2018 NBA Draft Prospect Report Part 6: Mohamed Bamba
Passing and Offensive Awareness
Coming out of high school, Mohamed Bamba was widely considered to be a good, versatile passer for his size. Now many believe passing and offensive awareness are his most glaring offensive weaknesses.
Jackson Hoy wrote an excellent article for The Stepien about his struggles and why they might not be completely what they seem.
The statistics alone would indicate Bamba is a historically terrible passer and offensive black hole. He has clearly demonstrated he is more than that, he just was rarely put into passing situations in college.
As Hoy explains, Mohamed Bamba often shared the floor with forward Dylan Osetkowski, who frequently handled the ball on the perimeter for Texas and acted as an offensive hub. He also often played with several other ball handlers, drastically limiting the scope and volume of his decision-making opportunities.
But he at least showed baseline levels of awareness and passing accuracy. Even if he was still prone to missing reads.
On the above play against TCU, he executes a simple drive and kick, popping after setting a screen, attacking a closeout with one dribble and passing back out to the perimeter.
That may not be the most advanced pass. But still, it is not a play you see from typical “black hole” big men that are virtually incapable of making good decisions with the ball.
If he manages to become a gravitational spot-up or pick-and-pop shooting threat, his drive-and-kick ability could show up more often and make him a highly impactful offensive player.
He does not make a pass here. But he shows himself a capable steward of the ball, receiving a handoff, beating his man and driving all the way to the rim.
It is possible his more pronounced height advantage at the high school level allowed him to see more passing angles than he could in college. But that would not fully account for the abysmal assist numbers Hoy highlights.
Speaking of those numbers, there was a gradual improvement in his assist-to-turnover ratio over the course of the season. Here he is side-by-side with Jaren Jackson Jr., whose trajectory was far more volatile:
That improvement is encouraging.
Another point Hoy raises is about the likely location of Bamba’s assists: from the post out to shooters. Texas simply did not have the shooting to convert those passes.
According to Hoop Math’s database, Bamba’s assists were skewed by nearly 22 percent toward 3-pointers relative to average assist locations, his team’s field goal attempt rates and his team’s assist locations. That is a large amount, even for a big man whose touches came primarily inside the arc.
It should then come as no surprise that his overall offensive game would be disproportionately hurt by being on a poor three-point shooting team.
Projecting Bamba to the NBA is instructive as an exercise extrapolating player performance out of league and team context. His passing is a perfect example of that. He has demonstrated capabilities he was unable to show on a consistent basis and that did not show up in the stats.
But he can at least be a functional part of an offense as a center. Perhaps he even has the chance to offer a little more than that as a driver and passer on the move.