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Remind Me: Why does Jahlil Okafor supposedly suck?
Just saying, he really couldn't get minutes this year even we have almost zero post threat besides Zion. I know he's supposed to be soft on defense, but honestly how much worse could he be than what we put out there all year? He actually looks in shape and seems to at least give effort contesting shots and hedging the ball handler on picks. I don't know. Seems like you could play 4 shooters around him and get open looks all day. I guess I'm crazy...
This guy is the most underappreciated basketball player in New Orleans Pelican/Hornet History.
He almost always produces offensively when he's called upon.
He looks to be the ultimate team player
It's funny, he was the 3rd overall pick in his class and has ALWAYS shown the ability to positively contribute on the offensive end and he's relegated to 15th man status (he's not even listed on the three-deep depth chart). But the 2nd overall pick in his draft, who can't hit an slightly contested layup to save his life (don't even mention the words "free throw"), plays 30+ minutes a night come hell or high water. SMH
You never hear him complain and he seems to be a team first guy.
I hope he lands on his feet next year somewhere (selfishly, I would hope it is here).
EDIT: Do you remember the game this year where he schooled Andre Drummond in Detroit?
Last edited by As I See It; 08-12-2020 at 02:50 AM.
He's a traditional back to the basket post-up centre in an era where everyone has realised that that's a really inefficient and unproductive way to run a team's offense.
He provides very little value off ball, he can't spot up or space the floor even in the midrange, he's not a cutter or a reliable roller. If you want him to score, you have to give him the ball and let him do it. When you do that, he's good at it, but it requires taking the ball out of, say, Ingram or Zion's hands, and if you're trying to run an effective team offense giving the ball to people like Ingram is more useful than giving the ball to someone like Okafor.
In fact, you say it yourself in the OP:To make him effective you literally have to just give him the ball and play around him. But that isn't effective either because the open looks he generates aren't productive. Why?Seems like you could play 4 shooters around him and get open looks all day.
A big part of the reason for this is passing. Okafor is bad at it. His basketball IQ isn't necessarily bad, but it's working on a very slow processor and he always realises that a pass is there just as the window closes, and as a result he tends to clog an offense up whenever he holds the ball for more than about 3 seconds. If you give him the ball he's either going to give up looking for anyone else and start backing his man down (again, not an effective way to run an offense) or he's going to make the right pass at the wrong time, usually off-target. So when you put him with shooters it's not like he's going to be making the skip passes or passes out of doubles to open guys consistently. Those open looks materialise and he doesn't notice it.
So those are some offensive reasons.
Defensively he's just bad. Can't defend in the pick and roll with any sort of consistency, can't switch onto the perimeter without getting fried, he's a big man with relatively slow heavy feet and it shows. He's actually not that terrible when all he has to do is park in the paint, but again, that's not as useful as it used to be; part of what makes someone like Whiteside so ineffective as a defender despite being a crazy shot blocker is how useless he is outside of 10 feet or in complex actions, and Okafor has a version of the same issue.
So to summarise:
- Best with the ball in his hands on offense, but doesn't play a style productive for team offense
- Can't space the floor whatsoever
- Isn't consistent in some of the most common multi-man actions like PnR
- Can't defend the perimeter at all
- Slow decision maker and mediocre vision as a passer
Notice how the games where he's good usually feature him just being asked to score, often on teams who either have no real paint defense or have a paint defender who is completely disengaged and uninterested. There's a reason for this.
He seems like a nice guy, he never complains about being benched, I hope he figures it all out or at least makes a ton of cash overseas, but he's not a regular rotation player in the NBA for a reason.
Basketball.
Sorry, I'm not talking about playing him along side Zion and Ingram (at least as things stand currently). Zion needs to operate in the paint for the foreseeable future. I was asking why Okafor couldn't get 15-20 minutes a night against back ups as he's our only real scoring threat in the post besides Zion (who also sucks at defense I would point out).
I've also got to push back on some of your points and ask how much of your critique of his game is based on his first couple of seasons, because we haven't seen much of him since then and to my eye he looks like a much lighter and more nimble guy than when he came into the league. To your points...
