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    Nathan Soliman: From INSEP to JL Bourg on the Road to the 2028 NBA Draft

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    By on News, Rising Stars
    Nathan Soliman
    Basketball Sphere
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    Nathan Soliman’s development has accelerated quickly, from an early arrival at INSEP to professional basketball and now a three-year deal with JL Bourg.

    French basketball turns out a teenager like this every few years, and Nathan Soliman is the one drawing early attention now. Born in Nantes in May 2009, he reached the federal training center at INSEP at around thirteen, two years ahead of the usual age, and he was holding his own in a men’s third division before he turned sixteen.

    This past season he stopped looking like a youth player. In February he left INSEP to turn pro with Nantes in France’s second division. In June he signed three years with JL Bourg, the 2026 EuroCup winner and the same club where Zaccharie Risacher spent the season before he went No. 1 in the 2024 draft. He’s far from a finished player. Bourg signed him anyway, on the strength of the tools, the feel, and a track record with prospects like him.

    Skipping the Steps

    Soliman grew up around the game. His father, William, played professionally in France and earned a few senior caps in 2008, including time in Nantes, which is where the son’s story starts. Nathan came through Reze Basket 44 and the regional setup in the Pays de la Loire before the federation moved him into the Pole France at INSEP at thirteen. That’s rare, and for a reason. The federal team plays in Nationale 1, France’s third division, against grown men with jobs to protect. Most prospects get there at fifteen or sixteen. Soliman was dropped in early and told to keep up.

    He did more than that. Over the 2025-26 NM1 season he averaged 15.6 points on 46.4 percent shooting, with 7.0 rebounds, 3.8 assists and 1.9 steals in about thirty minutes across twenty-five games. Context matters: the federal team is built to develop players, not to win, and it lost almost all of those games. This was production carved out of an overmatched lineup, which is harder than padding numbers on a good team. He had a 27-point night, a 15-rebound night, a 12-assist night. The do-everything forward was already there.

    By midseason the level was too easy, and the federation let him leave early to sign with Nantes Basket Hermine in ELITE 2, the second division, long called Pro B. It was also a homecoming to the city he grew up in and where his father played. The ELITE 2 numbers are a fair reality check on the jump: 9.4 points on 45.9 percent shooting, but only 22.2 percent from three, with 4.3 rebounds in 22 minutes a night across fifteen games. The scoring and the spacing both dropped against rotation pros. For a sixteen-year-old, that’s expected.

    The playoffs showed both sides of him quickly. Nantes reached the ELITE 2 semifinals and lost on a buzzer-beater, a step from the final. Soliman was very good in the first two games, with a combined 28 points, 10 rebounds and 5 steals. In the decider he barely scored; by his coach’s account, the game got too physical and his start too flat to keep him on the floor.

    The next step came in June. He chose JL Bourg over Cholet Basket, itself a well-known producer of young French talent. Bourg plays in Betclic ELITE, the top division, and won the 2026 EuroCup, beating Besiktas in the final for the club’s first European title. The trophy came with a EuroLeague place, but Bourg turned it down to stay in the EuroCup for the next few seasons, so Soliman walks into a competition the club just won.

    The model they’re pointing to is clear. Three years ago Risacher came in on loan, broke out as a shooter, reached a EuroCup final, and went first overall after one year. Bourg has said plainly that the Soliman plan follows that template, and just as plainly that he has work to do. That’s more useful than the usual signing-day noise.

    His national-team record fits the same early-exposure pattern. At the 2025 U16 EuroBasket in Tbilisi he averaged 20 points and 10 rebounds with a tournament efficiency rating of 26, including a 26-point, 18-rebound game against Spain, though France finished fifth. He’s expected to be one of France’s leaders, with Aaron Towo-Nansi, at the upcoming U17 World Cup.

    Physical Profile: Real Size, Unfinished Frame

    Let’s start with the size, though it’s a moving target. Soliman was listed around 2.04 meters through his INSEP years and as tall as 2.08, roughly six-foot-ten, in his most recent club listing. Real growth or a kind tape measure, the point holds: he has true forward size on a frame that’s still lean and well short of pro strength.

