Coming home felt different this time. Mohamed Bamba couldn’t put his finger on it, but as his plane descended upon the city and he saw the skyline from his airplane window, a different emotion rushed across his 7-foot frame.
“It was like a homecoming,” he said Wednesday, on the eve of the NBA draft.
And this time, there is an outside chance the shot-blocking menace from Harlem could be back for good.
The Grizzlies are looking to trade out of the No. 4 slot, and they have talked to the Knicks about a deal, according to sources. New Knicks coach David Fizdale met with Bamba on Wednesday at the players’ hotel, and the Knicks, who have the ninth pick, are high on him, sources said. Memphis is looking to unload the hefty contract of Chandler Parsons, who is owed $49 million over the next two years and played for Fizdale with the Grizzlies.
“It’d be pretty cool to either play for or against the Knicks,” Bamba said during the NBA Draft Combine. “I’ve never played in the Garden. I think it will be a funny feeling playing in the Garden. I’ve always wanted them to win, wanted them to be a contender.”
It would be a surreal story, the first New Yorker to go in the top five of the draft in 19 years landing with the hometown Knicks. Yes, it has been that long, 19 years to be exact, since Lamar Odom was taken fourth overall in the 1999 draft by the Clippers.
“Wow, wow,” Bamba said. “It’s been some time since then. We got some making up to do.
“It would mean the world to me [for that to happen].”
The defensive-minded big man with what will be an NBA-best 7-foot-10 wingspan once he enters the league has a strong shot to join the likes of Odom, Stephon Marbury (1996) and Jamal Mashburn (1993) as the lone New York City natives to go in the top five over the past 25 years.
In his one season at Texas, the son of West African immigrants led the Longhorns to the NCAA Tournament — averaging 12.9 points on 54.1 percent shooting, 10.5 rebounds and 3.7 blocks per game, and has shown shooting range up to the 3-point-line few believed he had in workouts. His rim-protecting skills are elite, thanks to his timing and ridiculous length. That skill would fit in well with Fizdale’s mantra to get back to the Knicks’ stingy defensive ways of the 1990s.
“It’s really second to none,” the 20-year-old Bamba said. “I truly feel as if you can plug me into the league right now, I would be one of the best shot-blockers. I feel as if I’m going to have the most impact from Day 1 [of any rookie] with any organization that I’m with.”
Bamba wasn’t a product of a local high school powerhouse, like the most recent top New York draftees. In what has become a popular trend, he left the city for high school, attending prep schools Cardigan Mountain School (N.H.) and The Westtown School (Pa.), though he did play AAU locally with the PSA Cardinals. This was his first time back to the city since last August.
“I made the conscious decision from a very young age to move away and better myself in silence, and be off by myself and be independent,” he said. “I’m glad I did. It certainly paid off for me.”
That’s pretty clear. He’ll be a millionaire in a few days, a building block of a franchise. And he’s done it his way, by leaving home prior to high school, eschewing traditional blue-blood one-and-done factories Duke and Kentucky to go to Texas because of his bond with coach Shaka Smart, and passing on hiring an agent, relying instead on adviser Greer Love, a Michigan-based private equity investor. The nontraditional move didn’t shock those close to Bamba.
“With Mo, you’re going to continue to see him blaze his own trail, take his own path,” Smart said. “It’s not surprising, because he likes to be different.”
He hopes to start a new narrative by going high in the draft. Bamba plans to share in the moment with a lot of friends and family he hasn’t seen in some time. He also won’t be the only local expected to get picked. Kentucky’s Hamidou Diallo of Queens and Arizona’s Rawle Alkins are projected late-first- or early-second-round picks.
“Being a guy for the first time in 19 years to be drafted this high, I think it will start a trend,” he said.
That isn’t the only trend he could start. Maybe Bamba can help bring the Knicks back, too.
Additional reporting by Marc Berman