Before 6' 11" Jahlil Okafor arrived at Duke, spearheaded the country’s best post-centric offense and became a finalist for the Naismith and Wooden awards as a freshman, he was an eighth-grader who’d already drawn the attention of Mikan’s alma mater. In January 2010, Okafor went with his father, Chukwudi (Chucky, for short), to Allstate Arena, near O’Hare International Airport, for a Syracuse-DePaul game. The Okafors were there at the invitation of the Blue Demons’ coaches. It is within NCAA rules to recruit eighth-graders, and Okafor, a 14-year-old in nearby Rosemont (Ill.) Elementary School District 78, had obvious appeal. He had already been excelling at national AAU events for five years and was 6' 71⁄2" and 225 pounds. He was projected to reach 7' 2".

After the game Jahlil and Chucky met Tracy Webster, who was then DePaul’s interim coach, outside the locker room. He extended a verbal scholarship offer to Jahlil—and when word got out to a local recruiting website a few weeks later, and then stories appeared on ESPNChicago.com and in the Chicago Tribune, Okafor’s name was suddenly everywhere. The hype had arrived early, and it was not going to subside. The important thing, Chucky felt, was to ensure that when his son did appear in college, he would prove the hype was warranted.

Chucky was a 6' 5" wing in college who, for various reasons, was kicked off the teams at all three of his stops—Westark Community College in Fort Smith, Ark.; Carl Albert State in Poteau, Okla. (a junior college); and West Texas A&M in Canyon. From 2004 to ’12 he was a senior admissions adviser at American InterContinental University in suburban Chicago, and he would often train Jahlil in a gym near his office. Jahlil had put in enough work on his vertical that he was dunking by the sixth grade, but as an eighth-grader he was reliant on just one post move: “Face up, jab-step right, dribble left, and spin back right,” Jahlil says. “I just kept doing that no matter what the situation was.”

What Okafor needed was refinement. How he got it, says Chucky, “was just one of those things that was meant to be.” A coworker at AIU had recently gone to Rick Lewis, a trainer in Chesterton, Ind., for weight-loss workouts; because Lewis was also a basket-ball skill-development guru and the son of a famed high school coach in East St. Louis, Ill., the coworker recommended him to Chucky for Jahlil. When the Okafors drove to Indiana in February 2010 for a trial run, they found a trainer whose idea of what Okafor could become meshed with their own. Chucky, whose father was a Nigerian immigrant, had been showing Jahlil YouTube videos of Hakeem Olajuwon, and Lewis was also an admirer of classic big men: Olajuwon, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Ralph Sampson, Patrick Ewing and Tim Duncan. The plan for Jahlil was to draw on those influences to make him a complete, throwback center—and it started with his feet.

​“People will say now on TV, Oh, my god, how does he have such great footwork for a big man?” the 55-year-old Lewis says. “It’s because he’s been doing these drills for five years. Jahlil is not by happenstance. He’s by design.”

The design began with cones on the floor of a YMCA gym in Chester-ton, and continued in gyms in Chicago, including at Whitney Young High, where Jahlil enrolled the following fall and both Chucky and Lewis became assistant coaches. The cones were guides that helped lengthen Okafor’s strides and trained him to use crossover (rather than shuffle) steps when he faced up and attacked diagonally off the bounce. They also established patterns for post moves that could be mirrored on either side of the basket and finished with either hand.

​Jahlil might have been on a pro trajectory no matter what. He has the rare combination of height, wingspan (7' 5"), softball-glove-sized hands with great touch and, as Lewis puts it, a frame “that’s solid from his big toe to his forehead.” But Okafor’s preternatural ability to take what he learned in these drills and almost immediately use the moves in games took him to another level. He went from not being able to dunk with his left hand, to learning the proper steps with Lewis, to throwing down a lefty jam on a one-bounce attack from the left block in an eighth-grade tournament—all in a matter of days. With repetition and time Okafor’s game-usable options have become complex and polished enough to resemble some of Chucky and Lewis’s historic references. When you see Okafor now as a Duke freshman in the post, where he has scored 274 of his 567 points through the end of the ACC tournament, averaging 17.7 per game, don’t mistake his maneuvering as improv. What he’s doing is strategic sampling.