    He moves well for his height, runs the floor hard, and rebounds better than most wings, which feeds his game in the open court. Most important, he handles it well enough to start a possession instead of finishing someone else’s. Forwards his size usually don’t bring the ball up and make plays. He does.

    Scoring, Creation, and the Jumper

    Most of what works on offense starts with him creating it. He gets downhill with intent and draws fouls, and that’s the most dependable thing in his half-court game right now. The passing is real. The 3.8 assists in NM1 aren’t filler; he grabs a rebound and pushes, reads the floor in transition, and will attack a closeout to hit the next man rather than force a contested two. He plays with the ball like a lead option, not a passenger.

    The jumper is the problem, and it’s not close. He shot 30 percent from three in NM1 and 22 percent in ELITE 2, on fewer than three attempts a game in both. It isn’t a real part of his offense yet, and until that changes, defenders will sit on the drive and dare him to shoot. Nothing in his profile matters more for his ceiling.

    The strength shows up at the rim too. He gets there, but he doesn’t always finish through contact yet, and his efficiency dips against bigger, set defenses. That’s a big part of why the scoring fell when he moved up to ELITE 2.

    Defensive Tools and the Physical Toll

    On defense, the draw is the tools and the activity. The technique is mostly still ahead of him. He gets steals, 1.9 a game in NM1 and five across those two playoff games, by reading and jumping passing lanes, and his length and feet point to real switchability later on. At the U16 level, against his own age, he could take over a game on that end.

    Strength is the limiter, and the Nantes playoff run made it obvious. Physical forwards move him off his spot, and the detail work of pro defense, fighting over screens, holding the post, staying down on fakes, isn’t there yet. Right now he can guard wings and forwards close to his own size. Holding up against stronger, grown men for a full game is projection, and it depends on the weight he adds.

    His makeup checks out. He’s been composed under pressure and clear-eyed about his own game when he talks, and leaving a comfortable spot twice in one season to chase harder basketball says something real. He shares the ball and makes the right read. His own coach has called him very much a work in progress, and the quiet playoff finale is the reminder that handling a microphone isn’t the same as handling a thirty-year-old in an elimination game.

    The Pro Path and the 2028 Draft

    The college question is mostly answered. One of his peers, Narcisse Ngoy, chose the NCAA over Bourg; Soliman went the other way. Turning pro at Nantes and signing three years at Bourg is effectively his decision. Being a paid pro complicates the NCAA route on its own, but the simpler truth is he didn’t want it. He’s past the level American college would start him at, and he gets more from daily reps in EuroCup basketball at a club whose whole pitch is preparing a young forward for the draft.

    That pitch works because of Risacher, as long as you keep the comparison honest. Bourg didn’t build Risacher from nothing. It gave him the role, the European stage, and the green light that made him the top pick. Soliman is chasing the same path toward 2028, the year he’s eligible. But the players aren’t the same. Risacher’s leap was built on elite shooting. Soliman’s strengths are size, creation, and passing, with the shot still missing.

    Breaking down his projection, there are three realistic outcomes. The floor, if the shot never really comes, is a productive pro forward in France and Europe who creates and rebounds but never spaces the floor. The middle, with steady growth, is a two-way rotation forward at a high European level who gets onto draft boards and may or may not hear his name.

    The top end, which needs the jumper to land, the body to add real strength, and the half-court creation to hold up against pros, is a connective NBA forward who handles, passes, and guards a few positions. That outcome is realistic enough to track, and a long way from certain.

    Bourg has turned this kind of profile into a top pick once before, but Risacher could already shoot. Soliman is the better passer and the more natural creator at the same age. The jumper and the strength aren’t there yet, and both have to come for the NBA version to be real. Until they do, he’s a high-upside prospect with one obvious hole, developing in about the best place in France to fix it.

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