Ilias Kamardine Scouting Notes: EuroCup Opener
Dijon beat Dinamo Zagreb in the EuroCup opener earlier this week, and 2025 prospect Ilias Kamardine was a young player in the spotlight
Ilias Kamardine withdrew from the 2024 NBA Draft to play one final season overseas before becoming automatically eligible for the 2025 NBA Draft. He moved up from the French B League, Ilias Kamardine moved up to Dijon into the top French league. I watched his first game of the season in the EuroCup against Dinamo Zagreb to see what changes he made to his game and how he looks ahead of his auto-eligible draft year in 2025. He turns 21 next week and will be one of the youngest auto-eligible players in the 2025 NBA Draft. Against Dinamo Zagreb, Kamardine recorded five points on 2-4 shooting with zero rebounds, two assists, one turnover, and one block in 14 minutes.
International games are a unique scout for prospects because their margin for error is slim, and the context of their minutes matters significantly more than a prospect playing fringe minutes in most stateside contexts. Early in the season, coaches are seeing if they can trust players to simply not make mistakes, and to see what they can do when assigned on-ball duties, both offensively and defensively. With this, the first test I look for when watching these games is to see how disciplined they are away from the ball. Defensively, this is much more obvious to tell by seeing how they stick with their man, if they gamble poorly or accurately on a game-to-game basis, and what their fouls look like. Offensively, sometimes players will be passive and wait for the ball to come to them while refusing to leave the corners they are assigned to start each possession. Many veteran teammates are reluctant to pass to the young guys, which makes these young players’ usage much lower than if they played stateside.
A side note: maybe this contributes to the wave of so many international prospects coming to play college basketball in recent years? How guys move to the ball and force involvement in a calculated manner can really pop because of this in such limited minutes.
Let’s dive into the film and take a look at how Kamardine did against Dinamo Zagreb in the EuroCup game from Tuesday on each end:
Offense:
Kamardine’s offense didn’t have much chance to pop, given the above context about usage, role, and minutes. The two areas of note I saw stand out in this game were shooting and playmaking, each with one positive and one negative.
Starting with shooting, Kamardine’s indicators are a mixed bag. In 2023-24 in the French B League, Kamardine shot 72.7% from the free throw line and 30.8% from 3 with good volume on both. The prior two years he shot 35% from three and 77% from the line in 21-22, and 34.4% from three and 78.8% from the line in 22-23. Below is his full statistical profile since 2019:
All this being said, the mixed bag was apparent on a tiny small sample of two jumpers. The first one was a three over the contest, despite an almost unnecessary stutter, but ultimately showing an ability to shoot over length with good form. The second shot he is too sped up, feeling the pressure from the late clock situation. He catches the ball with 4 seconds left (don’t be confused by the 0.4, this is how the presentation is for some odd reason at this point in the game as you can count 1 second at a time in sync with the clock) and tries a no dip three without properly aligning his whole body. This rushed situation results in sacrificed mechanics, including his elbow poking out, no follow through, and an unnecessarily kicked out right knee. Even the best shooters in the world would struggle to make a shot with those three errors over a contest.
The last two plays feature playmaking, and this part is quite the mixed bag. Last year was a breakthrough year as a playmaker, taking a jump in assists without a noticeable increase in turnovers. His assist:turnover ratio mostly maintained, with a minor .04 increase from 1.83 to 1.87 in a volume jump that came with a 400 minute increase year-over-year.
The first clip ends in an assist, and I think this one is quite subjective. Kamardine gets the ball at the halfcourt line out of his teammate’s double team which gave him an opportunity to take advantage of a scrambled defense. As soon as he completes his first dribble, the middle is wide open for not even a full second before the defender realizes the opening, leaving the far corner more open with a defender still searching where to commit to. While Kamardine could have gone to the middle on a risky pass, he ultimately doesn’t give away that he sees the opposite court pass, giving the shooter a choice on whether to reset or attack immediately with seven seconds left on the clock. Kamardine could improve this play by getting the ball more accurately to the shooter's preferred shooting pocket. Instead of the receiver having to catch the ball high, dip the ball down and then shoot, a more direct pass would give the shooter more time to get off a less contested shot.