That move from a Dec. 3 win at Wisconsin, when Okafor caught the ball just off the left block against his prime competition for the national player of the year awards, 7-footer Frank Kaminsky, drove hard (left) along the baseline, sensed that Kaminsky was taking away the reverse, planted hard and pivoted 180 degrees back for a left-side layin? That was a slightly less graceful Olajuwon. When Okafor received a feed off either block against North Carolina or Virginia or almost all of the opponents who double-teamed him, and waited . . . and extended the ball out with one hand . . . and waited . . . to see if a second defender was going to commit, before making a decision to pass to an open shooter or attack? That’s Old Kareem, from the stage of his career when he was an adept distributor.

And when Okafor begins his favorite scoring progression, starting from the right block, turning his right shoulder in and dribbling with his left hand—and then either spins back right for a layup or hook, or powers directly through his defender’s body, or dribbles into the middle of the lane for a scoop shot? That’s Duncan, but not in the sense that it’s a mirror image of Duncan. It’s only in the sense that everyone knows what Okafor’s options are, yet no one defender can thwart him.

Jah, let’s do 10 Timmy D’s. This is the order Duke associate head coach Jeff Capel gives to Okafor after nearly every practice, and this Monday afternoon in March is no different. Okafor is taking bank shots from a spot between the left block and left wing while Capel critiques his mechanics: the bend in Okafor’s knees, the flick of his wrist, the arc on his release. Capel frequently instructs Okafor to make a prescribed number of Duncan’s signature shot—a face-up jumper off the glass—because it’s valuable against defenders who sag.

This is one of the few weapons Okafor did not have when he came to Durham but he added it to his arsenal in no time. He hit a Timmy D for his first post-up bucket at Duke, in the opener against Presbyterian, and made it a staple of his repertoire. When Spurs legend David Robinson visited Duke with his son, Justin, who’s joining the team as a walk-on next season, the Admiral told Okafor he reminded him of Duncan. This was meaningful to Okafor. Duncan is his lone influence who’s an active NBA player, and when Okafor immersed himself in basketball as an escape from the emotional toll of having his mother, Dacresha Benton, die from complications from bronchitis when he was nine, he would shoot alone on Chicago courts and pretend he was making post moves against Duncan. “The imaginary Duncan didn’t have anything on me,” Okafor says, “but the real one definitely does.”

​The real one does now. But as a freshman post scorer in the ACC? No way. The 6' 11" Duncan was a redshirt candidate at Wake Forest in 1993–94 until high-profile frontcourt recruit Makhtar N’Diaye was ruled ineligible. Duncan scored no points in his college debut against Alaska--Anchorage and averaged 9.8 points that first season as an auxiliary option to star guard Randolph Childress. Capel, whose Duke playing career overlapped Duncan’s at Wake, says, “There’s no comparison at the same stage: [Okafor] is way more advanced offensively.” (Defense, where Okafor has struggled, is a different story—but that’s for a different story.)

Duke knew long before Okafor arrived that he could be an immediate offensive centerpiece. As a 17-year-old on the gold-medal-winning team at the 2013 FIBA U19 world championships in Prague, Okafor shot 77.2% from the field and was an all-tournament selection. “He was playing against guys two years older, with an NBA-sized lane, and he was still dominant in the post,” says Florida’s Billy Donovan, who coached the U19s. The last time the Blue Devils had a true superstar center was Elton Brand, and it wasn’t until his sophomore season (1998–99) that he could anchor a post-heavy offense. “Jah was accomplished right away in the post,” says Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski. “We knew we had the best player in the country coming in . . . and it was going to be fun coming up with a system where [feeding him] is the first option.”

