Italian Center Prospect Mouhamed Faye Inks Deal With Paris Basketball for Next Season

Mouhamed Faye likely would've heard his name called late in the second round of the 2025 NBA Draft. The 6-foot-11 Italian center prospect was coming off his second straight impressive professional season and only turned 20 back in February. He started the majority of Reggio Emilia's games over the last two seasons across all competitions - the Italian Lega A and the Basketball Champions League last season.

Faye averaged 9 points, 6.8 rebounds, and 1.5 blocks per game across all competitions last season. He's an old-school center archetype, old school for modern-day basketball, that is. He's an athletic, high-energy, screen-setting, and rim-rolling big man. He brings a vertical threat if he has a point guard who can throw lobs, and is a solid rim protector at the other end who is also capable of switching out onto the perimeter. Paris Basketball got the most out of veteran center Kevarrius Hayes last season due to elite guard play from T.J. Shorts and Nadir Hifi.

Hayes left for AS Monaco, and Shorts left for Panathinaikos. Faye has restocked the center position alongside Belgian big man Ismael Bako, who spent the last two seasons in Russia with club UNICS Kazan. Bako will bring experience, but Faye will likely be seen as a player Paris hopes blossoms into a high-level starter, given the shake-up the club has undergone. Not only did star guard Shorts leave, as well as Hayes, but so did head coach Tiago Splitter, who has joined the Portland Trailblazers as an assistant coach.

New head coach Francesco Tabellini is making a huge step up, coming over from the lowly Czech league - where he was a huge success - to EuroLeague and France's LNB Pro A. Him and Faye will both be in an environment to prove themselves, and while their resumes may raise doubts there is no denying that Paris Basketball's bets have paid off the last few seasons. Splitter was a great head coaching hire, and so was Tuomas Iisalo before him, who is now the head coach of the Memphis Grizzlies. Many of their players, such as Shorts, have also gone on to sign more lucrative deals with bigger clubs in Europe.

Faye has a chance to start, or at least be Paris' most-trusted center (starting means less in European basketball), and NBA teams will want to see improvement on the offensive end. While Faye's energy, screen-setting, and vertical threats are appealing, there is more required of successful NBA centers these days. Can he be a threat in dribble handoffs? Can he pass out of the short roll? Does he know how to set intuitive screens during broken plays? Centers in the modern NBA have to offer some level of connective play if they want to be more than a spot back-up, and Faye will need to grow in these areas with Paris Basketball in the upcoming season.