Tag: Jamahl Mosley

Jamahl Mosley praises Mark Daigneault for NBCA Coach of the Year award

Jamahl Mosley praises Mark Daigneault for NBCA Coach of the Year award.

After winning the NBCA’s Coach of the Year, Oklahoma City Thunder head coach Mark Daigneault was prideful of the award. It was a sign of respect from his peers: The 30 NBA head coaches voted on the award.

Daigneault also will likely receive the wider known Coach of the Year award bestowed by the NBA. The 39-year-old helped the young Thunder become one of the best teams in the league. OKC finished as the youngest first seed in league history this season.

Orlando Magic head coach Jamahl Mosley experienced similar success with his young squad. The Magic finished 47-35 and with the fifth seed.

Mosley, who signed an extension this season, will likely finish as a runner-up for the award. He offered Daigneault praise on the NBCA award.

“I think he’s done a phenomenal, phenomenal job down there with those guys,” Mosley said. “The way in which they play, the style that they play won. How they execute, how they’re detailed, how they’re prepared for every single game. He’s done such a fantastic job for them.”

Both the Thunder and Magic hope to make noise in the playoffs. They’ve been two of the best young squads in the league and have broken out this season.

Editor’s note: RookieWire’s Cody Taylor contributed to this article.

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Magic coach Jamahl Mosley gives his respect to Sixers star Joel Embiid

Orlando Magic coach Jamahl Mosley gave his respect to Philadelphia 76ers star Joel Embiid.

ORLANDO, Fla. — Philadelphia 76ers star Joel Embiid is one of the top players in the game. There isn’t much that he can’t do on the floor and the rest of the league knows it. They know how tough it is to really try and contain him and the Orlando Magic received another reminder on Friday.

Embiid had 36 points on 12-for-22 shooting to lead the Sixers to a 124-109 road win. No matter what the Magic did, they couldn’t slow him down. Goga Bitadze and Wendell Carter Jr. did their best, but Embiid is just on another level.

“He’s the MVP for a reason,” said Magic coach Jamahl Mosley of Embiid. “I mean we can have every game plan, you can have every scheme, but you know he’s getting to the area – and you put a hand on him it turns into a foul. If you don’t put a hand on him, he’s making that 15-, 17-footer that he’s shooting at a 60% clip.”

The Sixers kept giving the ball to Embiid. He scored 28 points in the first half. No matter what the Magic had schemed up or anything they tried to do, it didn’t matter much. The big fella did what he does and he made it look so easy.

“They kept it simple,” added Carter Jr. “When something worked for them, they went back to it and they exhausted it until we stopped it, and then they went to something else. I think with them being such a veteran team, they pay really good attention to the small details. Understanding where guys like to drive. Where guys like to get their shots.”

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Magic coach Jamahl Mosley is complimentary of Sixers big man Mo Bamba

Orlando Magic coach Jamahl Mosley was very complimentary of Philadelphia 76ers big man Mo Bamba in his return to Orlando.

ORLANDO, Fla. — Philadelphia 76ers big man Mo Bamba spent the first 4 1/2 seasons of his career playing for the Orlando Magic. Bamba was the sixth pick of the 2018 NBA draft. He played 266 games for the Magic before he was sent to the Los Angeles Lakers at the 2023 deadline.

Now with the Sixers, Bamba returned to Orlando on Wednesday, a 112-92 win for Philadelphia. Magic coach Jamahl Mosley had a lot of praise for the former Orlando big man.

“Mo in the years that I was here with him, he continued to work,” Mosley said of Bamba. “I think that was the great part about him. He was always honest, he worked his tail off to get himself on the court as much as he could.”

Unfortunately for Bamba, he suffered injuries through the majority of his time in Orlando. That, along with the presence of Nikola Vucevic, limited his opportunities with the Magic.

However, when Mosley took the job in the 2021-22 season, Bamba played 71 games and started 69 of them. He averaged 10.6 points, 8.1 rebounds, and 1.7 blocks while shooting 38.1% from deep. Mosley used him as a floor spacer on offense and allowed him to be free to protect the rim on defense.

“His ability to space the floor the right way,” Mosley continued of Bamba. “You saw what he did the other night what he did against Miami. I thought that was big and then his rim protection. He’s not afraid to go after blocking shots and I think that’s a big attribute that he possesses.”

Bamba had 18 points off the bench and knocked down three 3s in the Christmas Day loss to the Miami Heat. That just shows what he can do on a nightly basis as he continues to work his way into coach Nick Nurse’s favor in Philadelphia.

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Magic coach Jamahl Mosley has praise for Sixers legend Allen Iverson

Orlando Magic coach Jamahl Mosely has high praise for Philadelphia 76ers legend Allen Iverson.

Philadelphia 76ers legend Allen Iverson left an undeniable impact on the game of basketball. The Hall of Famer has done a lot in his career to become one of the best players the game has ever seen from incredible scoring numbers to Herculean efforts to doing things his way.

Before Jamahl Mosley became head coach of the Orlando Magic, he had to work his way up the ladder to get to where he is now. Mosley worked with George Karl and the Denver Nuggets early in his coaching career and was able to see Iverson and Carmelo Anthony up close. Between stints with the Sixers, Iverson was putting up great scoring numbers with Anthony in Denver.

Mosley had high praise for Iverson when he hopped on the “HoopsHype podcast”:

Being able to see Chuck (one of Iverson’s nicknames) and Melo at the Hall of Fame for Dirk Nowitzki’s induction was great to visit with them, the smiles on their faces and journeys they’ve been through. The time they were in Denver was such a joy and competitiveness. There was always a level of competition, whether it was a shooting game or one-on-one. They were highly competitive. Every night you walked on the floor with them, you knew you had a chance to win. People also didn’t see the work ethic. People see the lights and the fun, but there was work behind it.

