Bilal Coulibaly

Coulibaly is an interesting case in that he has a good base of skills and was a bit of a Jekyll & Hyde where he was very aggressive and showed more creation and passing instinct in the junior league and then was a lot more passive in Jeep Elite.  Now, that’s expected both because the competition is better and it’s not a surprise that Coulibaly couldn’t execute at the same level as an 18 year old in a top tier league.  But also because the Metropolitans 92s were competing for a title and were led by a fringe prospect named Victor Wembanyama, so it’s also natural that when Coulibaly joined at midseason he sought to fit in.

With that context, offensively, we saw a very mixed bag from Coulibaly offensively.  He has decent handles for a wing, but they are fairly loose.  In LNB Espoirs, they let him run a lot of P&R on his possession to try to help free him up.  At his best, Coulibaly could use his quick and long strides to get to the hoop quickly and convert.  But when the defense recovered or he had to create for himself, he had a decent first step, but his moves were basically a quick straight line drive or pretty rudimentary crossover or behind the back move that didn’t prove to be very elusive.  It doesn’t help that Coulibaly’s shot is also still very inconsistent.  In rhythm, Bilal is a pretty solid shooter.  The release on his jumper can be a little long and funky, but he can convert.  However, he is not at a movement shooter yet at all and really struggles off the dribble, even airballing multiple shots that didn’t appear heavily contested.   When Coulibaly did get free, he was a mixed bag around the rim when there was any congestion.  Bilal has strong fluidity, long arms, and good hang time.  When his body and brain were in sync, he had some impressive finishes.  Other times, he looked like a bit of a flailing mess tossing up wild shots.  Basically, he has good physical tools, but doesn’t yet know how to use them and at times seems to jump into traffic and hope for the best.  Coulibaly is decently active without the ball, relocating along the perimeter and cutting inside when there is a seam.  He is a good lob target and his tools seem well suited to scoring in space or with a light contest in these more simplified situations.  Same with crashing the glass, where Bilal’s fluidity and body control allowed for some highly acrobatic put backs and dunks.  Coulibaly shows some upside as a passer, he had more of an opportunity in LNB Espoirs, but he could struggle with even fairly basic entry passes and just had too many sloppy turnovers even on basic swings around the perimeter and on inbound passes.  He needs some real improvement to his awareness.

Defense is a very similar story.  Mostly great tools, but mixed understanding.  Coulibaly has long arms that help him contest shots inside and out and to create some congestion around the rim.  He has a solid motor and will hustle back on the break where his open court speed and long arms help make him a nuisance around the hoop.  And he can use his quick hands and long arms to get into passing lanes or pick ball handlers.  He has good physical tools for defense, his long arms, good closing speed, and good lateral speed can help him contest shots on the perimeter in rotation and make him strong defending in isolation, where he has a good ability to change direction and can jump quickly, allowing him to stay in front of ball handlers and contest counters like step backs.  But again, the awareness at this stage seems low and he overhelps and leaves his man for threes, gets caught in no man’s land hurting the defense, struggles to navigate screens and takes poor angles.  There were a couple of screens where Coulibaly just reflexively goes around it and his man rejects the screen and pops to the corner and Bilal is just looking around completely lost.  He’s also not the most physical player and doesn’t show much fight around screens, either getting caught up or even just stopping.  Now he does try.  he does rotate.  He does tag rollers and dive into the key to help.  He just loses his man in the process and doesn’t always use sound judgement.  This is pretty much the pattern, I could keep listing the good (he closes out on shooters) and they are all a bit offset by poor awareness or inexperience (he runs at them and is very vulnerable to fakes).  More than anything, the question is if he can learn and get the game to slow down.