Orlando Magic: Grading Mohamed Bamba’s incomplete 2018-19
By Luke Duffy
Weaknesses
It goes without saying, and it happens to even the best rookies, but Mohamed Bamba wasn’t very good at times. This was especially true defensively, where he looked lost despite having the raw tools to succeed. If not for head coach Steve Clifford having a solid defensive plan in place, it could have been much worse.
The Orlando Magic ranked eighth in defensive rating during the regular season (107.6), but unfortunately for Bamba, their fortunes changed in a big way on that end once he went down with injury. The introduction of Khem Birch propelling the Magic to unseen heights on that end of the court.
They were a top-five outfit after the All-Star break and it was the main reason they got into the playoffs.
Before his injury, the Magic had a notably worse defensive rating of 109.2 when Bamba was on the court. This shows how little he really helped each night, but it is also unfair to hold this against him going forward as well.
The NBA is a steep learning curve, especially defensively, and the time away will have been beneficial to Bamba to watch loads of tape and figure out his place on that end.
The hope being that he will be an anchor there one day. Offensively, as you can imagine, it was much worse, with the Magic having a rating of just 94.3 (against 108.2 for the season, which still had them a lowly 22nd) when Bamba was out there. Again all to be expected, but the most worrying thing for him now will be what this means for his future.
The Magic stumbled into something that really seemed to work once Bamba was inactive, and they doubled-down on this iteration of their roster by bringing back both Vucevic and Birch. It means Bamba is under more pressure than he should be at this stage in his development given where he landed, and pressure is not what a young player needs to grow.
What is also unfortunate is that his rookie weaknesses outweigh his strengths, and he will have to work to change that. He may not be given as much time as he ordinarily would have however, with the focus switching to a win now mentality, especially if the veteran guys on the team are to be believed.