Mohamed Bamba arrived to the Orlando Magic with a ton of expectation and promise. His rookie year saw him take plenty of bumps as he began to learn.
The pressure on a draft pick is unreal. Throw in a popular rap song about him and the hype only grows from there. Especially for a team that has a long history of dominant centers and seemed ready to turn the page.
Things do not always work out how they expect — for the player or for the team.
Mohamed Bamba brought a lot of promise. The Rudy Gobert comparisons began immediately. Rudy Gobert held the previous record for wingspan at the NBA Draft Combine before Mohamed Bamba came along (Tacko Fall broke that record at this year’s Combine).
All that came with it was the belief Bamba could transform the Orlando Magic’s usually moribund defense. The linchpin and anchor who could unlock everyone.
Big men usually need time to develop. And defense is the hardest thing to figure out at the NBA level. But when you have a 7-foot-10 wingspan, you can erase a lot of mistakes. You will block a fair amount of shots just by accident.
Bamba was by no means ready to step in and start immediately. He had a slender figure to match his length. His body still had to mature and he needed to get into a NBA weight program to get himself started. He was not going to be able to do everything he is meant to do as a rookie. There was a lot to figure out.
But there was still the thought he would provide some consistent defensive presence and make the Magic a better team on that end. Orlando drafted him as a project. The team knew it would be a long process to get better.
Still, there are games to play. The Magic had to be patient with him even though every number seemed to suggest Bamba was not helping the team. In fact, every number suggested he was among the worst players in the league that got regular rotation minutes.
Orlando did him no favors putting him in poor lineups as the team tried to figure out its rotation. And Nikola Vucevic‘s emergence as an All-Star seemed to disrupt some of the development the Magic wanted to do with Mohamed Bamba. The team still had the primary goal of winning.
And then Bamba’s injury — a fracture in his left tibia — stopped all of that in its tracks. He had to sit out the final 30 games and the playoffs. Orlando did its best to keep him engaged, but the team was in no hurry to bring him back.
His promise would have to wait. And while Bamba still shows tremendous promise, his progress has to have the team thinking about their short-term future and how best to bring Bamba along to become the player he might ultimately become.