2020-2021 Regular Season Game 59: New Orleans Pelicans (25-33) at Orlando Magic (18-40)

[PrimeThyme]

The only time I've ever been wrong was Payton.

Chit, NBA teams must be lining up at your door. Maybe you can replace Weltman in a couple years

I get something wrong on a weekly basis. That's kind of the nature of an internet forum. As far as Bamba goes, I think the problem you're going to find with him is he will never be able to play starting minutes in this league. From a durability standpoint, && from a he's just not a quality enough player standpoint as well.

I'm much more interested in the skillset WCJ brings as a player and think he will be a starting level player in this league for a long time. Bamba should keep playing as long as he's on the roster, but I just don't ever see him developing into anything other than a backup center.

[Blue_and_Whte]

I laughed A LOT watching this game.....

[SOUL]

I don't like proclamations of what players can or can't be because we simply don't know. Too many changes happen year by year. Changes of scenery, role, improved skillset. Knicks fans wanted Randle out of town last year and this year he's worthy of an All-NBA team. Rozier in Boston couldn't shoot and was expendable and he looks pretty lethal on the Hornets now. Heck, even his teammate Miles Bridges looked lost until a month or two ago and he's been on fire ever since.

If we keep Bamba or not it's because we see a future for him on this team. He's never gonna be a Harrell sort of player, but he needs to be aware on what his role is. I don't think many players are "lazy", but they can be uncoordinated, have bad game sense, bad timing, etc. I think Bamba suffers from a lot of that but you see what he can do as an unrefined player in terms of being able to block people when he is in the right space, or just scaring people with his length.

If he puts everything together, he has the talent to be an all-star, but that's very, very far away, and that requires everything going right, so that should be the least of his priorities. If he focuses on the simple things like defensive awareness, knowing when to challenge things or not, being able to mix it up inside and outside, he can become a very useful player instead of a guy that can just put up stats but not affect much. Whether or not it's worth expending the money + minutes is another story. Too often we want a guy to average 20/10, be a defensive stud, be able to affect winning and never have an off game. It's impossible. Those guys rarely come around. It's also hard to etch out a specific role on a rebuilding team, so these games are all games they have to learn from and get better from.

Even the young stars of today aren't/having been winning until 6/7+ year vets come on the team and help them. It's a very hard league to win in. We simply have to develop players that people want to play with and help build a winning culture again with. It's hard, but doable. It might be only 1. Maybe 2 or 3 if we're lucky, but we're giving ourselves a chance with the draft + seeing which young guys will stick.

[Def Swami]

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[Def Swami]

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Clifford might as well be screaming MO BAMBA at the top of his lungs.

It has never been more apparent that Clifford is a not a fan of Mo Bamba.

[PrimeThyme]

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Stan should probably just shut up and worry about his own team. He's been awful this year and is already considered to be on the hot seat. His coaching style just hasn't aged well whatsoever.

[KillMonger]

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[pepe1991]

Do you guys really needed 3 years and "exstended playing time" to figure that center who has very poor BBIQ, has stone hands, prefers to stay at 3 point line and has virtually zero post or go-to moves, who is out of shape since he joined nba and who pretty much admitted that he isn't big fan of basketball will be bad?


Scouts, some GMs and some fans saw 7'10 wingspan and starter famming over his "potential". Potential isn't measured by lenght of player's hands but with basketball skills. Every Gobert comparison to me, always was cringy because anybody who actually watched Gobert play, saw very, very competitive baskestball player with very good intangibles. Player that gets visually frustrated when team is playing bad and who is very vocal about defense.

Bamba never did any of it.Bamba was defensive center who met nba-level competition at college few times and lost each and every matchup. There was video of him guarding Ayton at practice before draft ,and Ayton kept schooling him at every play. Ayton, himself, wasn't even polished offensive player, yet Bamba had no business guarding him.

But people got obsessed with him by watching him shooting 3s over broomsticks in emty arena, ignoring he couldn't even make FT% at some fine percentage and never had mid range game. To this date, Bamba only can sometimes make wide open 3s, has no mid range game, no post game and is very mediocre FT shooter.

I never got and that's why i always was in endless debates and fights about him- his defense. Guy gets blocks because lenght, but those blocks, to me ,never made defense any better. I compared him to old man Camby, who averaged like 3 blocks with Nuggets because he was chasing all time high block list, but team didn't even play better defense at all -with him in game.
Most blocks in nba end up being - another possession for attacking team. Blocks will never mean good defense. Ever. Very few shot blockers were even elite defenders, we are lucky that Isaac is one of them.

[pepe1991]

Zion is ruthlessly efficient. Imagine thinking this guy is overrated

Yea and 25 ppg on 59% TS on same team equals being 7 games below .500 . Again.