-I agree he hasn't shown ability to be a spacer in the game, but how many big guys have we seen recently in the league that have developed outside jumpers? Brook Lopez barely attempted a three pointer his first five years in the league. Now he hoists up 5 or 6 a night (at slightly below league average %). Maybe I'm prejudiced because I've seen Okafor shooting a lot pre-game. Trust me, he has a nice stroke out to the arc. I'm just not sure he has the green light to take those shots, when he plays, which is practically never.
-Sometimes analytics guys remind me of that old joke about scientists: "Sure it works in fact, but how does it work in theory?" The guy can score. Scoring is a central component of the game. Sometimes you need to focus on what a guy can do, not just what he can't do.
-Additionally, dunks, shots inside five feet and free throws are analytics-approved! See no reason why Okafor can't get you plenty of all three, particularly playing against back ups.
-Agree that passing out of double teams is a skill that takes time to master. But plenty of bigs do master it, given enough playing time. Davis sucked at it too early in his career. Tonight I thought Jah made good decisions, abusing the zombie-like Alex Len when left alone with him, and passing out when they started to double him. He made a beautiful little pocket pass to Frank for a lay up and hit Lonzo for a wide-open corner three out of a double team. I see no reason he can't master the pass out. He's skilled with the ball.
-You're never going to convince me that Okafor is as "heavy footed" as many starting centers around the league (in fact he seems comparatively nimble), but it's true that no traditional pivot is going to be able to reliably defend guards and wings on the perimeter, be it Lopez (either one), Nurkic, Jokic, Gobert, Vucevic, Porzingis, Zubac, Adams, all of whom seem to be playing plenty of minutes for playoff teams.
-Also, as the list above makes clear, I'm not sure the traditional pivot is quite as obsolete as you suggest. Big guys shooting from close in remains a fairly effective way to administer an offense. Yes, all of these guys (besides Zubac) have demonstrated more skills than Jah, but I'm not sure any of them, save Porzingis, are flat out better athletes in terms of lateral movement. Okafor's 7'5" wingspan, massive hands and 9'2" standing reach should be the raw material for a competent interior defender. His FG% with the Pels (admittedly in limited minutes) has hovered around 60%, which is pretty efficient by any measure.
Look, I'm not saying Okafor is some sure fire star buried on our bench. But I am saying he's shown me enough, more than enough, to warrant an extended look for back up minutes in the post. You know he can score. You know he'd demand doubles opening up space for shooters and cutters. Let's just start with that and see what happens. The last thing any of us want is another ex-Pel balling-out for some other team and us standing around saying "now, how did we let that guy get away..."
I can see giving him strategic minutes. Which is why I wondered (in the San Antonio game thread) why he didn't play against San Antonio.
They instead force fed minutes to Jax who they do not need to rush at all.
Playing Jah against DeRozan would've been an absolute nightmareOriginally Posted by luckyman
Okay so I'm going to respond to only a few points in this to try and avoid making a wall of text too large, but hopefully I don't miss out anything major.
Firstly, you say that you're not talking about playing him alongside Zion or Ingram at least right now. Then you ask why he can't get 20 minutes a night as a backup.
Simply put, if you have two high impact offensive stars like Ingram and Zion, there should not be 20 minutes a game where both of them are off the floor. There should always be at least one, and if either of them are on the court it's a waste of their skills and their time to have them stand around watching Okafor post up.
Every NBA player can shoot 3s in an empty gym or in warmups. I have no doubt that, in a vacuum, Okafor can shoot threes. We've all seen him do it. In-game is an entirely different situation; Alvin Gentry is an exceptionally trigger happy coach. If even he doesn't have Jah shooting threes when he had Julius Randle and Terrence Jones doing it, I have to assume that it's because either he doesn't trust Okafor's ability to do it, or Okafor doesn't want to do it. Whatever the reason, his ability to hit threes in the gym has not translated to hitting them in game, and until it does it's a moot point.
Of course scoring is a central component of the game, but you have to realise that good individual offense is not the same as good team offense, and sacrificing the team's offense for an individual is absurd.
