If you were to go back a year and tell the most knowledgeable basketball fans you know that Jahlil Okafor wouldn’t be the first overall pick in the 2015 NBA Draft, you’d probably draw more responses of “I don’t believe you” than people who would accurately be able to guess that it was Karl Anthony Towns.
Was this because the bar was set too high for Okafor? Was the bar set too low for Towns? Is Towns a better pro prospect for today’s NBA than Okafor? Probably a little bit of all three. That said, regardless of fit, the Sixers lucked out being able to grab as talented of a prospect as Okafor with the third pick in the draft, and I’m going to tell you why.
Why Was He Drafted?
How often does 6-foot-11, 270-plus pounds come with great hands and superior footwork in today’s NBA? That sentence alone explains why Okafor has been such a coveted prospect for the last three years now, and also helps make sense of how Duke was able to dominate the college basketball landscape last season en route to a National Championship.
Of course sharing the floor with fellow first round picks Justise Winslow and Tyus Jones (as well as future D-Leaguer Quinn Cook) helped the Blue Devils excel, but the USBWA Freshman of the Year posted averages of 17.3 points and 8.5 rebounds, shooting .664-percent from the field, good for second in the nation. Okafor is one of the most polished offensive big man prospects we’ve seen in quite some time, and has an arsenal of moves to go along with his overwhelming size.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRhAA4vFit4
As you can probably tell, Okafor’s more of a finesse player in the post than someone who will jump over/through his defender. There’s slight concern that playing against bigger and more athletic defenders will give Okafor a hard time, here was his response to that in the Summer League:
https://vine.co/v/evQEJeYKpTQ
On top of being skilled, Okafor’s crafty, and again, can score in a multitude of ways. I don’t like that he’s often compared to DeMarcus Cousins, mainly because Okafor can’t really put the ball on the floor the way Cousins can, but the comparison is made because Okafor can knock down mid-range shots, CAN make plays off of the dribble (again, not as good as someone like Cousins), and is a fantastic passer for his position.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Qkdsz3cs68
There’s concern about his defense, which has some legitimacy to it considering he was removed from games in college when the team played smaller, quicker lineups, and the NBA is continually shifting towards being more of a perimeter based game. However, Okafor’s ability to dominate on the offensive end, combined with his athleticism and basketball IQ, should help him be a plus player in the league for years to come.
How Does He Fit in with the Sixers?
Like many terrible teams, the Sixers need help literally everywhere. Sure, it seems weird that the team used another high lottery pick on a big when they currently roster Nerlens Noel, Joel Embiid, and Dario Saric (who is slated to join the team for the 2016-17 season after finishing up his contract with Anadolu Efes of the Turkish Basketball League), but it’s not that weird considering Embiid and Saric are basically only on the team on paper.
The rest of the roster outside of Noel and wing Robert Covington is basically a game of musical chairs, and with Sixers GM Sam Hinkie seemingly more focused on acquiring assets than forming a team to move forward with, it almost seems like a waste of time and effort to try and peg how Okafor fits with the team.
Besides, Okafor possesses the kind of talent that you build around, not try to fit into something you currently do. With that in mind, the Sixers are basically a blank canvass, so I would expect for them to try and line as many shooters as possible as they can around the big man. I don’t know that anyone’s going to flourish for this perennial below-20 win team, but Okafor should be able to create opportunities on the offensive end for Noel, Covington, Isaiah Canaan, and Nik Stauskas, but again, who even knows how significant of a role the latter two will play for the tankers, I mean Sixers.
Defensively speaking, Okafor probably doesn’t make life any easier on Noel, who will have yet another chance to show off how impactful he can be on that end by cleaning up his new buddies mistakes.
What Should We Expect Out of Him?
Plenty of NBA minds, including the leagues’ GMs, have Okafor as their favorite to win Rookie of the Year, which to me comes from him probably having the best opportunity to stuff the stat sheet.
For over a year we have been hearing about Okafor having the ability to average a double-double immediately, and while I wouldn’t be surprised to see him lead rookies in both scoring and rebounding, I don’t think he’s going to come into the league averaging double-figures on the boards. As talented as he is, I think conditioning will wind up being Big Jah’s achilles heel, as based on how we’ve seen him get tired in college and Summer League samples, it’s going to take some time for his body to get to a point where it can handle playing 25-plus minutes over an 82-game schedule.
I don’t think Okafor’s going to be an immediate impact rookie in terms of helping his team get wins, but if I had to predict a statline I’d guess he’s going to average 14 points and 8 rebounds a game, shooting 48-percent from the field.
If you’re a Sixers fan, hopefully you see more of this out of Okafor and Noel in the immediate future:
https://vine.co/v/e9vZElmu1e6