There were summers spent with Melo going to Baltimore and time with Iverson in the gym after practice. They worked at their craft, and it showed being Top 75 players to ever play the game. They didn’t get there by chance. They loved the game and had a high competitiveness level every day.

Iverson has career averages of 26.7 points, 6.2 assists, and 3.7 rebounds while winning MVP in 2001. He guided the Sixers to the finals that season before they fell to the Los Angeles Lakers. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2016.

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Orlando’s Jamahl Mosley impressed after coaching Jalen Green with Team USA

Orlando’s Jamahl Mosley, who recently coached Jalen Green on the U.S. Select Team, tells @KellyIko that he was very impressed by the young #Rockets guard.

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After working with the U.S. Select Team in FIBA World Cup preparations, third-year Houston Rockets guard Jalen Green recently drew praise from USA Basketball officials for his performance.

As the No. 2 overall draft pick of the 2021 first round, Green averaged a team-high 22.1 points per game in 2022-23, his second season in Houston. The 21-year-old, 6-foot-6 guard hopes to build on that entering 2023-24, and a successful offseason could set the stage.

Led by Orlando Magic head coach Jamahl Mosley, the U.S. Select Team often used Green in an off-ball capacity, with Detroit’s Cade Cunningham usually functioning as the primary playmaker.

That’s a template Green could follow in Houston next to flagship offseason signing Fred VanVleet, who steps in as starting point guard. Here’s how Mosley described it to Kelly Iko of The Athletic:

Him playing off the ball was good — coming off pindowns, coming off screens, keeping the defense honest on the backside movement. Just being able to play without having to come back and get the ball, more along the lines of letting it find him. I think he did a really good job of not chasing it, being able to find opportunities to create for his teammates. And whenever the ball did find his hands, he was a live go.

“I think in a leader that you have in Fred [VanVleet], that’s going to help a ton because when he plays off the basketball — back screening, moving and cutting — once he gets that ball in his hands, you’re not playing against closeouts,” Mosley said. “I think that’s going to work to his advantage a ton. I think coach Ime [Udoka] is going to do a fantastic job communicating that with him.”

The full article on Green’s Team USA work can be read here. As for the Rockets, they coincidentally open up the 2023-24 regular season on Wednesday, Oct. 25 versus Mosley’s Magic in Orlando.

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Magic coach Jamahl Mosley left feeling impressed by Sixers’ Shake Milton

Orlando Magic coach Jamahl Mosley is left feeling impressed by Philadelphia 76ers guard Shake Milton.

ORLANDO–The Philadelphia 76ers were able to pick up two wins on the road over the Orlando Magic and it has been thanks in large part to the play of Shake Milton. The veteran out of SMU had two big games on the road and it was capped by Philadelphia’s 133-103 win on Sunday.

On Friday, Milton had 24 points, 10 assists, and nine rebounds while shooting 7-for-13 and on Sunday, he had 29 points on 10-for-13 shooting with seven assists and five rebounds. He has just been terrific all-around since the injuries to Tyrese Maxey and James Harden to fill in on the floor.

On Sunday, Magic coach Jamahl Mosley was feeling impressed with what Milton has been bringing to the floor.

“Watching games prior to them coming in and playing us, his level of confidence,” Mosley said of Milton. “You can just see the way he’s commanding the floor, the way he’s running the team, the way he steps into his shots, he has an air of confidence about him that you like to see in a guy that isn’t necessarily getting all the minutes early, but then when it’s time and his number is called, he’s ready to go.”

Milton and the Sixers will be looking to continue to grow as a team and get everybody on the same page and healthy moving forward. Philadelphia will play host to the Atlanta Hawks on Monday on the second night of a back-to-back.

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While the basketball world is …

While the basketball world is interested to see how Paolo Banchero will fit as a focal point of this team, Jamahl Mosley wants to take as much pressure as possible off the 19-year-old, already a face of the long-struggling franchise. “I really believe that we’re going to do it by committee, honestly,” Mosley says. “Look at the Warriors. Look at Milwaukee; you look at Memphis. There’s something about the committee in which they do it. One person will speak at times, but there’s other guys holding each one accountable. There’s one guy that will speak up and do it a different way, work in a different way. That’s the way this team is shaping up; each guy’s going to have a different type of voice on a different night.”

Banchero’s arrival on the NBA scene has …

Banchero’s arrival on the NBA scene has given the Magic, who have been to the playoffs only twice since the end of the 2011-12 season, a shot of energy the organization desperately needed. So much so that when Mosley and his coaching staff texted the veteran players before summer league to set up a team dinner in Vegas, many of them made it clear they were already ahead of their coach. “These guys came in and they were like, ‘Well yeah, that’s great, but we’re going to be there on the 7th for the first [summer league] game,’” Mosley says. “And I know a lot of teams have certain guys in and out, but for them to sit with each other, be with each other, laughing and joking, talking about what they want to do, being around each other — it’s something special to me.”

Paolo Banchero will face immense …

Paolo Banchero will face immense pressure and other related challenges as the No. 1 pick in the NBA draft, but the former Duke standout is ready for all of it. Banchero hit the court with his new team for the first time on Sunday as the Orlando Magic prepare for their upcoming stint in the Las Vegas Summer League. He worked extensively with Jamahl Mosley on several drills, and left an impression on the second-year head coach. “The one thing I’ve been observing more is his willingness and understanding of the game,” Mosley said. “Obviously, a fantastic teammate (by) pushing guys and trying to learn the ins and outs of the NBA system. A lot is coming at him and he has done a great job of embracing it. He is not afraid to ask questions and be willing to learn.”

The 19-year-old has been one of the …