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CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA - MARCH 13: Maxime Raynaud #42 of the Stanford Cardinal looks on against the Louisville Cardinals during the quarterfinal round of the ACC men's basketball tournament at Spectrum Center on March 13, 2025 in Charlotte, North Carolina. (Photo by Jacob Kupferman/Getty Images)
Jacob Kupferman via Getty Images
Summary: Raynaud has leveled up every year at Stanford, turning into a player who pops 3s, slashes to the rim with a smooth handle, and makes eye-popping passes. As a talented passer who also offers solid defense, there’s little reason to think the Frenchman won’t carve out an NBA role.
Comparisons: Brook Lopez, Rasheed Wallace
Strengths
Shooting ability: Raynaud made 34.5% of his 3-pointers as an upperclassman at Stanford, a respectable amount for a 7-foot-1 center that puts him in Brook Lopez territory. But as a senior he took 5.4 per game, and it's not as if all of those are standstill 3s. Sometimes Stanford would run him off a screen, or have him pick-and-pop, and he even took a handful off the dribble. With a cleaner shot diet his numbers could improve even more, since on catch-and-shoot 3s, he made 37.4% of his attempts, per Synergy.
Ball-handling: In addition to traditional big-man moves like taking hook shots over either of his shoulders, it’s not often a player his size can move as fluidly as he does as a shot creator, whether he’s ball-faking then attacking a closeout, slingshotting toward the basket off a screen, or dribbling in transition. He has a tight crossover, mixes in euro-steps, and can get into soft floaters, touch layups, or ferocious tomahawk dunks. This blend of skills makes him especially threatening in ball screens, since he can set a mean pick then roll hard, or pick-and-pop and make a series of plays.
Passing: Raynaud’s negative assist-to-turnover ratio is misleading since he actually has excellent feel as a passer, making touch passes, bounce passes, and passes with velocity. He can facilitate from the high-post, operate as a dribble-handoff hub, and be relied on to pass out of the low post too.
Rebounding: Boxes out well and uses his frame to carve out space in the paint. Following defensive boards, he quickly identifies his guard or outlets it, and on offense he has a great feel for kicking the ball back out to the perimeter or putting it back up himself.
Rim protection: Uses his height and length to contest shots effectively. He’s bulked up over the years and become more effective at standing strong against beefy bigs, using his immense standing reach to bother them. He isn’t an elite leaper, but he has good timing and positioning as a shot-blocker.
Concerns
Ball control: A large chunk of his turnovers come in the interior, whether his back is to the basket, or he’s driving to the rim. Sometimes he gets too loose with it, leading to him getting stripped in traffic, in part because he tries to get tricky by overdribbling the ball.
Post offense: He can hit basic hook shots over his left and right shoulder, an important tool for him. But he doesn’t yet have one of two extremes: either finesse turnaround jumpers, using his size to shoot over defenders, or pure power moves, burying defenders under the rim.
Midrange shooting: Despite his shooting touch from 3, his midrange game is surprisingly underdeveloped. Defenses will gladly let him take those shots off the bounce, and right now, he hasn’t shown the ability to punish them for it. He looks fairly uncomfortable, and has a low hit rate. Considering his track record of improving his shooting, on top of his ball-handling ability, it’s at least conceivable he could someday become a threat.
Defensive production: While his size allows him to alter shots, he lacks the explosive leaping ability or aggressive shot-blocking instincts of elite rim protectors. He relies more on positioning and verticality, which limits his block totals but still makes him a deterrent at times. You’d expect more than 1.4 blocks per game from a dude that size that’s challenged as much as he was in college.
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