Mohamed Bamba’s preseason is a big deal for the Orlando Magic

This is the Mohamed Bamba everyone always imagined.

In the final moments of Sunday’s preseason game against the San Antonio Spurs, the Orlando Magic were scrambling to get back. And Bamba was in the middle of it all, making an impact defensively in the paint and on the perimeter and finishing at the rim.

In a critical possession with the Magic down three and one minute to play, Jalen Suggs ran a pick and roll with Mohamed Bamba. It was perfect. Suggs attracted the defenders and threw a perfect lob to Bamba for an easy two-handed slam.

The Magic were back in the game. And, sure, the Magic were playing most of their starters against a team full of the Spurs’ bench players, they still did it.

And they still needed one more play to get a chance to win. And Bamba again made a huge play to put the team in a position to win.

When the Magic drafted Bamba, they imagined him being able to use his length to close down shooters on the perimeter as much as he could protect the rim in the paint. But this play was perhaps the most impressive.

Mohamed Bamba is not merely putting up numbers in the preseason, he is making a lot of winning plays. This is not just a preseason stats dump for the Orlando Magic big man.

The Magic needing a stop to maintain a one-point deficit caught the Spurs in a 4/5 pick and roll. Mohamed Bamba and Wendell Carter (just as impressive as Bamba on the play) switched the screen. Wendell Carter defended Luka Samanic. Mohamed Bamba dug in as the Magic have done with many post-ups during the preseason when the ball kicked out to Keita Bates-Diop for three.

Bamba closed the gap quickly and blocked the 3-pointer with two-tenths of a second remaining on the shot clock. Orlando had its chance to win.

The moment was extremely cathartic for Bamba. The whole game seemed to be a cathartic moment for Bamba — his coming out party in some ways as it confirmed a lot of hard work.

It is just preseason and every preseason stat should come with plenty of context and warning. Even Bamba has had a lot of good preseason moments during his career.

This is something different though. Very different.

There are signs beyond these big plays and stats that suggest Bamba is due for a very different season. This is a preseason showing from Bamba that is a big deal and suggests a bigger season is on the way.

Bamba is averaging 12.0 points per game, 7.7 rebounds per game and 3.3 blocks per game in 20.2 minutes per game in three preseason games. He is third on the team in scoring and is posting a 65.4-percent effective field goal percentage.

That is extremely impressive from a counting stats perspective.

He scored 16 points, grabbed 10 rebounds and blocked five shots on 6-for-10 shooting in Sunday’s win over the Spurs in 27:06. That was extremely impressive too.

Preseason numbers are often hard to define when it comes to preparing for the regular season. Bamba, for instance, averaged 9.0 points per game, 4.4 rebounds per game and 1.3 blocks per game in 14.6 minutes per game during the preseason before the 2020 season (he sat out last year’s preseason). He shot a 68.9-percent effective field goal percentage.

Bamba has had preseason success before. But this feels different.

The biggest stat that came from Bamba in the game Sunday was that he played 27 minutes — including nearly the final seven minutes of the fourth quarter.

Bamba has only passed the 27-minute mark four times in his career — all coming after last year’s trade deadline. He has played more than 25 minutes or more in just five games total in his career.

Obviously, part of that is playing behind an All-Star in Nikola Vucevic. It is rare for bench players to play that much. But considering Bamba’s reported issues building up his conditioning — especially after contracting COVID before the bubble in the 2020 season — this was a pretty big step.

Especially considering Bamba had some of his best moments late in the game and in winning time. He scored 10 points, grabbed three rebounds and blocked four shots in the fourth quarter. He made four of five shots and two of his three 3-pointers in the final quarter.

This is the part of the game where a player is running on fumes. And Bamba certainly had some moments where he was looking like he was huffing and puffing. But he pushed through it and made big plays to put the Magic in a winning position.

That is very different than his run late last year when he got all those minutes.

In the four games he played more than 27 minutes last year, Bamba averaged 16.8 points per game, grabbed 15.0 rebounds per game and blocked 2.8 blocks per game. Nobody would accuse Bamba of being unable to put up numbers when given the chance.

The question has always been how valuable those numbers were and whether they contributed to winning. Bamba did not have a positive plus-minus in any of those four games he played 27 or more minutes. He also shot better than 50-percent in just one of those games.

Bamba put up numbers last year, but they were largely empty.

It is always better that he can do those things than he cannot, no matter the context. But that winning context matters in the end.

It is just preseason, but those 27 minutes were probably more meaningful than any minutes Bamba has played since his five 3-pointer game against the Cleveland Cavaliers early in the 2020 season or his debut game against the Miami Heat in the 2019 season.

It has been that long of a journey for the young center. There is obviously a lot on the line this season for Bamba. There is also for the first time in his career a lot of opportunities too.

And Bamba seems to have done the work to put himself in the best spot to take advantage of it.

Preseason is a hard thing to judge. It is never clear what is real and what is a product of preseason competition.

Bamba may not be as good as his stats indicate in preseason — that is a product of the competition he has faced and the lineups he has been put in. But his play is beyond those numbers. He has shown something a whole lot more than ever before.

If the preseason is supposed to only hint at what a player can be in the regular season, the Magic have seen a lot more to get excited about from Bamba than ever before.