PHILADELPHIA – To a man, veteran players often say that they are able to master the transition from college basketball to the NBA when they start analyzing and looking at the game a dramatically different way.
For Orlando Magic rookie Mohamed Bamba that moment just might have come before he even played his first NBA game.
Bamba, 20, recently tuned in to an NBA TV replay of last spring’s playoff series between the Utah Jazz and the Houston Rockets. Midway through watching one game in particular, Bamba – the sixth overall pick in last June’s NBA Draft – realized a change had come about in how he was watching the Rockets take apart the Jazz in the second-round playoff series.