1. Make an All-NBA rookie team
If Isaac can make it onto an All-NBA rookie team, first or second, it will be a surefire sign that he had a good season. It may be true to say that this year’s rookie class isn’t a deep as the class of 2017.
But there is enough talent there to make this tough for Bamba, especially across the frontline where five out of the top seven picks (six if you include Luka Doncic as a small forward) are listed as forwards or centers.
Bamba would also be the first Magic rookie since Elfrid Payton in 2014-15 to receive All-Rookie honors. The only other player to do so in Orlando since 2012 is Victor Oladipo in 2013-14, with both he and Payton now on their third teams in the league.
The Magic will be hoping Bamba changes that trend as well. Achieving this, however, would also mean that most of the other four goals outlined above were completed, which would put Bamba in prime position to take over as Orlando’s franchise player before long.
It would also possibly mean that the team flirted with making the playoffs for the first time in a long time, further proof that Bamba was the right draft selection and that the front office’s choices are starting to pay off.
More than that, it would give the loyal fans in Orlando a small reason to be happy. They have had to endure a lot for most of this decade, and the arrival of Mo Bamba is not going to change this franchise overnight.
But with five rookie goals for him to meet, ranging from the likely to the difficult, the Orlando Magic will be hoping he is the young player to break them out of the loop of mediocrity they’ve been spinning on, and up the rankings in the Eastern Conference.