Duke’s guards have been committed to providing for Jah. According to Synergy Sports Technology, he finishes 8.9 post-up possessions per game, more than any player in the NCAA tournament and more than any freshman big man who became a lottery pick in the past five drafts. Because the Blue Devils are the lone college team to install SportVU, the laser-tracking system that has revolutionized NBA statistics, they have richer analytics that reinforce Okafor’s value. According to a data set provided to SI by Duke’s basketball director of information technology, Kevin Cullen, covering 15 home games and four others in NBA arenas with SportVU, the team averaged 1.29 points on possessions in which Okafor gets a post touch and 1.18 points when he doesn’t. This is why Okafor has received the ball in the post an average of 18.3 times per 36 minutes; the post-up volume of the NBA’s leader in that department, the Hornets’ Al Jefferson, is 16.9 posts per 36 minutes. The SportVU data shows Okafor being functional from both blocks, too: 53.5% of his post-ups have been on the left side (with a team efficiency of 1.34 PPP) and 46.5% have been on the right (with an efficiency of 1.24 PPP).

Okafor’s most frequent supplier is freshman point guard Tyus Jones, whose passes have led to 30.2% of the big man’s points in the regular season. The first time Jones, who’s from Apple Valley, Minn., fed Okafor in the post was during the fall of their ninth-grade season, when they participated in a USA Basketball camp in Colorado Springs. They developed such a bond during national-team and AAU events over the next three years that they became the greatest package deal in recruiting history: the No. 1 center and No. 1 point guard committing to Duke in simultaneous press conferences held 344 miles apart on Nov. 15, 2013. One thing Jones loved about Okafor was that he knew who he was. If that sounds insignificant, you haven’t seen how many AAU games are marred by the perimeter delusions of oversized players.

“Jahlil is one of the few big guys nowadays who takes pride in being a low-post big man,” Jones says. “That’s what separates him: that he’s accepted what his best position is and is trying to perfect that craft.”

The low post, Okafor says, “is where I feel like I belong.”

****

Okafor’s growth didn’t come in spurts. He has been bigger than everyone else on the floor from the time he played on his first team, a second-grade club sponsored by baby-food manufacturer Gerber, in Fort Smith, Ark., where he lived with his mother. It’s always made sense to stay close to the basket. And as anyone who’s coached Okafor has realized, he’s not interested in volume shooting; he’s interested in shots he’s unlikely to miss.

“The kid is a perfectionist,” Chucky says. “I used to want him to step out because he’s so skilled, but he wants to do what’ll give him the best chance of going 100% in a game.” As a Duke freshman Okafor has hit 75.2% of his shots at the rim and 66.9% of his attempts overall, giving him the second-highest field goal percentage of any player in a major conference.

Okafor has a slow, baritone laugh befitting a much older giant. His idea of a joke, one that’s been running between him and the Duke coaches since he was in high school, is that his alter ego is Kyrie Okafor: That, if they would only loosen the reins, he could pull down defensive boards and run the point by himself, in the manner of former Blue Devil and current Cleveland Cavalier Kyrie Irving. But again, this is a joke. When Okafor studies other players on film, he prefers to watch not Irving or LeBron James but rather the post players to whom he was introduced by Chucky and Rick Lewis.

One morning earlier this month in the pressroom at Cameron, Okafor was reviewing old footage on a reporter’s laptop, laughing as college Duncan—the polished, upperclassman version—destroyed Duke with close-range moves. Timmy D tape, to Okafor, isn’t boring. “This is fun,” he says, taking multiple looks at Duncan executing a perfect, turnaround-fadeaway bank shot against Stanford. “This is relevant to me.” At the behest of Coach K and Capel, Okafor has been doing more of what they call “Shaq--posting”—using his physical advantage to bully defenders for easy points—but he prefers post craftsmanship to brute force.

When it came to artistry and natural feel, Olajuwon was the master, and as the reel transitions to clips of the former Rockets center, Okafor nods in silent -regard. After the Dream’s feign-middle, spin-baseline move on the left block leaves first the Celtics’ Kevin McHale, then the Suns’ Tom Chambers frozen and helpless, Okafor is asked what he’s focusing on. “[Olajuwon’s] inside foot,” he says. “Before he caught the ball, he felt the defender and already knew he was going to spin.” It takes a pause-and-rewind for the reporter to catch what Okafor saw right away: Olajuwon turning his right foot perpendicular to the baseline to set up each dunk. Okafor pulled off an approximation of this spin earlier in the season, but there are many other Dream combos he’s still trying to process. He exhales audibly after watching a five-parter in which Olajuwon drags Robinson out to the left corner, faces up, crosses him over, fakes a reverse, pivots back and adds another shot fake before scoring. “Unreal, how fluid that is,” Okafor says. “Can I see that again?”

