Author Topic: Danny scouting Bamba. What's he thinking in this picture? Caption it  (Read 8506 times)

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Re: Danny scouting Bamba. What's he thinking in this picture? Caption it
« Reply #15 on: August 01, 2017, 05:36:35 PM »

Offline CelticsElite

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Who do you guys like better right now: Ayton or Bamba and why?
they're both about equal so far. Most Celtic fans prefer ayton so far but The case for bamba exists. Some mocks have bamba 1 slot higher than ayton. Will be interesting to see how college affects their ranking. They are both elite rebounded and rim protectors so we couldn't go wrong with either
« Last Edit: August 01, 2017, 05:53:21 PM by CelticsElite »

Re: Danny scouting Bamba. What's he thinking in this picture? Caption it
« Reply #16 on: August 01, 2017, 08:08:58 PM »

Offline NHCelticsFan

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"I wonder how many picks I could get for him?"

Re: Danny scouting Bamba. What's he thinking in this picture? Caption it
« Reply #17 on: August 02, 2017, 10:55:43 AM »

Offline perks-a-beast

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Who do you guys like better right now: Ayton or Bamba and why?
they're both about equal so far. Most Celtic fans prefer ayton so far but The case for bamba exists. Some mocks have bamba 1 slot higher than ayton. Will be interesting to see how college affects their ranking. They are both elite rebounded and rim protectors so we couldn't go wrong with either

Ayton has the worst body language I've seen from a potential top pick since dare I say...Anthony Bennett. His upcoming college season may prove me wrong but right now I would avoid him like the plague.

Re: Danny scouting Bamba. What's he thinking in this picture? Caption it
« Reply #18 on: August 02, 2017, 11:03:34 AM »

Offline Somebody

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Imo if I got 1 and 4 in the draft I'm picking Bagley and Bamba, Bamba's measurements and IQ puts him over Ayton in my eyes. Also think of that defense every night.
Jaylen Brown for All-NBA

Re: Danny scouting Bamba. What's he thinking in this picture? Caption it
« Reply #19 on: August 02, 2017, 11:46:11 AM »

Offline JHTruth

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Who do you guys like better right now: Ayton or Bamba and why?
they're both about equal so far. Most Celtic fans prefer ayton so far but The case for bamba exists. Some mocks have bamba 1 slot higher than ayton. Will be interesting to see how college affects their ranking. They are both elite rebounded and rim protectors so we couldn't go wrong with either

Ayton has the worst body language I've seen from a potential top pick since dare I say...Anthony Bennett. His upcoming college season may prove me wrong but right now I would avoid him like the plague.

This. Love Ayton's body and potential. But he just screams Olowakandi to me for some reason. Miller will kick his butt at Zona this year so we'll see how it goes. Bamba has some of the same knocks but I love his length and I think he has offensive potential..

Re: Danny scouting Bamba. What's he thinking in this picture? Caption it
« Reply #20 on: August 02, 2017, 12:12:06 PM »

Offline Future Celtics Owner

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Who do you guys like better right now: Ayton or Bamba and why?
they're both about equal so far. Most Celtic fans prefer ayton so far but The case for bamba exists. Some mocks have bamba 1 slot higher than ayton. Will be interesting to see how college affects their ranking. They are both elite rebounded and rim protectors so we couldn't go wrong with either

Ayton has the worst body language I've seen from a potential top pick since dare I say...Anthony Bennett. His upcoming college season may prove me wrong but right now I would avoid him like the plague.

This. Love Ayton's body and potential. But he just screams Olowakandi to me for some reason. Miller will kick his butt at Zona this year so we'll see how it goes. Bamba has some of the same knocks but I love his length and I think he has offensive potential..
Ayton has a nice jumper and he reminds me of Myles Turner...except longer.

Bamba would actually have the longest wingspan in the NBA by 1/2 an inch on Gobert.

IMO Ayton has shown a legit jumper: step-backs, fade-aways, turn-around, face-up. He has never lifted weights before and is my pick for dark-horse.

Re: Danny scouting Bamba. What's he thinking in this picture? Caption it
« Reply #21 on: August 02, 2017, 01:06:47 PM »

Offline CelticsElite

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Who do you guys like better right now: Ayton or Bamba and why?
they're both about equal so far. Most Celtic fans prefer ayton so far but The case for bamba exists. Some mocks have bamba 1 slot higher than ayton. Will be interesting to see how college affects their ranking. They are both elite rebounded and rim protectors so we couldn't go wrong with either

Ayton has the worst body language I've seen from a potential top pick since dare I say...Anthony Bennett. His upcoming college season may prove me wrong but right now I would avoid him like the plague.

