had to battle his teammates for the attention but because of phenom and projected No. 1 overall pick, Victor Wembanyama, and fellow first round prospect Rayan Rupert, he can’t even stake a claim as a top-two prospect out of France in this class.
Cissoko is a 6-foot-7 wing from Saint-Maurice who put together a very successful season for the Ignite that has eventually landed him in some first round discussions. He's still young, just turning 19 on Sunday, averaging 11.6 points per game on shooting splits of 44-31-64 if you add in the entire season stats.
He also proved to be a very good passer, third on the Ignite roster, with 3.1 assists per game to just 1.9 turnovers.
One area that it would be nice to see Cissoko make more of an impact, considering his plus size for his position, is on the boards where he averaged just 2.8 per game.
When comparing him directly to teammate Leonard Miller, Cissoko actually shot better from behind the 3-point line on more attempts. Miller was known for his passing coming out of high school in Canada but Cissoko also averaged more assists with the same amount of turnovers.
Finally, the Frenchmen also averaged more stocks per game than his G League Ignite counterpart.
The thing keeping Cissoko from climbing higher on draft boards probably comes from pinpointing his elite NBA skill. That is probably his defense coming into the league as a rookie but he will have to continue to round out his offensive game to help supplement that.
With that said, he is still a very intriguing prospect that is very much into play in that 25 to 45 range where this 2023 NBA Draft is going to get very interesting.
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