As the clip plays a second time, Okafor is asked how old he was when it happened. The overlay graphic says Olajuwon made that move in the height of the NBA’s post era, during the Western Conference finals in 1995. “I wasn’t born until that December,” he says, “but I was on my way.”

http://www.si.com/college-basketball/2015/03/24/jahlil-okafor-duke-blue-devils-ncaa-tournament?page=2&devicetype=default

SupremeCommander wrote:The article has something for the "eyes" crowd and something for the "stat" crowd... link below

Before 6' 11" Jahlil Okafor arrived at Duke, spearheaded the country’s best post-centric offense and became a finalist for the Naismith and Wooden awards as a freshman, he was an eighth-grader who’d already drawn the attention of Mikan’s alma mater. In January 2010, Okafor went with his father, Chukwudi (Chucky, for short), to Allstate Arena, near O’Hare International Airport, for a Syracuse-DePaul game. The Okafors were there at the invitation of the Blue Demons’ coaches. It is within NCAA rules to recruit eighth-graders, and Okafor, a 14-year-old in nearby Rosemont (Ill.) Elementary School District 78, had obvious appeal. He had already been excelling at national AAU events for five years and was 6' 71⁄2" and 225 pounds. He was projected to reach 7' 2".

After the game Jahlil and Chucky met Tracy Webster, who was then DePaul’s interim coach, outside the locker room. He extended a verbal scholarship offer to Jahlil—and when word got out to a local recruiting website a few weeks later, and then stories appeared on ESPNChicago.com and in the Chicago Tribune, Okafor’s name was suddenly everywhere. The hype had arrived early, and it was not going to subside. The important thing, Chucky felt, was to ensure that when his son did appear in college, he would prove the hype was warranted.

Chucky was a 6' 5" wing in college who, for various reasons, was kicked off the teams at all three of his stops—Westark Community College in Fort Smith, Ark.; Carl Albert State in Poteau, Okla. (a junior college); and West Texas A&M in Canyon. From 2004 to ’12 he was a senior admissions adviser at American InterContinental University in suburban Chicago, and he would often train Jahlil in a gym near his office. Jahlil had put in enough work on his vertical that he was dunking by the sixth grade, but as an eighth-grader he was reliant on just one post move: “Face up, jab-step right, dribble left, and spin back right,” Jahlil says. “I just kept doing that no matter what the situation was.”

What Okafor needed was refinement. How he got it, says Chucky, “was just one of those things that was meant to be.” A coworker at AIU had recently gone to Rick Lewis, a trainer in Chesterton, Ind., for weight-loss workouts; because Lewis was also a basket-ball skill-development guru and the son of a famed high school coach in East St. Louis, Ill., the coworker recommended him to Chucky for Jahlil. When the Okafors drove to Indiana in February 2010 for a trial run, they found a trainer whose idea of what Okafor could become meshed with their own. Chucky, whose father was a Nigerian immigrant, had been showing Jahlil YouTube videos of Hakeem Olajuwon, and Lewis was also an admirer of classic big men: Olajuwon, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Ralph Sampson, Patrick Ewing and Tim Duncan. The plan for Jahlil was to draw on those influences to make him a complete, throwback center—and it started with his feet.

​“People will say now on TV, Oh, my god, how does he have such great footwork for a big man?” the 55-year-old Lewis says. “It’s because he’s been doing these drills for five years. Jahlil is not by happenstance. He’s by design.”

The design began with cones on the floor of a YMCA gym in Chester-ton, and continued in gyms in Chicago, including at Whitney Young High, where Jahlil enrolled the following fall and both Chucky and Lewis became assistant coaches. The cones were guides that helped lengthen Okafor’s strides and trained him to use crossover (rather than shuffle) steps when he faced up and attacked diagonally off the bounce. They also established patterns for post moves that could be mirrored on either side of the basket and finished with either hand.

