After a decent performance at the U18 Eurobasket this summer, Italian winger Dame Sarr has decided to stay with Barcelona for the 2024-25 season. The move was not necessarily a surprise, but it goes against recent trends that see most young players leaving Europe to further their development. It’s hard to say what would make Sarr stay with Barcelona, as the decision has pros and cons.
Sarr is still very young, having turned 18 last June, and that means he still has plenty of time to develop in his career. By choosing to stay at Barcelona, Sarr can take time to focus on himself and dedicate himself to a more personalized training program. He won’t be a regular in Barcelona’s rotation – quite the opposite. But he will have access to the professional facilities and staff that are among the best in Europe. Sarr will have plenty of support in his efforts to improve his shot and handling and refine his game overall. He will have access to fantastic coaches who can ensure he puts on weight properly, stays in shape, bulks up in the right places, and more.
In addition, he will spend a full season with top-class professionals. Jabari Parker, Alex Abrines, Nico Laprovittola, Kevin Punter, Chimezie Metu and many other top-class EuroLeague players will train with him and against him every day. He will learn directly from them and get the chance to see how these players operate on and off the court, and at such a young age he will still be able to learn a lot.
Barcelona has brought a number of players to the NBA over the last quarter century. Marc & Pau Gasol, Anderson Varejao, Mario Hezonja, Alex Abrines, Kostas Papanikolaou, Tibor Pleiss and most recently Tomas Satoransky. An important distinction for Sarr is that most of these players joined Barcelona in their early 20s and played a regular role in the rotation. Most of them spent their development years elsewhere.
This raises questions about Sarr’s decision. While there are developmental benefits to staying at Barcelona, it is highly unlikely that it will do any good to his draft value, which is currently fluctuating. Some mock drafts even have him high in the first round, most in the second round, and some don’t call him at all. By choosing to stay at Barcelona, Sarr’s draft value will likely continue to fluctuate, as almost all assessments of his growth this season will be theoretical.
Why would Sarr want that?
Given the strength of the NBA Draft class, Sarr may not care as much about how high he is selected as he does about who selects him and how open they are to letting him control his development plan for the coming seasons and what that process looks like. Sarr’s goal may be to simply be selected by an NBA franchise of his choice this summer and stay with Barcelona, where he continues his development for several seasons until he becomes a regular in the rotation before eventually moving to the NBA.
Additionally, Sarr could still choose to wait until the 2026, 2027, or 2028 NBA Draft if he so chooses. While his lack of playing time limits Sarr’s ability to directly impact his draft value, he could move up as a number of young players have simply underperformed this season and an NBA team has opted to use their pick as a project on him instead. If the opposite happens and it seems unlikely that he will be drafted at all, Sarr could withdraw and enter a future draft instead.
Diploma:
Dame Sarr has bucked the trend of many European talents leaving the continent to develop further. By staying at Barcelona, he has taken a more patient approach that will maximise the overall number of options available to him for the next few seasons. As such a young and inexperienced talent, it is probably best for Sarr to stay at a club that can offer him everything he needs for his development off the pitch.
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