Me: I would imagine playing on a team like that in high school, with Cam and all the others, maybe prepared you not only for college, but playing in the pros.

MB: Yeah, Cam can go. He’s a really good basketball player. And I know for a fact I’ll see him here next year.

Me: What was Harlem like to grow up in, day by day?

MB: It was, when people ask that, I pretty much tell them that you just grow up fast. You’re making decisions at a very young age that most kids don’t even come close to making. I credit a lot of my success to being from Harlem, growing up there.

Me: Harlem’s changed a little the last few years.

MB: Yeah, gentrification is real. It’s real.

Me: What was it like seeing that demographic shift?

MB: Well, I was kind of there before gentrification kind of really hit. Obviously there was a bunch of condos that went up and it was pretty cool to see. It was every time I came back home -- I’d see a new development going up.

Mohamed Bamba is ready to make his mark in the NBA.

Me: Best advice your parents ever gave you?

MB: I wouldn’t say it was direct advice or a quote. I’d say the best thing my parents passed on to me was to let me make my own mistakes and figure out on my age how to kind of see the world on my own. Growing up as the youngest child, one or two years after your siblings, obviously that’s great. You’re learning without truly making the mistakes on your own. But at some point in your life, you’re gonna have to learn on your own. You’re gonna have to fall to rise.

Me: Conversely, then, what’s the biggest mistake you’ve made so far?

MB: I’d say that the biggest mistake I’ve made so far was not committing to Texas earlier. I think waiting was awesome. I was very methodical about waiting, very strategic about what I wanted in a university. But at the same time, if I could go back, I probably would have committed my junior year, so I could hit the ground running and build the relationships, get to know people.

Me: How much freedom did Shaka give you when you were there to try things on the floor that might not necessarily be good for the team, but could be good for you individually down the road?

Texas coach Shaka Smart can't help but praise his former player, Mohamed Bamba.

MB: Coach Smart, he’s given me so much freedom to sort of grow into who I was. That’s been a big thing in my life -- my parents and all of my coaches. Coach Smart did a great job of just letting me come to terms with myself, as a basketball player and a person.

Me: I saw in one of your interviews before the Draft that you don’t think people really understand you when you say you’re a unicorn. So define that for me as you see it.

MB: Well, I mean, people kind of have a concept of what it means. To me, it’s just someone who makes plays that have never been seen before -- a 7-foot big guard, those are all unicorns to me.

Me: You played against Ayton and guys like Jarrett Allen (the Nets’ first-round pick in 2017) in high school, and I know how much you’ve looked at Joel Embiid on tape. Are you guys the new normal when it comes to the next generation of bigs?

MB: Yeah, I think this is becoming a theme, and you’ll see it more and more with guys coming out of high school. One of the guys you’ll see coming up is James Wiseman (the 6-foot-11 rising senior center currently playing at East High School in Memphis, and who is considered by many to be the top college prospect in the Class of 2019). He’s younger, but he does a lot of the things that I do, that Deandre does, that Jarrett does. It’s refreshing to see so many people that can do what I do.

Me: If you were 6-feet tall instead of seven, what would you be doing?

MB: I’d have to be around the game, like a scout or a GM, something around the game.

Me: How did the basketball bug bite you so hard growing up?

MB: Honestly, it’s just my competitive nature. It bleeds over into other aspects of my life. But basketball is just something that I really excelled at, and whenever I hit kind of adversity, or whenever I do something that makes me vulnerable enough to get better and to ask for help, I just took this and ran with it.

Me: Since you’re a kid, I have to ask you how good you are at Fortnight?

MB: I play recreationally. One of my best friends is really good at it, and whenever I play him I get Ws.

TWEET OF THE WEEK

Got called Rook today for the first time 🤷🏽‍♂️ — Miles Bridges (@MilesBridges) July 3, 2018

-- Hornets’ rookie Miles Bridges (@MilesBridges), Tuesday, 5:32 p.m., who was apparently baptized by old man/second-year teammate Dwayne Bacon -- a whopping two-plus years older than the 20-year-old Bridges.

THEY SAID IT

“Have you ever been unemployed? Were you nervous then? All right, that answers the question.”

-- DeMarcus Cousins, to local reporters in the Bay, when asked if he was nervous on the first day of the negotiating period, when he didn’t have many offers from teams with whom he wanted to play, before he reached out and quickly reached a deal with the Warriors on a one-year contract.

“I was freaking out. She was saying ‘hello, it’s great to have you.’ I was like starstruck. I was speechless. She is the Michael Jordan of the WNBA.”

-- Suns rookie and overall number one pick Deandre Ayton, to local reporters, detailing his meeting with Phoenix Mercury legend Diana Taurasi.

“I have a crush on wingspan.”

-- Knicks coach David Fizdale, to local reporters, detailing his thoughts playing around with huge lineups in New York next season -- which could include first-round pick Kevin Knox (6-foot-9) at guard with Kristaps Porzingis (7-foot-2) at small forward next to Luke Kornet (7-foot-1; played for the Knicks’ G League affiliate in Westchester) and Mitchell Robinson (7-foot-2), the team’s second-rounder last month, at center.

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Longtime NBA reporter, columnist and Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Famer David Aldridge is an analyst for TNT. You can e-mail him here, find his archive hereand follow him on Twitter.

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