[Knightro]

It’s a two fold problem with Bamba.

He’s low effort *and* low skill. He could absolutely succeed if he was only one of the two, but he’s both.

At his height and length, he could be good and perhaps even very good simply being by high effort, but he isn’t.

At his height and length, he could be good and perhaps even very good if his motor ran mostly cold provided he had more skill, but he doesn’t.

He’s just doesn’t have enough of either and ultimately that’s why he very likely isn’t going to make it.

Unfortunately you just really don’t know how a young player is really going to be effort and work ethic wise until you get him in your program.

[KillMonger]

If clifford is frustrated now, how frustrated is he going to be by the last week of the season when we've lost like 15 in a row lol? He'll probably let his hair grow back so he can pull it out again....One more year.....i just have to deal for one more year

[pepe1991]

1 min into a game and Bamba already doesn't give a s*** about defense

#Gobert

[pepe1991]

And even more first class cluelessness

[pepe1991]

So there was posssession where Bamba trapped Cole in pick&roll, forced to shoot over 3 defenders (miss) , pushed Hayes and dunked
We were down by 22 so refs didn't care

[GelbeWand09]

It’s a two fold problem with Bamba.

He’s low effort *and* low skill. He could absolutely succeed if he was only one of the two, but he’s both.

At his height and length, he could be good and perhaps even very good simply being by high effort, but he isn’t.

At his height and length, he could be good and perhaps even very good if his motor ran mostly cold provided he had more skill, but he doesn’t.

He’s just doesn’t have enough of either and ultimately that’s why he very likely isn’t going to make it.

Unfortunately you just really don’t know how a young player is really going to be effort and work ethic wise until you get him in your program.

For me a 3 fold problem. His reaction time is just super slow + he is not really athletic. He maybe got too long arms & legs.

[pepe1991]

That was a hell of a pass by RJ. Weak attempt by Bamba though. I like to see big men his size finish strong with two hands.

That had Vuc written all over it. Bamba before learning under Vuc:

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Do you really belive in this or it's just funny thing for you to say?
Mo Bamba, like any other college kid had about 25 000 000 reasons to bite for every ball. That's how much money he was going to get if he could get into top 10 in draft.

Despite that, every scout under a Sun said he is lazy and letargic . Yet, fans and Hammond and Weltman elected to be deaf and blind when it comes to evaluation and only saw measurments.

Whole draftexpress segment of breakdown of Bamba's game was dedicated to his terrible motor.

If anything, being schooled every practice by Vuc should have lit some fire under his a**, but as we see, it did nothing. Over time even Birch was outplaying him.

[basketballRob]

I just find it funny that we're piling on the guy that is leading us in points, rebounds, and blocks for the night

That's the problem with going off box scores.

On any given night there's gonna be 90-110 points scored, 35-50 rebounds to be grabbed, dozens and dozens of shots attempted at the rim that could potentially be blocked. If a guy plays enough minutes, especially at center, he's gonna put up numbers.

Bamba has 17-12-2, yet has looked absolutely horrific in just about every respect.

That's everything center gives up shots at the rim, Mo is just more scrutinized. Last year he was near the top of the league in rim protection. I really believe for whatever reason, that he gets singled out.

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[basketballRob]

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Stan should probably just shut up and worry about his own team. He's been awful this year and is already considered to be on the hot seat. His coaching style just hasn't aged well whatsoever.

They just beat the Pelicans a few weeks ago.

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[basketballRob]

It’s a two fold problem with Bamba.

He’s low effort *and* low skill. He could absolutely succeed if he was only one of the two, but he’s both.

At his height and length, he could be good and perhaps even very good simply being by high effort, but he isn’t.

At his height and length, he could be good and perhaps even very good if his motor ran mostly cold provided he had more skill, but he doesn’t.

He’s just doesn’t have enough of either and ultimately that’s why he very likely isn’t going to make it.

Unfortunately you just really don’t know how a young player is really going to be effort and work ethic wise until you get him in your program.

He hustled the entire game. He got back on every play

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[pepe1991]

I just find it funny that we're piling on the guy that is leading us in points, rebounds, and blocks for the night

That's the problem with going off box scores.

On any given night there's gonna be 90-110 points scored, 35-50 rebounds to be grabbed, dozens and dozens of shots attempted at the rim that could potentially be blocked. If a guy plays enough minutes, especially at center, he's gonna put up numbers.

Bamba has 17-12-2, yet has looked absolutely horrific in just about every respect.

That's everything center gives up shots at the rim, Mo is just more scrutinized. Last year he was near the top of the league in rim protection. I really believe for whatever reason, that he gets singled out.

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