This. Love Ayton's body and potential. But he just screams Olowakandi to me for some reason. Miller will kick his butt at Zona this year so we'll see how it goes. Bamba has some of the same knocks but I love his length and I think he has offensive potential..
I saw a scouting report on ayton that said he was ranked 1 unanimously until midseason when he started to show less competitiveness as if he got comfortable being #1. I personally prefer porter to any of these guys but I do like ayton too . Porter and Ayton know each other well they should be a nice pairing

Re: Danny scouting Bamba. What's he thinking in this picture? Caption it
« Reply #22 on: August 02, 2017, 01:33:36 PM »

Offline chilidawg

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Who do you guys like better right now: Ayton or Bamba and why?
they're both about equal so far. Most Celtic fans prefer ayton so far but The case for bamba exists. Some mocks have bamba 1 slot higher than ayton. Will be interesting to see how college affects their ranking. They are both elite rebounded and rim protectors so we couldn't go wrong with either

Ayton has the worst body language I've seen from a potential top pick since dare I say...Anthony Bennett. His upcoming college season may prove me wrong but right now I would avoid him like the plague.

This. Love Ayton's body and potential. But he just screams Olowakandi to me for some reason. Miller will kick his butt at Zona this year so we'll see how it goes. Bamba has some of the same knocks but I love his length and I think he has offensive potential..
Ayton has a nice jumper and he reminds me of Myles Turner...except longer.

Bamba would actually have the longest wingspan in the NBA by 1/2 an inch on Gobert.

IMO Ayton has shown a legit jumper: step-backs, fade-aways, turn-around, face-up. He has never lifted weights before and is my pick for dark-horse.

He's been top 3 in mocks all along, and often #1.  Not sure how you can call him a dark-horse.

Re: Danny scouting Bamba. What's he thinking in this picture? Caption it
« Reply #23 on: August 02, 2017, 05:29:18 PM »

Offline CELTICSofBOSTON

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Deandre Ayton once said he doesn't like to block shots if he thinks he is going to get dunked on.

Re: Danny scouting Bamba. What's he thinking in this picture? Caption it
« Reply #24 on: August 07, 2017, 01:17:52 PM »

Offline The One

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"Wow, he's almost as long as a Chipotle burrito!!"

Re: Danny scouting Bamba. What's he thinking in this picture? Caption it
« Reply #25 on: January 30, 2018, 06:32:44 AM »

Offline Androslav

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Here is an insider article on Bamba from "Cleaning the glass".
I didn't find any other suitable thread for him other than this one.
Originally there were video clips between paragraphs.

In the middle of the 2011-12 season, my second full-time year with the Blazers, we traded for Hasheem Thabeet. The goal certainly wasn’t to acquire Thabeet — it was only his third year in the NBA, but it was already clear Thabeet was not going to live up to his selection as the #2 player in the 2009 draft. His 4th-year team option had been declined, making him a free agent at the end of the year, so Thabeet was simply a throw-in to match salary as part of a larger trade. But since our season had unraveled, we took the opportunity to see up close what Thabeet was like.

There was a revealing moment in practice not long after Thabeet’s arrival. Thabeet was playing at the lackluster pace he had shown in every practice since we’d acquired him, and during one drill he gave up an offensive rebound and then didn’t challenge a putback dunk. One of our assistant coaches had seen enough. He jumped onto the floor from the sideline right into Thabeet’s path.

“What was that? You got pushed around and gave up a dunk! You’re seven-foot-three. BE SEVEN-FOOT THREE!”

There was a moment of awkward silence in the gym and then the drill continued. Nothing noticeably changed in Thabeet’s play — that day, or the rest of the season. In the summer he signed with Oklahoma City for close to the minimum, and when that contract was done so was his NBA career.

Thabeet didn’t have a competitive fire. He didn’t like basketball. He didn’t want to be in the gym. His career was on life support and he still wasn’t playing like he should. And it’s easy to look back and point to those missing character traits as the reasons why Thabeet wasn’t the dominant defensive center he was billed to be. But that’s not the full story. As a junior at Connecticut, his last year in college, Thabeet ranked 6th in the nation in block rate, anchoring the country’s third best defense (according to KenPom). Was he competitive then and suddenly lost it when he was drafted? That seems unlikely.

So while it may be true that the reason Thabeet failed was a lack of competitiveness, that’s skipping past an important lesson that we can draw from his career: being a dominant defensive center in college is no guarantee of being a great NBA defensive center, or even a good one. You need something more — and Thabeet didn’t have it. In college, being seven-foot-three was good enough. In the NBA, you have to be seven-foot-three.

