Mo Bamba

Bamba is coming off his best season, posting career-best marks nearly across the board. Jonathan Isaac missing the whole season opened up time in the frontcourt, and coach Jamahl Mosley was comfortable playing Bamba alongside other bigs like Wendell Carter, Moritz Wagner and Robin Lopez to relative success. In his 25.7 minutes per game, Bamba averaged 10.6 points, 8.1 rebounds, 1.7 blocks and 1.2 assists. The big man encouragingly saw his points per game and efficiency climb last season, though his usage rate dipped below that of 2020-21. Bamba shot 48/38/78 for a career-high 58.2 true-shooting percentage - his second year in a row above the 55 percent benchmark. As good as last season was for Bamba - rank of 77 in per-game fantasy production - he's in line for significantly fewer minutes in 2022-23. The Magic selected forward Paolo Banchero with the No. 1 overall pick over the summer, and Jonathan Isaac will be back in the mix. Both players are practically locks to see 20-plus minutes per game (especially Banchero), and Orlando even has forwards Franz Wagner and Chuma Okeke to also log healthy minutes. That may force Bamba into a true backup center role behind Carter. Assuming that's the case, it's hard to target Bamba outside of deep leagues. Even then, he's a bit of a flier for fantasy managers in need of blocks.

In his third season, Bamba only marginally improved his output. He produced 8.0 points and 5.8 rebounds in just 15.8 minutes per game. The departure of Nikola Vucevic at the trade deadline let the Texas product see more playing time, as he averaged 11.1 points, 8.0 rebounds and 1.6 blocks across 20.8 minutes after Vucevic departed in late March. However, the Magic's frontcourt was still crowded with other young big men in Chuma Okeke and Wendell Carter -- the latter of whom was brought to Orlando in the trade for Vucevic. The Magic favored Okeke in the final month of the season, as he started every game for which he was healthy. With Okeke and Carter remaining on the roster, plus the offseason addition of veteran center Robin Lopez, Bamba may have difficulty earning enough minutes to be relevant in standard leagues.

Bamba had another underwhelming campaign in 2019-20 -- his second year in the league. He ended up seeing fewer minutes than his rookie season, averaging 5.4 points, 4.9 rebounds and 1.4 blocks in 14.2 minutes. On the plus side, he made strides in three-point efficiency (34.6 percent) and free-throw efficiency (67.4), but he still couldn't crack the Top 200 on a per-game basis. The biggest issue is that he remains Nikola Vucevic's backup, and the two don't share much time on the court. Bamba does have some upside when seeing extra run -- 10.0 points, 6.8 rebounds, 2.5 blocks, 1.8 threes, 1.3 assists when seeing minutes in the 20s -- but that kind of action will be tough to come by unless Vucevic suffers an injury. As a result, for the upcoming season, Bamba mostly makes sense as a flier in deeper fantasy leagues or as a buy-low dynasty option.

Bamba's rookie season was cut short by a foot injury and, ultimately, a tibia stress fracture that required surgery. The pair of injuries caused the big man to play in just 47 games over the course of his first regular season. Now, Bamba enters year two completely healthy, but he is likely to take on a similar role as last season. In 47 games, most of which were spent backing up All-Star center Nikola Vucevic, Bamba averaged 6.2 points, 5.0 rebounds and 1.4 blocks across 16.3 minutes per game. Even if it was a small sample size, Bamba showed promise on both ends with his ability to rack up rebounds and blocked shots in short spurts along with making 30 percent of his three-point attempts, which is a good baseline for the seven-footer. But with Vucevic wasting no time signing a four-year, $100 million contract with the Magic this offseason, it looks like Bamba's workload will remain relatively unchanged. However, while Vucevic did play 80 games for the first time in his NBA career last season, he is no stranger to injuries, which would be Bamba's only clear avenue to seeing extended minutes in his sophomore season.

Bamba, selected out of Texas with the sixth overall pick in this summer’s draft, checks in at seven feet tall with a 7-foot-9 wingspan. Due to his physical tools, the Big 12 All-Defensive Team honoree projects to be a high-level shot-blocker from Day 1, as he averaged 3.7 blocks across 30.2 minutes last season. His quality rebounding (10.5) and scoring (12.9) also helped him be selected to the All-Big 12 Second Team. While Bamba already seems to be a lock as an imposing defensive presence, his upside as a three-point shooter has intrigued scouts. He only shot 14-of-51 (27.5 percent) from three at Texas, but has since showed off improved form in workouts. That said, he was conservative with the shot during summer league, going just 2-for-4 in 59 minutes. So, Fantasy owners hoping Bamba will come out shooting multiple threes every night could be let down. Starter’s minutes aren't a guarantee, either, as 27-year-old Nikola Vucevic remains on the roster. He saw 29.5 minutes per game last season and was 0.8 boards away from averaging a double-double. Regardless, given that Orlando is deep into a rebuild, it would be surprising if Bamba doesn't see significant run during his rookie campaign.