At first glance, it makes sense that Mo Bamba is considered a potential top-5 pick in this year’s draft. He is 6’11 with a 7’9 wingspan, the longest ever recorded, and his college production passes the smell test. Amongst the quintet of bigs projected to be top-10 picks — Marvin Bagley, DeAndre Ayton, Jaren Jackson Jr., Wendell Carter Jr., and Bamba himself — Bamba’s tools and production seem commensurate with his peers.

Yet, there are a number of things on tape that make me noticeably lower on Bamba than the rest of this group. Those concerns are primarily athletic, and affect both the defensive and offensive end.

Bamba has been billed as a mobile, switchable big man. In some ways, this is true. His ability to move his feet in tight spaces and respond to opponent movement is quite good. You can see on a possession like this where his reputation comes from. He picks up his feet lightly and is able to contain penetration well.



This short area mobility serves Bamba well. Part of the reason he is so good as a rim protector is his ability to pick up his feet from across the lane and rotate over in a timely fashion.

However, tight space mobility is different from lateral quickness and speed. Notice how cramped the floor is in that above clip. For many players, we talk about how the increased spacing of the NBA game will help them. For Bamba, the opposite is true. The closer knit college floor allowed Bamba to stay around the rim more, relying on his length and short-area movement skills.

In the NBA, he is going to be in trouble facing explosive athletes with space to work. Watch how when Texas Tech manages to give Keenan Evans some actual space to attack, he easily glides by Bamba.



Now, it is a testament to Bamba’s length that Evans was forced to pump fake and finish. Bamba can allow himself to get “beat” a little because he has the length to recover. But back pressure is not always enough. Here again, we see Bamba put in a situation with more space around him and little ability to contain the quicker guard.



This time it’s Keenan Evans again. Bamba simply lacks the first step reaction to keep pace with some guys.



Texas Tech was a difficult matchup for Bamba. Between Evans and Zhaire Smith they had two NBA athletes to attack off the dribble, and the requisite spacing as well. Smith gets in on the action here.



Here’s one more Smith clip for good measure. Bamba only gets burned when he gets put in space alone, but NBA team’s are good at finding ways to isolate guys in space.



Now, Bamba is not the only player in the world who gets burned in isolation against quick guards. Even other quick perimeter players are prone to getting dusted. But Bamba is particularly worrisome in this department, and that is really important for a big man who is going to get put in pick-and-roll after pick-and-roll.

Here’s one last Keenan Evans play. Bamba tries to hedge and stop Evan’s progress, but simply isn’t quick enough to cut him off.



The same issue appears here, and Bamba compounds it with a poor closeout to end the possession.



That closeout is significant because Bamba is likely to spend a lot of time playing “drop” coverage in pick-and-rolls. Dropping and containing suits his strengths well, but the increasing presence of stretch 5’s and pull-up shooting guards makes it hard to solely rely on drop coverage.

Bamba simply doesn’t have the wheels to keep track of bigs who can capably pick-and-pop.



Here he attempts to closeout on his man but lacks the body control to do so with any sort of containment.



I want to emphasize that these concerns are not unique to Bamba, and he can certainly be a plus NBA defender despite them. There are a number of current bigs who are similarly plodding and still manage to be plus defenders. But these concerns are important, and potentially differentiate him from his most frequent comparison, Rudy Gobert.

Gobert sometimes looks like a deer on ice with his awkward footwork, but I actually think he is faster than Bamba. Bamba’s fluidity moving his feet and sliding in a stance is more aesthetically pleasing than Gobert’s herky-jerky running style, but Gobert covers ground in a more efficient manner.

It is also underplayed just how significant the size difference is between the two. Gobert has 2-3 inches and 15-20 pounds on Bamba. Even if Bamba’s arms are just as long, that is a significant difference. Gobert is giant and imposing in a way that Bamba is not. Those differences help Gobert as a 1-on-1 defender, a rim protector, and a rebounder.

Again, this doesn’t mean Bamba can’t be a good defender. But to draft Bamba in the top-5 of a loaded class like this should come with the expectation that he has Gobert-like upside. Without significant athletic development from a strength and mobility standpoint, that upside seems unrealistic. Particularly considering how exceptional of a diagnostic defender Gobert has turned into.

Bamba’s athletic concerns also translate to the offensive side of things. His 7’9 wingspan gives him an enormous catch radius on lobs, but his lack of burst and speed limit his effectiveness in this role. Even if dunking the ball here is unrealistic, you would at least expect Bamba to come down with a catch.



Bamba’s lack of explosion shows itself again here, and then his physical weakness prevents him from getting up a good look at the rim.



This play seems more about timing than anything, but it is symptomatic of Bamba’s lack of feel as a rim-roller.



This time he catches the ball in space and loads up to finish only to be met at the rim by….Sviatoslav Mykhailuk? He then compounds the initial miss with a missed dunk right afterwards.



This lack of explosion is very concerning. Bamba has the length to provide value as a finisher, but his limited bounce and speed makes him unlikely to be a gravitational pick-and-roll threat.

I also worry about Bamba’s ability to do much of anything offensively outside catch and finish around the hoop. He isn’t going to be tasked with posting up in the NBA, but his tendency to just wilt when he catches the ball in the post is not a good sign for his effectiveness catching in traffic as a roll-man.



He gets the put-back and finish here, but the inability to take the contact from the ultra-skinny Jo Lual-Acuil is not encouraging.



The combination of weak frame and subpar spatial recognition is what leads to plays like this.



There are reasons for optimism. Bamba will add at least some strength with time. My colleague Jackson Hoy wrote a good piece about why his passing ability is better than the number’s suggest.

Still, we are talking about a guy who only assisted on 3.6% of teammate possessions and had a 0.33/1 assist:turnover ratio. Even with improvement, Bamba is going to be a limited offensive big outside of catching and finishing, and he lacks the requisite explosion to be elite in that department.

I have only taken the time to highlight Bamba’s shortcomings in this article so far. I don’t mean to suggest that he is a surefire bust, or not a deserving lottery pick. He is a legitimately great rim protecting prospect who also rebounds the ball at a very high-level.

However, I think the grouping of Bamba with the other exceptional bigs at the top of this year’s class is a bit overzealous. Without outlier athletic development, Bamba has the makings of a good but flawed defender who brings very little offensive value. That player could still be a starter, but in an NBA that is increasingly favoring spacing and quickness the value of such a player is genuinely diminished.

Just watch in these playoffs as non-elite traditional centers get played off the floor in droves. Hassan Whiteside and Jusuf Nurkic were already victimized on day one of the playoffs. True centers who provide value in a playoff setting are exceedingly rare these days.

There is some skinny tail-end upside with Bamba if he does really develop physically. That being said, Bamba is an old freshman. He will already be 20 by the time of the draft. What evidence is there that Bamba’s athleticism has any more room for unprecedented growth than anyone else in the draft? Unless a strength and conditioning expert could convince me Bamba is a special case, he looks much more like a late-lottery pick than a potential top-5 one.