Thijs De Ridder declares for 2024 NBA Draft !

21 year old Power Forward Thijs De Ridder has officially declared for the 2024 NBA Draft, making him the second Belgian player next to Ajay Mitchell to make himself available for the draft.

De Ridder’s basketball career has been on a steady rise ever since he first tied his basketball sneakers at the age of 9 when he joined local club Schoten-Brasschaat in 2012. After one season he then joined the Antwerp Giants where he moved through the youth ranks to make his debut in TDM1 in 2018 and the First team in the BNXT League (then EMBL) in 2020. With 3 solid seasons at Antwerp under his belt he made the move to Bilbao in Spain this past off-season where he is so far averaging 6.2 ppg & 4.0 rpg in 17.2 mpg this season.

Despite his young age De Ridder already has a nicely filled trophy case, winning the Belgian Youngster Of The Year award and the BNXT Sixth Man Of The Year award last season with Antwerp, while also having been selected to the All-BNXT First Team. He also won the Belgian Cup that season. Besides his accolades in the Belgian competition he has also shined on the international stage with the Belgian National Youth Teams, getting 2 selections to the EuroBasket All-Tournament teams (U16 & U20).

De Ridder made his debut with the Belgian Lions during the World Championship 2023 qualifications and was also excellent in the qualifications for the 2024 Olympic Games.

After many decades without any Belgian players in the NBA, we might actually get to see 3 of them in action in the next seasons!