It would have been a sight to stop traffic: a seven-foot teenager balancing his frame on a scooter, gliding through the slushy streets of Germany. Day after day, Noa Essengue rode through rain and snow to reach Ratiopharm Ulm’s gym.

“He didn’t have his driver’s license when he was here,” Ratiopharm Ulm head coach Ty Harrelson told CHGO via Zoom. “And he lived in a suburb, that’s not actually where our practice facility is. But he was riding a scooter through the winter. This 7-foot kid. Driving a scooter to practice every day in the cold, and never complained about it. He was always one of the first, or the first one there to be working on his game.”

Essengue, the Chicago Bulls’ 12th overall pick, is quiet in nature and as even-keeled as an 18-year-old professional athlete comes.

His rise from ProB in the German Basketball Bundesliga (BBL) to the NBA in just 18 months was powered by steadiness, humility, and an unassuming work ethic. Even his hobbies reflect his reserved character.

“Although he’s quiet, he’s very ambitious,” Harrelson said. “I didn’t know this about him until last season, but he’s also an artist, so he enjoys drawing in his free time. At one stage, he drew an amazing picture for one of the sponsors’ events. Somebody bought it, and that was kind of neat. Of course, he signed it.

“He’s a down-to-earth guy, he took time with the community here, with the kids, to say hi and sign autographs and shoes and all this.”

For someone who physically stands out above the rest, Esengue’s ambitious, yet unassuming character defines him, even if it comes with some questions.

Personality, displayed through physical feats and antics, defines the NBA culture and separates it from other sports. A vicious dunk is always paired with an explosive reaction. A contested three-point shot is the precursor to motion that walks the line between celebration and taunt.

Essengue is more likely to float on the periphery. That doesn’t mean he isn’t productive; it just means he isn’t commanding attention. 

“Sometimes you go through the game and he ends up with 21 points, and he has six or seven rebounds, and you just didn’t recognize that he did it,” Harrelson stated. “Because he’s not the guy yelling, he’s not the guy doing a lot of the antics. He just gets the job done.”

For Harrelson, that subtlety wasn’t just noticeable — it was a coaching point.

“If there was anything negative about Noa going into last season, it’s good if he’s challenged,” Harrelson said. “So if he is playing against guys his own age, and he can get 20 rebounds and score 20 points, you can still lose the game if he doesn’t feel challenged by the game. Or his body language could look bad if he doesn’t feel challenged by the game.”

After spending a lifetime dominating with physicality against kids his own age, it was time for Essengue to truly put in the work not only on skills, but on how he carried himself.

Harrelson tested him with hard lessons, sometimes delivered bluntly. Essengue’s tendency to internalize meant his response to coaching would matter as much as any box score. 

“I’m probably different than some coaches, but there were times where I think I got on to him really strong,” Harrelson said. “And he reacted well to those things. And some of what we’re talking about, the body language, accepting coaching, even if it’s hard coaching, and listening to what the coach is saying and not how it’s being delivered. And then try to apply it. That’s where I saw improvement, with his responses.”

Ratiopharm Ulm is known as one of the few European clubs that gives young players real room to develop in live action.

Even still, his minutes weren’t handed to him. Without much expectation that the then-17-year-old would give them much production, Ulm signed former NBA forward Isaiah Roby to start at power forward, and the expectation was Essengue would ease in as a backup.

Instead, his competitiveness forced Harrelson to start him, even if an injury later shifted him back to the bench. 

“There was nothing really given to Noa,” Harrelson said…”But (he) emerged as a guy who I felt quite comfortable with starting.”

Even after he broke through, the role wasn’t guaranteed. A mid-season injury forced Harrelson to reshuffle the lineup and bring Essengue off the bench. 

“There was a point in the season where he had an injury on the floor, and we moved one of our German three men to the four, and then Noa ended up having to give up his starting position and start coming off of the bench for us,” Harrelson recalled. “But character-wise, he was so competitive. I’m sure he wanted to start, but it was never a problem; he just kept doing the job.”

Meanwhile, his individual game kept expanding. He was already dangerous in the open court, using his speed to thrive in transition.

He tinkered with his shooting mechanics to improve accuracy and consistency — stabilizing his base, cuffing the ball less on his jump shots, moving it from his palm to his fingertips, following through and snapping his wrist on release, and putting all the pieces together more consistently.

Improving his skillset, Harrelson’s vision was to move him from the center position, where he played in lower levels of competition, to the wing to allow his team to play with more versatility.

The production spoke for itself. Essengue was third on the team in scoring with 12.4 points per game, and just 0.6 points behind the team leader. He also led the team in rebounding (5.3 per game), free throw attempts (5.6 per game), and steals (1.4 per game) and was second in blocks (0.6 per game) and minutes played (427).

