Luigi Suigo Scouting Report

Breakdown of the Italian Big Man - Future 1st Round Pick?

Luigi Suigo feels like a name we will hear in the 2026 NBA Draft as long as he does not go the college route. It seems as if I will be saying that alot with these prospects due to the amount of money being thrown at these players to go to the NCAA.

INFO:

7’4 / 245LBS (C) (EA7 Emporio Armani Milan) (Italy)

An extremely long Center who doesn’t really know how to use all of his size yet. Quicker than your average 7’4 big but more of an offensive threat to pair with a big who can play more defense. Disclaimer: I am seeing many different heights for Luigi, he is definitely bigger than 7’1 and I’ve seen him listed at 7’2, 7’3 & 7’4, I’m going with 7’3 / 7’4 because he looks like he is towering other teams bigs.

INSIDE SCORING:

Suigo thrives in the pick and roll as an efficient roller. Though he does not set the best screens he’s able to move to the basket quickly and it looks very fluid and natural when he gets the ball near the rim. Not at all a back to the basket type of player, but I’m sure once he gets more comfortable with his size we could see some high post action from him; that could be simply creating for others or shooting over a smaller defender. We need to remember he is 7’4 most bigs he will have 4-5” on and his high release will make this tough to guard.

OUTSIDE SCORING:

A surprisingly good outside scorer. The track record for big men with not a good post game but a good 3 ball does not look too good but maybe he breaks the mold here. Suigo is not the type to chuck of 3s at a high clip, he more so has this in his game to make the defense pay if they leave him out there. He’s really only shooting wide open 3s and still doesn’t have the best percentage but the shot is there and he will start to knock them down at a higher clip (currently shooting +/- 25% from three). Typically I would say this player can’t shoot if they were a guard but we’re talking about a 7’4 big man who’s main option is not to shoot. I think over time I’m projecting this to develop as he rounds out his game.

DEFENSE:

If there was a category to skip it would be this one for Suigo. He’s an average defender at best who looks like he gets lost sometimes on defense. Yes we’ll see a few blocks here and there but he’s 7’4… this is to be expected. If his defensive potential pans out he will reach his true ceiling, I don’t think he will ever be a defensive anchor in the post; but having another 7’4 guy to rotate in who is quick and can block shots would be MASSIVE for any team.

At the moment he is a below average defender who relies on his offense to be effective on the court. Anything he does on defense at the moment is a plus.

PLAYMAKING:

If there was anything Suigo should focus on if he wants to get drafted it should be his playmaking. There are not many guys with his size that can move like him, if he added the ability to put the ball on the floor and create for others he could be the focal point of any offense. His size alone would cause a world of trouble to the opposition and his already savvy passing skills would be put to great use to get his teammates more involved.

At the moment Suigo works out of the Pick and Roll and passing to open cutters down the lane or receiving the ball up top and faking a dribble handoff to throw a backdoor pass. The vision is what projects to the NBA for me, there aren’t guys that size making those reads and then being able to make those passes.

DRAFT DATA:

Many people have Suigo mocked as high as the first round. We’ll see how his improvement looks this season as to if he he will stay in this first round or not but we must remember something. You can’t teach size, at the article linked below I compared the data of all positions and if their size correlated to their draft position.

The data above is from the last 240 first round picks. One of the biggest takeaways here was Centers who are 7'1 or taller have exclusively been drafted in or just outside the lottery the when they were mocked in the top 45 prospects pre draft. I took this knowledge and correctly assumed Yang would be a first round talent and better yet the data held true with him being taken at the end of the lottery. Yang initially was mocked as an early 2nd Round Pick, but I got to hear his name called on draft night and got to see him come down from the stands being as he was sitting about 20 feet from me.

As always I will link a nice highlight video for a prospect, but the best way to evaluate is to watch a full game and focus on him, you will see things that you don’t typically notice if you are just watching a game and not focusing on one specific guy.