2018 NBA Draft Prospect Report Part 6: Mohamed Bamba

Defensive Weaknesses

Mohamed Bamba’s main selling point is his alleged upside as a generational rim protector. He may have Defensive Player of the Year potential, but it is important to note how he benefitted in college from the lack of spacing or defensive three-seconds rule.

On the above play against the TCU Horned Frogs, Bamba does not begin moving his feet to rotate until the driver has already made several long strides into the lane. But he erases the floater attempt, illustrating several key points about his defensive translation.

First, he does not have the same elite-level awareness Jaren Jackson Jr. does. Second, his awareness dropoff was not as detrimental in college because NCAA rules allowed him to patrol the paint for longer periods of time while his wingspan reduced the amount of distance he had to cover to affect shots. Only needing to move within the paint for many of his blocks rather than having to move across wider distances to the driver’s release point.

With NBA rules forcing him outside the restricted area for longer periods of time, these plays might become less frequent unless he demonstrates more high-level awareness or aggressiveness on his rotations.

Jackson is better at getting into position not just because of his awareness advantage, but also because of his superior speed and mobility going side-to-side and up-and-down, stopping and starting and changing directions with comparative ease.

Drawing back on the baseball comparison, Jackson’s mobility and awareness are what allows him to get to those plays with a sub-10 percent probability of being reached. Bamba simply cannot get to those plays with the same consistency. But he has greater efficacy in a smaller radius, perhaps having greater efficiency on erasing sub-50 percent plays.

An example of his efficacy against sub-50 percent plays comes here as he rotates down from the top-left of the restricted area to swallow up a shot coming from the right side of the paint.

It is not ridiculous to imagine another decent defensive big affecting that shot in some way, but few could do so emphatically. An average big might get into position to decrease the expected value of the shot by some percentage, but Bamba reduces it to nothing.

This block against the Nevada Wolfpack is nearly a counterexample against the mobility concerns, as he is able to rotate from covering a perimeter player to block a layup attempt — probably closer to a sub-10 percent play — with ease.

But this is only possible for him because he sinks down incredibly far off 34 percent 3-point shooter Jordan Caroline. Cheating off your primary coverages to help at the rim is fine as long as you can close back out if the driver finds the shooter, a pass good NBA players will often make especially on a spaced floor.

That question brings us to another important discussion point. Bamba’s struggles to cover larger swaths of ground are illustrated in part by his inability to close out to the perimeter. If the cost of that rotation is a wide-open three, how effective were you really at reducing the expected value of a drive?

That is visible here, where he is unable to react quickly and step out on Cody Martin’s jump shot.

The nature of drop coverage, as those are the shots that scheme deliberately concedes, may excuse Bamba’s complete non-reaction. But there is no roller or offensive player behind him that should prevent him from stepping out to prevent the open jumper or contain a potential drive.

Not being able to respond to multiple possible decisions from an offensive player is one of the costs of not being able to change directions quickly.

Another consequence of his suboptimal lower body power is his tendency to get bumped out of plays by drivers and other bigs.

He struggled to hold position when opponents get their body into him. Kansas Jayhawks’ center Udoka Azubuike managed to exploit this weakness during their Dec. 29 matchup, getting position with ease, backing him down when he went with power moves and grabbing six offensive rebounds in 29 minutes of work.

Here Azubuike seals Bamba out of the way for an easy two points.

But when Azubuike went to more finesse moves, like this sweeping hook shot, the result more frequently ended in Bamba’s favor.

Returning to the baseball analogy for a moment, his effect on shots around the rim illustrates how Bamba is far more effective than average players, and even Jackson, against sub-50 percent probability plays.

But his questionable movement skills make him far less likely to effectively reach the sub-10 percent probability. That is important to note when discussing the translation of his impact from college to the pros, where the rotation distances are longer, and from the regular season to the playoffs, where opponents will be more likely to play small, key in on his weaknesses and force him to cover longer distances.

If Bamba is drawn farther away from the basket, the value of reducing sub-50 percent probability plays within his radius becomes much lower, as those plays are now in the midrange rather than at the rim and have lower expected value for the offense. At the same time, Jackson’s ability to reach sub-10 percent plays becomes even more valuable.

In other words, with both player’s current skill sets, it will be easier for opposing offenses to limit Bamba’s impact radius to less valuable regions of the court than it will be to limit Jackson’s. But without strategically pulling him into these regions, Bamba’s impact radius is more valuable as it can almost completely eliminate the most valuable area of the court.

Mohamed Bamba will either have to gain significant lower body and core strength (like Hassan Whiteside did). Or he will have to learn how to derive power and quickness from his lower body more effectively and play with a stronger motor (like Rudy Gobert).

For him to continue impacting the game when opponents bring him away from the rim with forced switches and pick-and-pop bigs, he will need to find a way to cover ground better and close out on shooters better.

Otherwise, his weaknesses will be too pronounced for him to sustain productivity at the game’s highest levels. Offenses will be able to force him to make rotations out to and from the NBA 3-point line, where his length will not compensate for his clumsiness stopping and changing directions. But if he can find a way to make those improvements, he will have serious Defensive Player of the Year equity on a regular basis.