Mo Bamba is a breathtaking shot blocker. With a wingspan measured at 7 feet 9 inches, longer than any current NBA player, he routinely does things like this:

Seriously, look at where he got to that ball:

Bamba ranks 5th in Division 1 in block rate, sending back 16% of opponent two point attempts, manning the middle of the country’s 6th best defense. Wherever he’s drafted, shot blocking will be the primary reason he’s drafted. He has other skills, but that is his elite skill.

Yet as we think about Bamba as an NBA player, we can’t simply accept his shot blocking as a guarantee of any kind of professional success. Because there are great college shot blockers every year who don’t even make the NBA. And there have been many players drafted on the strength of their college shot blocking who haven’t been able to turn that into high level NBA success: Stephane Lasme blocked 16% of opponent two point attempts in his final college season, Sean Williams and Jeff Withey swatted 14%, Cole Aldrich and Fab Melo denied 13%. Cole Aldrich is the only one that has lasted more than 5 seasons in the NBA, and he has never played more than 1,000 minutes in a season. Shot blocking alone does not an NBA player make.

Even if we look at the players who became good shot blockers in the NBA, that’s no guarantee of being a truly dominant defender. Defensive reputation is often tied to counting stats like blocks, but the statistical record is a bit more spotty than one might guess for players like JaVale McGee, Serge Ibaka, Hassan Whiteside, DeAndre Jordan, or John Henson: all of them have been great NBA shot blockers, but none have consistently shown huge defensive impacts on their team’s overall defensive numbers. Defense is about much more than blocking shots.

And we can go one step further: even among those players who both block shots and show a real defensive impact, that’s no guarantee of being a high-level NBA contributor. Players like Bismack Biyombo, Joel Przybilla, and Ekpe Udoh are defensive stalwarts who have severe offensive limitations that have limited their overall impact.

The best case scenario for Bamba is playing like Rudy Gobert, a player Bamba is frequently compared to because of their similarly extreme wingspans (Gobert’s measured at 7-8.5 at the draft combine). And it’s a reasonable comparison — there are a lot of similarities in their pre-draft statistical profiles. Gobert has turned into possibly the league’s best defender, and a capable enough offensive player that he has become one of best centers in the NBA.

But it’s possible to learn too much from this one example. There were many worrying signs with Gobert before the draft — there’s a reason he was a late first-round pick. That he overcame them doesn’t necessarily mean all similar players will. Perhaps it’s a good sign for Bamba, but perhaps it’s also unique to Rudy.

There’s a reason I’m focusing so much on shot blocking: because if we put that to the side, there’s a lot to be concerned about in Bamba’s statistical profile. So far this year, Bamba has not been a high usage player (in fact, fairly low for a drafted big man) and not been efficient either (low points-per-shot-attempt for a drafted big man). That’s because of a free throw rate that is very low for a drafted center, a shaky FT%, taking a lot of threes that have not gone in, and poor shooting out of the post and isolations (15 of 41 according to Synergy Sports). He’s been a very low assist player (assist rate under 3%, just 7 assists in over 500 minutes) and on the turnover prone side. In other words, he’s shown little ability to create efficient offense at the college level, let alone done the things that would suggest he could create efficient offense at the NBA level.

The positive aspects of his profile are offensive rebound and steal rates that are solid compared to drafted centers, and a very good defensive rebounding rate. But those are the only areas besides his shot blocking that compare favorably to historically drafted players. Now, throw into the mix the fact that Bamba is closer to the age of a traditional sophomore than a freshman (he turns 20 in May), and there are reasons to be skeptical of his potential.

Another way to put it is this: his length is the primary reason for his college success, and the primary reason for hope about his future. A wingspan that extreme is really valuable on a basketball court in all the ways that show up Bamba’s stats: rebounding, shot blocking, steals.

But outside of that length, Bamba’s physical tools do not seem especially noteworthy. While he’s not slow for his size he also doesn’t seem to be particularly quick-footed. While he is not a bad jumper, he doesn’t seem to be an exceptionally easy or explosive leaper.

He often has to gather himself and pull the ball all the way down below his waist to load up before going up to finish:

It’s possible that this may have to do with his frailty — perhaps he has to gather because otherwise he’ll easily be bumped off balance. Or perhaps he doesn’t yet have the strength in his lower body and hips to more easily go up with the ball. So while it’s something to dig into, it doesn’t necessarily have to be [dang]ing. But it is something to think about more.

