Meet Bol Bol, The 7’2 NBA Guard

It is uniformly – and quite correctly – assumed that young French big man Victor Wembanyama will be the first overall pick in the 2023 NBA Draft. He truly is unlike anyone that has come before, a 7’3 or so wiry big man with the handle and shot of a man a foot shorter, along with unfathomable defensive range.

If anything, he might be too big. But what is for sure is that there is only one of him.

As with any transcendent talent – which Victor figures to be – the hunt is on for a second. Just as the pioneering career progression of Dirk Nowitzki sent NBA general managers and scouting departments on the hunt for the next face-up non-American seven-footer (with what on a generous day might be called incredibly mixed results), so too will the addition of this latest unicorn inevitably trigger a worldwide search for his passable imitators.

The Orlando Magic, however, are ahead of the game. They may have already found one.

Drafted out of Oregon after an injury-shortened college career, Bol Bol slipped all the way down to the 44th pick of the 2019 NBA Draft, despite being considered a lottery pick right up to its start time. Late rumours about the results of his pre-draft medical reports, combined with the fact that he had missed all but a few non-conference minutes of his only collegiate season, paired with assumptions that his sizeable frame would be further prone to breaking down, saw him slip out of the guaranteed money altogether, into what would normally be the two-way contract range. And when he was finally drafted by the Miami Heat, he was done so only to be immediately traded to the Denver Nuggets.

Once in Colorado, Bol’s NBA career could finally begin. But even then, not really. In three years with the Nuggets, taking a back seat behind both Nikola Jokic and his many reserves, Bol appeared in only 60 total games, and played double-figure minutes in only nine of them. He was never in the rotation, and never really in the plans – after getting injured again in his third season, Bol was then salary-dumped twice, once onto the Boston Celtics and then onto Orlando, for the cost only of a top-55 protected 2023 second-round pick that will never convey.

It has long been an object of both intrigue and ridicule quite how much the Magic have prioritised players with stand-out length in their decade-long rebuild. And there are very, very few longer than Bol. Listed at 7’2 with a 7’8 wingspan and a 9’7 standing reach, in a body built for basketball, he is the epitome of frontcourt length.

Essentially, though, he has been playing something of a backcourt role.

Due to the unique way this year’s Magic team is constructed, there exist fewer conventional guards than forwards. Markelle Fultz is the nightly starter at point guard, and in theory, some combination of Terrence Ross, Gary Harris, R.J. Hampton, Cole Anthony and Jalen Suggs fit alongside and behind him.

In practice, though, Fultz remains injury-prone, as do most of the others. And as a result, some of the line-ups the Magic have put out this year have been frankly huge, none more so than when they put out the behemoth unit of Ross, Bol, Franz Wagner, Wendell Carter and Paolo Banchero to start one of their earliest games of the season.

At a time when everyone else has gotten smaller, the Magic have gotten enormous. And in part, this is due to Bol playing nothing like his measurements suggest.

This season, Bol’s breakout has begun. He is averaging 11.0 points and 6.6 rebounds per game, and he has done so with a tendency for nightly highlights. Those highlights invariably come on the offensive end, where he showcases far more of a perimeter game than just a jumper. Bol is spry, agile and fairly composed with the ball in his hands, and he uses this to work off the dribble in a manner that is incredibly rare to see in anyone over seven-foot tall.

The way he shoots on the move, spins into the lane and creates it all off the bounce is indeed almost Wembanyama-esque. And all it cost Orlando was a non-existent pick and a few raised eyebrows.

There should be plenty more to come, too. Bol’s skills are still somewhat raw (as evidenced by some blocky turnovers and limited passing interest), and although he glides around the court so effortlessly making your eyes follow his unique offerings, it is nonetheless clear to see that he has still not had much high-level basketball experience yet.

This is particularly true on the less highlight-friendly end. Do not be fooled into assuming that the 7’2 son of the notorious shot-blocker Manute Bol is a stand-out NBA defender by default. Quite the opposite is true, in fact; it is on the defensive end where Bol Bol needs to put in a lot more work.

Bol’s physical profile should convey tremendous defensive potential and an ability to cover all the ground and all kinds of match-ups, just as it does for Victor. Key to realising this potential, though, is a concerted committed to the parts of that end that do not lend themselves well to statistical capture – second-efforts, chase-downs, close-outs and the like. As things stand currently, though, Bol’s defensive motor, fundamentals and positioning are all far behind his offensive curve, and the reach only occasionally allows him to get away with it. The same will not be said of Wembanyana,

The pairing of Bol Bol and the Orlando Magic is nigh-on perfect. He is a theoretically excellent embodiment of their ethos of length, was available for literally nothing, and should get plenty of developmental time on a team with no immediate interest in winning and constant injuries elsewhere. Furthermore, if Jonathan Isaac can work his way back to being a key player once again in the coming weeks and is able to cover for some of Bol’s defensive shortcomings, the Magic will be able to run out the truly unique frontcourt of those two, Banchero, Carter and both of the Wagner brothers, six truly unique players each with their own level of intrigue. Yet playing like Victor Wembanyama is not the same as playing as well as Victor Wembanyama.

Bol Bol is not a unicorn at this stage so much as he is a regulation horse with a party hat pulled down over his nose. There remains tremendous upside in his game, and he has started to realise some of it in eye-catching fashion. But he has to get involved on defence to become part of the future.