Mo Bamba is to his last chance in the NBA

The life of an NBA travelman is a rough one. Often players wonder if this is their last chance to ‘make it’ in the NBA. Mo Bamba knows this well, because he recently came to the Utah Jazz to compete for a schedule in the training camp:

Mo Bamba was the sixth overall choice in the NBA design of 2018 by the Orlando Magic, which was a play-off team in his first season (2018-19). He was usually a reserve during his time with the magic behind All-Star Center Nikola Vucevic.

During the 2020-21 season, Orlando traded their core and sent Nikola Vucevic, Aaron Gordon, Al-Farouq Aminu and Evan Fournier elsewhere.

The magic Batte with a 22-60 season in 2021-22, even when Bamba had a career season-10.6 points, 8.1 rebounds, 1.7 blocks and 38% shoot remotely in 25 minutes a night.

Bamba was eventually traded when the magic continued their rebuilding. In February 2023 he was sent to the Los Angeles Lakers. This continued his journey, who also recorded stops in Philadelphia in 2023-24, the Los Angeles Clippers, the Utah Jazz (apart from before he played a match) and the New Orleans Pelicans during the 2024-25 season.

Bamba could harden a niche in Utah if all goes well

Although Mo Bamba is not a starter or maybe not 20 minutes per night player in the NBA, he has shown flashes in seven seasons as a big man who can clean up the floor. This is something that the jazz could use, because Walker Kessler and Jusuf Nurkic are missing in that area.

He has also shown some rim protection (1.3 blocks per game for his career) that could be useful in limited minutes and sometimes make Bamba an option over Kyle Filipowski in the rotation.

And at the age of 27 he is perhaps worth a kite with a low salary to fill the third center spot, in contrast to the 37-year-old Kevin Love, who may not be with jazz long.

Although he will not be the next Rudy Gobert or even the next Walker Kessler, if Mo Bamba can show something in the training camp and the preseason, it will be a long way to keep him in the competition and give the Utah Jazz a much needed length in the forecourt.

Bamba is young enough that he is not about to be out of the NBA, and he really has to seize this opportunity through the Hoorns if he wants to stay in the competition for years.