​Jahlil might have been on a pro trajectory no matter what. He has the rare combination of height, wingspan (7' 5"), softball-glove-sized hands with great touch and, as Lewis puts it, a frame “that’s solid from his big toe to his forehead.” But Okafor’s preternatural ability to take what he learned in these drills and almost immediately use the moves in games took him to another level. He went from not being able to dunk with his left hand, to learning the proper steps with Lewis, to throwing down a lefty jam on a one-bounce attack from the left block in an eighth-grade tournament—all in a matter of days. With repetition and time Okafor’s game-usable options have become complex and polished enough to resemble some of Chucky and Lewis’s historic references. When you see Okafor now as a Duke freshman in the post, where he has scored 274 of his 567 points through the end of the ACC tournament, averaging 17.7 per game, don’t mistake his maneuvering as improv. What he’s doing is strategic sampling.

That move from a Dec. 3 win at Wisconsin, when Okafor caught the ball just off the left block against his prime competition for the national player of the year awards, 7-footer Frank Kaminsky, drove hard (left) along the baseline, sensed that Kaminsky was taking away the reverse, planted hard and pivoted 180 degrees back for a left-side layin? That was a slightly less graceful Olajuwon. When Okafor received a feed off either block against North Carolina or Virginia or almost all of the opponents who double-teamed him, and waited . . . and extended the ball out with one hand . . . and waited . . . to see if a second defender was going to commit, before making a decision to pass to an open shooter or attack? That’s Old Kareem, from the stage of his career when he was an adept distributor.

And when Okafor begins his favorite scoring progression, starting from the right block, turning his right shoulder in and dribbling with his left hand—and then either spins back right for a layup or hook, or powers directly through his defender’s body, or dribbles into the middle of the lane for a scoop shot? That’s Duncan, but not in the sense that it’s a mirror image of Duncan. It’s only in the sense that everyone knows what Okafor’s options are, yet no one defender can thwart him.

Jah, let’s do 10 Timmy D’s. This is the order Duke associate head coach Jeff Capel gives to Okafor after nearly every practice, and this Monday afternoon in March is no different. Okafor is taking bank shots from a spot between the left block and left wing while Capel critiques his mechanics: the bend in Okafor’s knees, the flick of his wrist, the arc on his release. Capel frequently instructs Okafor to make a prescribed number of Duncan’s signature shot—a face-up jumper off the glass—because it’s valuable against defenders who sag.

This is one of the few weapons Okafor did not have when he came to Durham but he added it to his arsenal in no time. He hit a Timmy D for his first post-up bucket at Duke, in the opener against Presbyterian, and made it a staple of his repertoire. When Spurs legend David Robinson visited Duke with his son, Justin, who’s joining the team as a walk-on next season, the Admiral told Okafor he reminded him of Duncan. This was meaningful to Okafor. Duncan is his lone influence who’s an active NBA player, and when Okafor immersed himself in basketball as an escape from the emotional toll of having his mother, Dacresha Benton, die from complications from bronchitis when he was nine, he would shoot alone on Chicago courts and pretend he was making post moves against Duncan. “The imaginary Duncan didn’t have anything on me,” Okafor says, “but the real one definitely does.”

​The real one does now. But as a freshman post scorer in the ACC? No way. The 6' 11" Duncan was a redshirt candidate at Wake Forest in 1993–94 until high-profile frontcourt recruit Makhtar N’Diaye was ruled ineligible. Duncan scored no points in his college debut against Alaska--Anchorage and averaged 9.8 points that first season as an auxiliary option to star guard Randolph Childress. Capel, whose Duke playing career overlapped Duncan’s at Wake, says, “There’s no comparison at the same stage: [Okafor] is way more advanced offensively.” (Defense, where Okafor has struggled, is a different story—but that’s for a different story.)

Duke knew long before Okafor arrived that he could be an immediate offensive centerpiece. As a 17-year-old on the gold-medal-winning team at the 2013 FIBA U19 world championships in Prague, Okafor shot 77.2% from the field and was an all-tournament selection. “He was playing against guys two years older, with an NBA-sized lane, and he was still dominant in the post,” says Florida’s Billy Donovan, who coached the U19s. The last time the Blue Devils had a true superstar center was Elton Brand, and it wasn’t until his sophomore season (1998–99) that he could anchor a post-heavy offense. “Jah was accomplished right away in the post,” says Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski. “We knew we had the best player in the country coming in . . . and it was going to be fun coming up with a system where [feeding him] is the first option.”