By the time the NBA Draft approached, Essengue’s role in Ulm had already prepared him for a professional leap. But the transition was a difficult situation. 

Essengue left his team after Game Three of the BBL Finals — a best-of-five series — opting for a chance to meet NBA Commissioner Adam Silver in the Green Room after his name was called. 

“Honestly, a really tough situation. And if we really got down into the details, it should have never come to that,” Harrelson said. 

“We were quite happy for him to go ahead and make that decision. But we obviously missed him in the finals.”

Not because Essengue missed the final two games of their season, but because the schedule had been adjusted mid-season, and pushed back two weeks, conflicting with the draft. By the time the Finals dates were set, Essengue already had to make his plans to fly to the United States for the Draft.

“We took the stance, and basically the conversation was before Game One, ‘Hey, it’s the player’s choice, and as a team, we’re going to support it,'” Harrelson said. “We just told everybody. Everyone agreed. If our player decides to go, we support it. If they decide to stay, we also support it. And there’s really no discussion.

“That’s kind of how it went for us. We thanked him for an amazing time and amazing season, for helping us get to that point. And he was very professional about the whole thing. There’s no doubt that he was torn on what he should do in that situation.”

Despite taking a 2-1 series lead over Bayern Munich through three games, Ulm ended up losing a potential close-out Game 4 at home, and then went on to lose the series in Game 5 on the road.

Thought some lottery teams expressed concern about Essengue’s body language and work ethic in interviews with Harrelson, the Bulls took a chance on him, launching his NBA career as the chapter with Ulm closed behind him. 

“If I’m totally honest, I thought he was gonna go higher in the draft,” Harrelson said. “Based on the conversations that I had, I was really confident that he was gonna go higher in the draft. There’s nothing wrong with going 12th at all. I just had a feeling that he was gonna go somewhere in the top 10.”

Though he won’t turn 19 until mid-December, Essengue already carries the reputation of a raw, unfinished product. There’s truth in that, but it also undersells him.

“The NBA is the best league in the world, but we’re playing a pretty high level of competition,” Harrelson said. “He’s doing this against men, not guys his own age. Some of the best players from European countries that aren’t in the NBA, and some former NBA players. I would expect him to have an impact relatively early in his career.”

Essengue looks built for Billy Donovan’s uptempo offense. Harrelson sees him slotting in first as a role player: running the floor, cleaning up the offensive glass, attacking closeouts, drawing contact on drives, and guarding across positions.

“Project? Sure,” Harrelson said. “Because he’s still developing. He hasn’t hit a ceiling as a player. But to be able to play in the NBA? Right now, I believe he’s ready. This time last year, I probably would’ve said no.

“But after going through a whole season with him and seeing the development, and seeing how he can play against men and be successful — not just be on the team, not just on an average team, but a good team — I’d expect him to be able to help Chicago right away.”

That balance — still developing, but already productive — mirrors the other paradox of his game. He plays with a real edge, but rarely shows it outwardly.

“He wants to know what he’s doing wrong so he can fix it,” Harrelson said. “‘Don’t just yell at me, explain to me what I need to improve on, because I want to do it.’ And I think he wants to do it for the team, for the coach, and for himself.”

It’s the same mindset that lets him quietly fill a box score, and the same reason he’s easy to misread.

“Naturally, and some of it’s maybe a ‘knock’ on a young kid from France… it just is,” Harrelson said. “So when he maybe doesn’t look very competitive, he actually is very competitive. It’s just his body language doesn’t look it, or his facial expression doesn’t say the same thing as somebody who’s really yelling and celebrating all the time. I found him to be very competitive, and he liked to be challenged.”

Harrelson recalled one EuroCup game where Essengue drew the assignment of a former NBA player. He botched the first possession, and Harrelson burned a timeout.

“Noa made a mistake, and it was a ‘going through the motions’ thing,” Harrelson said. “So I had to remind him, ‘Hey, you’re guarding this guy, and I’m testing you. I want to see you step up and play the best defense you can.’ And then after that timeout, when he understood why he was guarding the guy, he played a very good basketball game.”

Mistakes are part of being 18. But Essengue’s challenge now is consistency. The Bulls’ rotation is crowded, and if the development path of Matas Buzelis is any indication, minutes won’t be handed out.

“This is something that he needs to do no matter what,” Harrelson asserted. “Even if the challenges aren’t totally clear, he needs to find something to challenge himself. That’s what the great players always do. You’re in Chicago, you hear stories about Michael Jordan sometimes making something up to make himself feel challenged.”

Essengue is still refining how he projects his competitiveness outward, but his track record shows he embraces growth deliberately, in box scores and in the more subtle aspects of the game.

“I don’t know if it’s character, if it’s culture, it’s hard for me to really say,” Harrelson said. “It’s just Noa.”