The final play in this clip is rather simple: don’t dribble into a crowd, especially when there is no plan in place of how to get out of it. This was not a situation where the team as a whole had an advantage, given that all the Zagreb players are in the picture without Dijon’s whole team being there. The right move here is to be patient and wait for the offense to be even in order to improvise or run a set play, but instead Kamardine gets sped up trying to take his man one-on-one. Not only does he not gain any separation or advantage on the drive as his defender reads his move, but he also loses the handle going into the heart of the defense, forcing a five-on-one without control of the ball. This was Kamardine’s last possession of the game, as the coach immediately went for the sub after the ball was turned over. Ultimately this feels like a mistake rooted in being the youngest player in the game and being sped up, so this isn’t a red flag yet. As long as plays like this are few and far in between, he will be okay. Minimizing turnovers and at the least maintaining his near 2:1 assist:turnover ratio in the top French league will go a long way for his draft stock, which starts in resolving the mistakes in these two plays.
Defense:
As I mentioned before, discipline is a test for young players on quality professional teams, and this game was a bit of a mixed bag for Kamardine. There were too many times in his small sample of minutes that he made disciplinary mistakes on defense, which will be one of his biggest areas for improvement for his upcoming games.
Starting with the positives, while this first play is simple, I like how Kamadine controls the possession as the defender. While the play starts out as a negative with an unnecessary reach 50+ feet away from the rim, Kamardine makes up for the gamble with smart halfcourt defense. The ball-handler is in wait-and-see mode, trying to catch Kamardine off guard on the ball with flexibility to keep the offense moving. Ultimately, Kamardine forces the pass and successfully does his job as a defender. He isn’t able to do too much in a position to dig as the slasher drives near him, and fully leaving his man to get there likely would’ve resulted in a foul or no change.
Unfortunately, the first play is where the positives end. Most of the game, Kamardine was blending in and holding his own away from the ball. Screens, discipline, and movement around screens threw him off, which are common in the upcoming plays.
In the second play, Kamardine gets back in transition and loses his assignment and realizes the fact that he can’t get a good contest, so he lazily runs over to the shooter. Despite the miss, this was still a sloppy possession, and he should have found a way to try to get back in position to get the rebound.
The third clip goes back to the discipline element. Right away he reaches, somewhat forces a loose handle that leads to a pass out to the corner, but if he had stayed disciplined and focused more on reading the next move he would have been in much better position to get a look at picking off the pass he jumps for. Instead, he is too late (also in part because he lost his balance for a moment) and cannot intercept the pass. Again, plays like these are minor, but the habits add up.
Lastly, this is where discipline and defensive navigation move into the spotlight as improvement areas for Kamardine. He rotates into stopping the roll man’s path, then makes a good play to take away any drive from the new ball-handler, but is late to recognize the next rotation since his teammate left him out to dry. While this isn’t the most detrimental mistake, what is detrimental and alarming to NBA teams is what happens on the second chance points. Kamardine idly watches the ball and makes no effort to prevent the open player standing under the basket from getting the ball. This is especially disappointing because he is already in the vicinity below the rim, making this an easily avoidable mistake.
Impressions:
Kamardine looked the part of a 6’4 guard, if not bigger. I expect his frame to measure quite positively at the Combine in May.
Discipline came and went overall; a few times he was caught out of position both against spot-ups on the perimeter and by his own disciplinary mistakes on-ball. This will be a swing skill for him with coaches.
Getting consistent mechanics when having to play sped up against tight contests will be a key point of development this season in the top French league.
I’m more invested than I was last season in Kamardine’s game, thanks to getting a good feel for him during last year’s process before he withdrew from the Draft. How he plays in his worst statistical games will be more telling, but I’d like to see him fill in and run point guard more like he did in the U20s last year and in the French B League last season.
He seemed to handle the low usage role well in this game, but it is hard to make a long-term reaction to anything based on the season debut. Going from being a high usage (19+ USG% almost every pro year on record) to this low usage role is humbling, and forces him to be more calculated in every move.