In the NBA, it’s not always about who so much as where. For NBA big man Bol Bol, he learned that lesson first-hand after his trade from the Denver Nuggets in 2022.
Drafted 14th in the second round of the 2018 Draft, Bol has had many ups and down throughout his young career. In Orlando, however, he has thrived into something more.
With averages of 11.9 points, 6.9 rebounds, and 0.9 assists, Bol is having a breakout season in the NBA, and the entire basketball world has been put on notice.
In a recent chat with the media, the Magic youngster looked back on his tenure with the Nuggets and reflected on what held him back from reaching his potential.
“Yeah, I can say there was a little bit, I feel I could’ve worked a lot harder,” he said. “That was just me being young. That’s one of the things I learned, you have to work hard or (stuff’s) not gonna work out for you. I think it (was) very good for me,” he said. “(My time in Denver) definitely put me through a lot. Even off the court and on the court. But I think everyone goes through their own struggles and what not.”
“Nothing’s ever completely over,” he said when asked what he learned in Denver. “Here, people might think, ‘Oh, he’ll never play again.’ Here, I just learned a lot from watching Jokic. That was big for me. New space, new opportunity for me,” he said. “A younger team. It wasn’t like here, where it was kind of hard for me to play because they were already a really good team, an established team, a playoff team. Now, I’m just getting a re-start.”
In hindsight, it’s always easier to identify where things went wrong, but all that matters is how much Bol Bol has grown his game since leaving the Nuggets.
Bol Bol Is Breaking The NBA With His Versatile Play This Season
While there are still a lot of areas to improve, Bol Bol has become a really well-rounded player offensively. This season, he showed vast improvements in ball handling, shooting, and playmaking. But according to the young big man, those skills have been there from the beginning.
“Yeah, I had all of this,” he told The Athletic. “It’s just I haven’t really been able to show it because I’ve been on the bench for the last couple of years. Now that they’ve given me the opportunity, I’ve just been trying to get better each game and I think it’s been showing.”
As a team, the Magic aren’t on track to win the East Finals, but they can be called a team on the rise with Bol, Paolo Banchero, Markelle Fultz, and Franz Wagner leading the show.
It will be interesting to see what other kind of leaps that young core makes going forward and how far they are able to lift the Magic this season and beyond.
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