Duke’s guards have been committed to providing for Jah. According to Synergy Sports Technology, he finishes 8.9 post-up possessions per game, more than any player in the NCAA tournament and more than any freshman big man who became a lottery pick in the past five drafts. Because the Blue Devils are the lone college team to install SportVU, the laser-tracking system that has revolutionized NBA statistics, they have richer analytics that reinforce Okafor’s value. According to a data set provided to SI by Duke’s basketball director of information technology, Kevin Cullen, covering 15 home games and four others in NBA arenas with SportVU, the team averaged 1.29 points on possessions in which Okafor gets a post touch and 1.18 points when he doesn’t. This is why Okafor has received the ball in the post an average of 18.3 times per 36 minutes; the post-up volume of the NBA’s leader in that department, the Hornets’ Al Jefferson, is 16.9 posts per 36 minutes. The SportVU data shows Okafor being functional from both blocks, too: 53.5% of his post-ups have been on the left side (with a team efficiency of 1.34 PPP) and 46.5% have been on the right (with an efficiency of 1.24 PPP).

Okafor’s most frequent supplier is freshman point guard Tyus Jones, whose passes have led to 30.2% of the big man’s points in the regular season. The first time Jones, who’s from Apple Valley, Minn., fed Okafor in the post was during the fall of their ninth-grade season, when they participated in a USA Basketball camp in Colorado Springs. They developed such a bond during national-team and AAU events over the next three years that they became the greatest package deal in recruiting history: the No. 1 center and No. 1 point guard committing to Duke in simultaneous press conferences held 344 miles apart on Nov. 15, 2013. One thing Jones loved about Okafor was that he knew who he was. If that sounds insignificant, you haven’t seen how many AAU games are marred by the perimeter delusions of oversized players.

“Jahlil is one of the few big guys nowadays who takes pride in being a low-post big man,” Jones says. “That’s what separates him: that he’s accepted what his best position is and is trying to perfect that craft.”

The low post, Okafor says, “is where I feel like I belong.”

****

Okafor’s growth didn’t come in spurts. He has been bigger than everyone else on the floor from the time he played on his first team, a second-grade club sponsored by baby-food manufacturer Gerber, in Fort Smith, Ark., where he lived with his mother. It’s always made sense to stay close to the basket. And as anyone who’s coached Okafor has realized, he’s not interested in volume shooting; he’s interested in shots he’s unlikely to miss.

“The kid is a perfectionist,” Chucky says. “I used to want him to step out because he’s so skilled, but he wants to do what’ll give him the best chance of going 100% in a game.” As a Duke freshman Okafor has hit 75.2% of his shots at the rim and 66.9% of his attempts overall, giving him the second-highest field goal percentage of any player in a major conference.

Okafor has a slow, baritone laugh befitting a much older giant. His idea of a joke, one that’s been running between him and the Duke coaches since he was in high school, is that his alter ego is Kyrie Okafor: That, if they would only loosen the reins, he could pull down defensive boards and run the point by himself, in the manner of former Blue Devil and current Cleveland Cavalier Kyrie Irving. But again, this is a joke. When Okafor studies other players on film, he prefers to watch not Irving or LeBron James but rather the post players to whom he was introduced by Chucky and Rick Lewis.

One morning earlier this month in the pressroom at Cameron, Okafor was reviewing old footage on a reporter’s laptop, laughing as college Duncan—the polished, upperclassman version—destroyed Duke with close-range moves. Timmy D tape, to Okafor, isn’t boring. “This is fun,” he says, taking multiple looks at Duncan executing a perfect, turnaround-fadeaway bank shot against Stanford. “This is relevant to me.” At the behest of Coach K and Capel, Okafor has been doing more of what they call “Shaq--posting”—using his physical advantage to bully defenders for easy points—but he prefers post craftsmanship to brute force.

