Youssouf Singare | Scouting Report
I’m Kuzey, 19. I’ve been writing about basketball since I was 9. I have been working in Eurosport Turkey for the last 1,5 years. I have written on various sites and magazines before. I’ve been working as a freelance scout for three years. I worked as a consultant. I have interviewed dozens of prospects such as Theo Maledon, Deni Avdija, Henri Drell, Aleksej Pokusevski, Arturs Kurucs, Yves Pons and dozens of notable basketball people such as Luis Scola, Xavi Pascual, Jonathan Givony, Dimitris Itoudis, Joan Plaza, Sarunas Jasikevicius, Derrick Williams. I write an article every day. I live in Turkey, I go to all the Euroleague and Youth League games. MY BIGGEST GOAL IS SCOUTING! Anyway, don’t forget to follow me on Twitter and feel free to DM!
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Born: 01 May 2003
Height: 6–11
Wingspan: 7–1
Nationality: Mali
I got comments from two teammates about Singare from his national teammates.
“Singare was the most important player of our team in the 2019 African Championship. He is a very talented player but never plays selfishly. He likes to share on the court.”
“We get along well with Youssouf on the court and we get along well off the court. He’s actually very cheerful. He is friendly and loves to spend time with us. I admire his passion for training. He always works hard to be better.”
Physical
Standing 6–10 with an average wingspan and a rapidly improving frame, Youssouf Singare is an explosive athlete who has all dunking and blocking packages. I mean, he can dunk with both hands, one hand, reverse, 270, etc. In my opinion, his physical base looks great. Long arms, long legs, quick feet, quick hands, wide shoulders, stiff core muscles and smooth hip. However, his lack of strength hurt his game. Has average arm strength, also, his lower body looks power but he needs filling out his frame by adding strength to his upper body and gaining muscle. I like his combination of footwork and reverse spin. Singare uses his footwork perfectly while playing a post around the baseline, does reverses with good timing and goes to the basket fluently and finishes the position with explosiveness. In doing so, YS uses his body coordination, hip mobility and long arms very well.
Offense
As you know, many African Cs play with an explosive game understanding in the painted area. These players are effective in post-up. They have a good finishing ability around the basket with smooth movement and dominant last touch. Youssouf Singare is like these players. He doesn’t have a pure ability that can make him special. He can’t shoot, or rather, he doesn’t use. He lousy in FT’s. His prominent features on offense are to play in the painted area quickly, go to the basket with good timing, body coordination and strong first step, play post-up and dunk. As I said, he uses his body coordination and footwork when he playing post up. Singare doesn’t have soft touches around the basket. Usually, he uses rim or is tried short hook shots. He can finish in traffic with pretty impressive vertical pop. My favourite thing about his offense are his motor, second jump and last touch. I mean, I watched all the matches Singare played in the 2019 U16 African Championship and several prep matches. In all these games he got a total of 49 offensive rebounds. He found 24 second-chance points from these rebounds. In 15 positions, he took the contact with good BBIQ (knows how to use his body as a shield) and used FT. While doing this, his motor was always active and the energy in his wrists was very good at the final touch. I mean, although he didn’t have a soft touch, he used the energy on his wrists and made a strong finish. Of course, Singare showed how good his second jump was in all these positions. Knows play cuts with high BBIQ and uses his footwork well. I mean, he uses PF’s screen and runs the corner spacing, takes the ball and finishes the position with high energy. He is an average roller. He does good screens but cannot roll with good timing and also cannot roll good place in opponent team’s spacing. He is not a trailer or good runner in transition. As I said, his shooting is awful. He doesn’t have the pure talent to make him a good player in the NBA, but he can use traditional C skills well. So I think he might be a good player at the European level.
Defense
I think Youssouf Singare is one of the best defenders among the 2003-born African C’s. He can use his explosiveness athlectisim tools on defense. He’s a very good defender around the rim. Singare’s hand-eye coordination is good, block timing is almost perfect, and YS knows how to use his body when defending around the rim. I mean, he made good use of his wingspan+footwork around the perimeter and his hip mobility around the baseline in some matches as his opponent went to the basket. Youssouf has a game intelligence that allows him to close the shot angle of his opponent in mid-range and three-point shots. He reacts correctly to the shooting fake, keeping one hand on top and the other on the bottom, using his vertical pop in a balanced way while his man using shot. Singare is a player that I want to follow his opponents around screens in off-ball games. Because Singare can move around the screens very quickly and accurately. Not good at PnR and switch defenses. Lack of strength hurt him on PnR defense. I mean, he can’t follow roller strongly after PnR. When his opponent’s contact game accelerates, he cannot react well to it. On defense, his motor is high but inconsistent, his stance is unbalanced and sometimes does unnecessary help defense. For these reasons, Singare causes big problems on defense of his team during the switch defense. He cannot move well laterally. I am a big fan of his rebounding. He can grab a lot of rebound both offense and defense thanks to his average BBIQ, vertical pop, second jump, impressive ground balance after the pop and eye-hand coordination. He is a really good rebounder. In my opinion, he hasn’t any cons about rebounding.
Summary
I don’t believe this kid can be a good player in the NBA. I know, he is 17 years old but career projection is more suitable for Europe. I believe his effectiveness around the painted area and his protection skills around the basket will make Youssouf Singare a good C in Europe.