Remember earlier in the season when people were so mad that Porzingis wasn't in the post or the paint, and he was out shooting threes? People were very annoyed by it. He's 7'3! Why isn't he at the rim!? His numbers would be so much better if you force-fed him paint shots! What they didn't realise is that the Mavs had the best offense in league history, and a huge part of that was because while it's true that Porzingis individually would have benefitted from being crammed into the paint and being force fed dunks, the team benefitted from having him on the 3 point line providing spacing and stretching the D. It made life easier on his teammates, as well as giving Luka more room to operate as a ballhandler, and limited the ability of the opposing defense to help; if he had been in the paint, his personal points per game might have been up, but the efficiency of the overall machine would have been reduced.
It's a similar process here. Yes, dunks and free throws are analytics approved, but if you base an entire offense around a back to the basket big with no spacing you harm everyone else on the floor and make the offense one-dimensional. That means that it's easier to defend because there's really only one threat. Good offenses stretch defenses out, they don't allow them to compact.
The problem we have here is that you're comparing Okafor with people who have similar physical measurements as him, without really considering the minutiae. You do briefly mention that all those other guys have shown more skills than Jah, but then you kind of just brush that off to move onto the next issue, as though those other skills are not massively important.
Yes, Okafor and Nurkic are both big bodies who aren't massively quick, but Nurkic is a very astute passer and cutter in a way that Okafor just isn't. Yes, Jokic is also 7'0 and hefty, but he's one of the greatest passers in NBA history, is surprisingly quick off ball, and has ridiculous touch from basically anywhere inside the arc; he isn't just locked into the post. Yes, Gobert has little range to his game, but he's a consistent roll threat in a way that Jah isn't, and he's also an incredible defender even in complex actions, which Okafor isn't. Vucevic is a passer and shooter, Porzingis is a shooter with defensive versatility, so on and so forth. All of that matters, and can't just be handwaved away.
You don't have to be super mobile and agile to be playable but you do have to have other skills to compensate if you aren't. Okafor doesn't really, which is an issue.
I know he can score. I know that he would demand doubles. I just don't see that he deals with them well consistently, and beyond the scoring what does he do? He isn't a great passer, can't space the floor, can't defend complex actions, isn't a switchable defender, isn't a mindblowing rim protector, etc etc. Without anything to add to his post game, he's just a guy who gets occasional minutes here and there when it's tenable. Which is what he gets; whenever we're playing a blowout or against a slow paced team with bad paint defense (read: Detroit) he gets minutes. Those are back up minutes in the post, which is what you're asking for. The alternative is wanting him to play regular, large minutes all the time, which is probably a bad call for the reasons listed above.
I'm not saying he couldn't potentially be more, but right now he isn't, and it would be detrimental to the team's offense to play him heavy minutes when there are better players with better skill sets who could use the ball more.
Yep, he would've been eaten alive.
I missed the planet where Jah would have been responsible for DeRozan. They primarily wouldn't even have been on the floor much together. Did Favors or Jax slow him down? What in the world are we talking about?
Haha sheesh nevermind good day
The metrics crowd wrote off BI before the ink was dried on the trade deal.
The metrics crowd also ballyhooed the # 2 acquisition.
When there is a metric designed to measure the heart and soul of an individual, I'll be all in. Until then, I'll give courtesy to the 'charts' but rely on my eyes. Switching sports for a second, if numbers and charts foretold all.....Drew Brees would have spent his life selling insurance in Texas.
This is conjecture
Not sure this is entirely true. Okafor is very good at what he does, so Gentry is not going to simply take him away from that and have him shooting 3s. Same with Hayes. However, I would have liked to see both try 1 or 2 last night as the game did not matter.
i been on the okafor wagon.....okafor can give us points inside when our shooting is off...he can take advantages of mismatches in the paint and score....okafor can play bully ball and draw fouls or score.....im old school and love to see big men do damage in the paint....im glad that okafor did his thing last night plus was happy about how the announcers were raving about his talents....okafor has have 20 point games for us and gentry still dont show him any love lol....
i hope okafor can land on a team that use skillful big men to their advantage because as long as gentry is our coach, okafor will be a waste of talent sitting on the bench.....