When it came to artistry and natural feel, Olajuwon was the master, and as the reel transitions to clips of the former Rockets center, Okafor nods in silent -regard. After the Dream’s feign-middle, spin-baseline move on the left block leaves first the Celtics’ Kevin McHale, then the Suns’ Tom Chambers frozen and helpless, Okafor is asked what he’s focusing on. “[Olajuwon’s] inside foot,” he says. “Before he caught the ball, he felt the defender and already knew he was going to spin.” It takes a pause-and-rewind for the reporter to catch what Okafor saw right away: Olajuwon turning his right foot perpendicular to the baseline to set up each dunk. Okafor pulled off an approximation of this spin earlier in the season, but there are many other Dream combos he’s still trying to process. He exhales audibly after watching a five-parter in which Olajuwon drags Robinson out to the left corner, faces up, crosses him over, fakes a reverse, pivots back and adds another shot fake before scoring. “Unreal, how fluid that is,” Okafor says. “Can I see that again?”

As the clip plays a second time, Okafor is asked how old he was when it happened. The overlay graphic says Olajuwon made that move in the height of the NBA’s post era, during the Western Conference finals in 1995. “I wasn’t born until that December,” he says, “but I was on my way.”

http://www.si.com/college-basketball/2015/03/24/jahlil-okafor-duke-blue-devils-ncaa-tournament?page=2&devicetype=default

The thing with Okafor--hes so good on the offensive end--kind of like a Karl Malone type--where everything can be run through you and you can produce at such a high rate--that the game becomes easier for your teammates. There is so much attention needed to just contain OK4 that his teammates are rewarded with additional spacing and thats why Duke hits 3's in a high %. Duke starts 3 freshmen and have had the hardest schedule in CBB By far--for example the hardest team KY has played all year was a Kenpon #26 ranked team. Duke has beat 5 top #10 ranked teams including Wisconsin at Wisconsin and Virginia at Virginia. As much as other teams just cant replicate KY overall size no team can handle Ok4s strength size agility and touch. In the NBA he will be good right away--I just try to in-vision who in the NBA will be able to stop him in the post where he has MORE room. He could easily take a lot of pressure off of Carmelo as teams cannot double team two players. We will be able to do much more with less. As long as guys can hit an open shot--with BOTH Okafor and Anthony--there will be two guys wide open a LOT. If we take a look back--Karl Malone was no great defender--he was passable--he fit in. he worked hard and gave effort and Okafor will do the same. I just think he needs some defensive skill training and some leg work that emphasizes lateral explosion--but what he has on offense--no one in the NBA has it other than a very healthy Al Jefferson and Okafor is a longer player and 12 years

I dont see one player in the entire NBA that could plausibly come here via trade that would be better than Okafor -- really not close.

Okafor actually has superior offensive numbers to Hakeem Olujawon and Pattrick Ewing

in their JUNIOR years hes well ahead of both from a fershmen perspective ahead of Shaq anyone you can think of hes ahead of them.

The player he resembles most stats wise in overall game is Karl Malone. Malone never afg even 1 block in a low conference and wasnt even a great rebounder at L Tech. With higher minutes and usage--like Malone Okafor will probably be in that 9-11 rebound level for most of his career if he stays healthy. But if we are looking 4 ward looking at past history Okafor is on pace to become a high % 30 point NBA scorer in the post.

nixluva wrote:Yeah that's a great article. I wish he had addressed his D. I'm convinced of his offensive greatness already. It's the D that most are curious about.

Hey give me Karl Malone I can find a Mark Eaton.

We could end up being the most disappointed fans ever.

webber had to jump a few team to finally get paired up with vlade and brad miller... garnett was wasting away until he went to the celtics... moses malone same deal until he went to the sixers.... barkley had to get to the suns... utah lucked out with malone and was fortunate to grab eaton and then ostertag throughout his career...

most likely if okafor comes here... he will have the same fate which is what i'm terrified about... you could very well have a guy who is a regular 20/10 but be anchored down by his lack of defense and that will lead to .500ish seasons....

that's the main reason behind golden state turning down the kevin love deal... they were struggling to see how to make love fit on the defensive end and it's a legitimate question that saved them from a good but not great season and future...

BRIGGS wrote:

nixluva wrote:Yeah that's a great article. I wish he had addressed his D. I'm convinced of his offensive greatness already. It's the D that most are curious about.

