Report: Mark Cuban, Donnie Nelson Meet With Frank Ntilikina

With Frank Ntilikina being countlessly connected with the Dallas Mavericks, Mark Cuban and Donnie Nelson reportedly met with the prospect in Europe.

On the night of the NBA Draft Lottery, Dallas didn’t exactly strike luck, but did come out of it by staying put and locking in the 9th overall pick in the draft.

With a glaring hole in the starting point guard spot moving forward, Dallas lands a top 10 pick in a draft class loaded at the top with point guard prospects. One, in particular, has been linked with the Mavericks for quite some time.

Frank Ntilikina from France.

Ntilikina is an 18-year-old kid from France that is playing for Strasbourg overseas. Known for his impressive frame (a seven-foot wingspan), Ntilikina intrigues scouts by his defensive potential and impressive outside shooting.

Must Read: Who is Frank Ntilikina?

Right now, the Adidas Eurocamp is taking place in Italy where some of the top, young international prospects come in for measurements and workouts for NBA scouts. When DraftExpress’ Jonathan Givony gave a list of people at the event, a few names obviously stuck out.

"“With the likes of Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, Masai Ujiri, Donnie Nelson, Brian Colangelo, Tommy Sheppard, Brian Pauga, Adam Simon, Marc Eversley, and many more looking on among countless other high-level decision-makers, today’s games got off to their transitionally slow start, but the level of play picked up far faster than most camp settings with the day ending on a very high note in an ultra-competitive matchup between the Eurocamp All-Stars and The Path Team.”   – Source: http://www.draftexpress.com/article/2017-adidas-eurocamp-day-one-5998/ ©DraftExpress"

Yeah, you read that right. Donnie Nelson is joined by the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, Mark Cuban, at the event in Treviso, Italy.

But it wasn’t anyone participating in the camp that could have been the main reason for them to be there.

Yesterday, Ntilikina just put on an impressive performance in the French Pro A semi-finals where he helped Strasbourg knock off ASVEL to move on to the finals against Chalon.

Ntilikina is delaying his U.S. workouts as he finishes his season with Strasbourg in the playoffs. The finals in his league will start on June 13th.

After the ASVEL game, Ntilikina had a meeting in Venice (which is just a 40 minute drive from the Adidas Euro Camp) with a few names that Dallas fans might know.

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This obviously isn’t Donnie Nelson in the picture, but Nelson could have very well been there as he attended the Adidas Euro Camp as previously reported in this piece. Frank Ntilikina, on his personal twitter, retweeted this exact tweet also.

The Mavericks have been connected with the French kid for quite some time and this only strengthens the matter.

Dallas has done their homework on Ntilikina for a while now and this meeting could tell teams around the Mavs in the draft order that they are honing in on the kid. The problem for some teams that might not have scouted Ntilikina like Dallas, is that he might not get to the states with much time to workout before the draft.

With the French finals on the 13th, that doesn’t leave much time before the NBA Draft on the 22nd to get Ntilikina in for many workouts.

This obviously works in the favor of Dallas as a team in front of them might have to select the kid without meeting or working out with him.

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Now, we all wait for the draft and finally see if the kid from France ends up a Dallas Maverick.