Ntilikina played only 13 minutes of the 40-minute game. He took two shots, swishing a jumper from 18 feet and missing badly on a contested 3-point attempt. The play that seemed to best highlight his strengths occurred with less than a minute to go in the first half, when he was switched onto Tim Abromaitis, an American power forward four inches taller and 45 pounds heavier. As Abromaitis dribbled near the baseline, Ntilikina waved his arms above his head like two big palm fronds, smothering Abromaitis and obstructing his sight. Abromaitis was still holding the ball when the shot clock expired, causing the arena to erupt in cheers.

With steady management and strong play, Strasbourg has had its fortunes rise over the past few years. Martial Bellon, the club’s president, said in an interview that its ambition was to join the top tier of European basketball in the next few years, and he suggested that ushering a player to the N.B.A. and having him succeed would reflect positively on the team’s youth development program.

“Frank did not fall from the sky,” said Bellon, who added that the team prided itself on its familial closeness.

Ntilikina joined the club at 15 and has seen the same faces as he has progressed to the first team. Dolt was his first youth coach, and Collet has been around since 2011. Ntilikina’s grooming, then, has felt at times like a clubwide project.

Romeo Travis, a 32-year-old power forward from Akron, Ohio, where he was a high school teammate of LeBron James, has been trying to summon the fire from Ntilikina, too. He raved about Ntilikina’s polish and praised his toughness. He said Ntilikina might be “overly coachable,” echoing the notion that Ntilikina could take more initiative and find moments to toss aside the game plan.

At the team’s practice Monday, after Ntilikina flubbed his layup, Travis walked over, put his hand on his young teammate’s shoulder and suggested — gently, but profanely — that he should be dunking on those plays.

“Frank doesn’t have a ceiling,” Travis said later. “He has everything: He has height, athleticism, ball-handing; he can shoot. So I’m just trying to give him that push, that confidence that he can be anything he wants to be.”