This load up is also notable when watching his shot blocking. Watch how many of his blocks or attempted blocks include a step and loading action, as he bends his knees and pulls his arms down before going up to get the ball:

This can be a problem because it means he has to start his blocking motion earlier and it takes him time to get there. He can’t just react to the ball going up. That results in sometimes being slow off the ground to get to a shot, and sometimes being too quick off the ground since he’s forced to anticipate opponents going up for a shot:

Even if that doesn’t get better with age and adding strength, it may be that having such long arms makes up for that deficiency. He can learn to rely on his length to wait until the player commits to the shot and still be able to go get it, something Hassan Whiteside is very good at:

On the offensive end, his reach is so great that he may not need to be an explosive leaper to become a very good finisher. For example, watch him catch this bad lob with his left hand and still flush it:

There’s a reason Bamba has made 73% of his shots around the basket so far this year according to Synergy Sports, a very good rate.

He also seems to have pretty good hands to catch difficult passes. He has sometimes bobbled a pass or two that maybe he should have grasped cleanly, but he also has caught some passes that are hard to handle for more remedial offensive big men:

Watching his turnovers, many of them come from Bamba being stripped when he tries to create, few from losing passes. That supports the idea that there is a long road for Bamba to create efficient offense in the NBA, but it also may alleviate concerns about the role he is most likely to play at the NBA level: a catcher and finisher.

Once he catches the ball, he also seems to have good footwork and good touch around the basket. It’s more than possible that even if he’s not as easy off the ground as one would like, he can be a very high-level NBA finisher.

And then there’s the shooting. If you squint, you can see the blurry outlines of another recent Texas freshman center: Myles Turner. Turner, too, was a very good shot blocker. Turner, too, was an inefficient scorer who took a high rate of threes without making many. Turner, too, was a poor passer. If Bamba, like Turner, can become a rim-protecting 5 who can also space the floor? That has enormous value.

Bamba’s shooting stroke looks solid (albeit slow), and there’s information in the fact that he’s even been given the green light to take threes in a game. But Turner was a year younger in his freshman season in Austin, shouldered a larger offensive load, had a lower turnover rate, and, importantly, was an elite free throw shooter for a big man. Turner might represent Bamba’s offensive upside, but it’s not clear how likely Bamba is to achieve that.

If Bamba, then, is to warrant one of the top few selections in this draft, it will be because of his work on the defensive end of the floor. So the questions should start there. How likely is he to be the defender we’d expect from his stats? How sure can we be that he’ll play more like Gobert than Thabeet?

That, and questions like these are the ones we’ll watch for as the season continues:

What prevented past players who were great shot blockers from becoming elite NBA defenders? Is Bamba at risk for any of that?
How quick of a leaper is he? Second jumps?
How does this impact his offense (finishing) and defense (rim protection and rebounding)?
How easily will he be able to add weight? How much will it matter if he can’t?
How good are his hands?
Will he be able to catch tough passes and finish in a crowd?
Will he be able to do much offensively outside of finishing off passes and pick and rolls? If so, what? If not, does it matter?
Just how good of a shooter is he? Watching warmups and practices, does he seem to just be missing an abnormal rate on small samples in games or should we seriously question his ability to step out and hit threes?
When he has a choice he strongly prefers to block shots with his left hand. Does this give him upside as a finisher with the off hand? Why does he finish almost everything righty now?
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Re: Danny scouting Bamba. What's he thinking in this picture? Caption it
« Reply #26 on: January 30, 2018, 07:04:52 AM »

Offline Celtics4ever

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"He is only 12" off the ground and we are going to need to set him up with IV's of Ensure to make him gain some wieght"

Re: Danny scouting Bamba. What's he thinking in this picture? Caption it
« Reply #27 on: January 31, 2018, 09:15:18 AM »

Offline chilidawg

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Small sample size, but over his last two games Bamba is 3/3 from 3 and 16/17 from the line!

Re: Danny scouting Bamba. What's he thinking in this picture? Caption it
« Reply #28 on: January 31, 2018, 10:45:41 AM »

Offline smokeablount

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Small sample size, but over his last two games Bamba is 3/3 from 3 and 16/17 from the line!

I was very against Jonathan Isaac last year when Tatum (and to a lesser extent Josh Jackson) would be available where we picked, but if we miss the Lakers pick I'd be happy to potentially trade into the #5-10 range to grab Bamba if he's there, it's affordable, the salary cap situation isn't jeopardized, etc.  I think he has all of Isaac's upside but with a unicorn size/skills combo, the potential to be a more valuable defender, and with more ability to finish at or near the rim.
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Re: Danny scouting Bamba. What's he thinking in this picture? Caption it
« Reply #29 on: January 31, 2018, 11:28:40 AM »

Offline Dino Pitino

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Small sample size, but over his last two games Bamba is 3/3 from 3 and 16/17 from the line!

Impressive!
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