Mo Bamba made his preseason debut with the Philadelphia 76ers during Sunday's road game vs the Boston Celtics and went viral for a missed dunk early in the fourth quarter. His missed dunk attempt invited a lot of reactions from NBA fans, who called him out for his performance, even though it doesn't come as a surprise if players miss a dunk in a game.
Bamba spent 16 minutes on the floor and posted seven points and six rebounds, on 3/9 shooting, as the Sixers lost to the Celtics 106-114. The two teams will meet again on Wednesday, October 11, as Philadelphia has three more preparation games left.
"He got no more hoes callin," a fan wrote on X.
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"He is terrible," another one posted.
"Brick."
"Bro is straight trash."
"That's why Lakers didn't re-sign bro, doesn't know what he is doing."
"More like No Bamba."
"So glad the Warriors didn't sign him."
"Buddy is such a bust."
Mo Bamba shares excitement about the opportunity to join the Sixers and fight for the title
Bamba joined the Philadelphia 76ers on a one-year deal this offseason and will have a second opportunity to fight for his first NBA championship after his time with the LA Lakers last year.
The 25-year-old big man helped the 17-time champions reach the Western Conference Finals, where they got swept by the eventual champions Denver Nuggets. Now, he wants to help the Sixers get past the second round of the playoffs for the first time in almost two decades.
"Absolutely. I got a small taste of winning in the playoffs was like in LA, but coming here and like having a training camp with it," he told Sixers Wire during Philadelphia's training camp at Colorado State University.
"When we were in LA, all we would talk about is ‘Yo, if we had a training camp together? This thing would have been awesome’. But having a training camp with arguably a better team is exciting and fun to kind of indulge in."
Bamba signed with the Sixers to become Joel Embiid's backup. He is expected to come off the bench along with fellow big man Paul Reed. Embiid, Reed, and Bamba will share the center position for the Sixers.
The reigning NBA MVP and scoring champion will again have a leading role in the team. The young center said that Embiid was the one that recruited him to the Sixers.
"Jo was probably the biggest in recruiting me. Everyone else was ‘Hey, it would be nice to have you,’ but Jo was probably the biggest. He was the first person that kind of like, helped me have that light bulb turned on at the time of free agency," he told Ky Carlin of Sixers Wire.
"I was looking at a few other teams, but Jo — and it was just a conversation that came up in passing and we revisited the conversation and he was like, ‘Listen, I’m not telling you where to go. At the end of the day, you’re in charge of your own career, but it’d be good to have you in the city'," Bamba added.
The newly-acquired Philadelphia big man is coming off a season where he averaged 6.6 ppg and 4.6 rpg in 49 games with the Orlando Magic and the Lakers. This will be his third team in the NBA and he said that he has adjusted well to the new environment so far.
"It’s been a long process, to be honest, but I think that’s the side of the NBA that no one really sees is the moving and adjusting to new teams and adjusting to a new city, coaching staff, but it’s been really easy here," Bamba said.
The Sixers will kick off the regular season with a road game vs the Milwaukee Bucks on Thursday, October 26.
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