Best case scenario is Okafor lands in an Enes Kanter role somewhere, but the problem with that is Kanter is a terrific rebounder. Okafor has been average to below average since his rookie year. If you can't rebound or defend, it's really hard to get minutes on a good team.
I didn't read this whole post; but I must confess: Every time I happen to watch Okafor play, the man is straight up ballin'.
I realize that his skill-set isn't ideal for today's game; but when I watch him he does extremely well.
He's kind of the exact opposite of Tony Romo. People say he was good, but every time I watched him .....he sucked big-time
What part?
That, citing metrics, some wrote off BI before he landed in New Orleans? That happened
That, citing metrics, some unequivocally ordained # 2 as the perfect complement to the "Gentry System" (whatever that might be)? That happened
That people have always cited numbers and charts when writing off Drew Brees? That happened
That there is no metric to measure a human's heart or soul? That's fact
Where's the conjecture, please?
I mean if you wanna get technical it's pure conjecture that humans even have a soul. There's no way to prove that and it's not philosophically required.
Stating "some people" in order to prove an argument is the definition of conjecture. Stating things as fact without any actual proof.
I'm all for argument on here, but I'm not gonna sit here and say that one dude has more heart than another guy because he scored 20 points on Harry Giles in a meaningless game. If that's the case, then Dan Dickau had more heart than both of them (he did) because he scored 28 one time.
I'd say I'm more in the metrics crowd than not, but I was always high on BI and low on Lonzo.
You and I have had this conversation before.I mean if you wanna get technical it's pure conjecture that humans even have a soul. There's no way to prove that and it's not philosophically required.
Your method devalues the human spirit (humanity). It treats a player as a machine and not as a real, honest-to-goodness, living organism (since you question my spiritual notion of 'soul', I'll set that aside). That's the same mistake the intellects in our colleges and universities make when proffering the tried and true pitfalls of socialism. It always works in textbooks; but it real life, it's fatally flawed as it doesn't consider the 'human' element.
I, on the other hand, value your method as a USEFUL tool...no more, no less. You bring a lot to the table, dae. But don't fool yourself; your data is woefully incomplete.
Last edited by As I See It; 08-12-2020 at 04:46 PM.
It was a joke literally on the use of the term soul. Please don't try and turn this into a metaphysical argument
Dae, seems to me that that was your intent, not mine. Otherwise, why your post at all?It was a joke literally on the use of the term soul. Please don't try and turn this into a metaphysical argument
...as a joke. For fun, bit of light hearted humour. Hence the winking emoji.
Okay
I respect your analysis, but I think it's more of a snap shot of the past and has limited predictive value of what a player can be. Guys grow and change in this league all the time. They expand their games. They get in better physical condition. You can miss all that if you just rely on past numbers, especially if they are out of date or come from a limited sample. You've got to allow for some visual assessment of the player's actual play.
Looking at Okafor I see a guy who has changed his body while retaining his impressive array of offensive moves. I think he clearly has the size and athletic ability to be a decent interior defender but that's hard to assess without actually allowing him to play. Likewise, he seems to have plenty of ball skill to be a passer and work within an offense, not just be a black hole who you dump the ball down to and stand around and watch.
It's a limited sample, but when Okafor got more than 20 minutes in 20 real games mostly in January and February of last year he averaged 15.6 points and 8.3 rebounds on 63.3% shooting to with 1.35 blocks. In 8 games where he got more than 30 minutes he averaged 22.5 points, 11.1 boards and 2.1 blocks while shooting 67.5%. For a (then) 23-year-old prospect that shows promise worth exploring. As for shooting, at some point everyone has to translate it from practice to a game. That takes sign off from coaches as the quickest way to the bench is to take shots the coaches haven't pre-approved, especially if you happen to miss a couple. Jah has a nice looking stroke. I'd be all for letting him start trying them in games if that's what the system calls for.
Again, it's just about solving a problem. The Pels have notorious scoring lulls with the second unit. Okafor is a potential answer to that problem and his skill set can create open looks and cuts for others. He has the talent. It may just be as simple as letting him play through the growing pains like you do with any prospect.
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