Hey give me Karl Malone I can find a Mark Eaton.

I actually don't think he's that bad defensively. He just isn't trying to block every shot. He does use his size and standing reach well. Also he will block a shot if it's right there for him. He blocks out and rebounds. He's just not gonna chase down blocks or defend perimeter players like smaller guys.

BRIGGS wrote:

nixluva wrote:Yeah that's a great article. I wish he had addressed his D. I'm convinced of his offensive greatness already. It's the D that most are curious about.

Hey give me Karl Malone I can find a Mark Eaton.

Exactly. Think about the D we could put around this guy next year if we were lucky enough to get him: Thanasis, Eric Griffin, maybe a Willie Green, Khem Birch, Jordan Bachynski, Cole Aldrich, Langston Galloway, maybe Jeff Withey -- and those are the cheap options, options that should be there regardless. Maybe Phil can come up with even better defensive players than that. We'd be blessed beyond reason to draft Jahlil Okafor. No question about it.

SupremeCommander wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:Based on the stats and what I've seen in highlights, I'd go with Okafor, Russell, Towns in that order.

believe it or not, that's my same exact board too

No Towns at #2 is a no brainer. If he actually had grew those 2-3 inches that his doctor said was plausible during this year--he wouldve been a runaway number 1 pick. Hes young and he could still very well grow--but I cant make a decision based on those kinds of IFS. AS IS Towns easily the #2 pick. He's raw in many ways--plays out of control but you can see his triple threat potential--his own soft touch and I think he projects much better than Okafor from 16-18 feet on the offense(thats not Okafors game). The NBA game will give him more space--I think hes going to be a really really good player. I mean just like I said 3 months ago it really is 1 and 1A not really 2. But Okafor is clearly to me the SAFE bet and a guy who projects to a 30 point scorer in the NBA and as much as Towns may be more of a fit for the current NBA with some better defensive skills--no way could I pass it up on Okafor.

Pick #3 and #4 are really not edged in stone but picks #1 and 2 are. It is possible for Mudiay and Russell to move down to picks 5 and 6(probably no later). Hey the NBA guys are calling this the best draft since 2004 thats 10 years. Were going to geta great player and w ehave a 50% chance at getting a great post player. I feel good about our chances.

FistOfOakley wrote:that's the difficulty with having a great offensive force without the defensive prowess... it's hard to find that frontcourt partner... most of the great power forwards had to goto second and third teams and most never found that match...

webber had to jump a few team to finally get paired up with vlade and brad miller... garnett was wasting away until he went to the celtics... moses malone same deal until he went to the sixers.... barkley had to get to the suns... utah lucked out with malone and was fortunate to grab eaton and then ostertag throughout his career...

most likely if okafor comes here... he will have the same fate which is what i'm terrified about... you could very well have a guy who is a regular 20/10 but be anchored down by his lack of defense and that will lead to .500ish seasons....

that's the main reason behind golden state turning down the kevin love deal... they were struggling to see how to make love fit on the defensive end and it's a legitimate question that saved them from a good but not great season and future...

(I see the point that you are making and agree...I just want to comment on the last statement)

K.Love didnt get traded to GS because Minnesota was getting greedy. If I'm not mistaken, it was GS that initiated the trade with Minnesota with the main pieces being K.Thompson and K.Love.

BRIGGS wrote:

SupremeCommander wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:Based on the stats and what I've seen in highlights, I'd go with Okafor, Russell, Towns in that order.

believe it or not, that's my same exact board too

No Towns at #2 is a no brainer. If he actually had grew those 2-3 inches that his doctor said was plausible during this year--he wouldve been a runaway number 1 pick. Hes young and he could still very well grow--but I cant make a decision based on those kinds of IFS. AS IS Towns easily the #2 pick. He's raw in many ways--plays out of control but you can see his triple threat potential--his own soft touch and I think he projects much better than Okafor from 16-18 feet on the offense(thats not Okafors game). The NBA game will give him more space--I think hes going to be a really really good player. I mean just like I said 3 months ago it really is 1 and 1A not really 2. But Okafor is clearly to me the SAFE bet and a guy who projects to a 30 point scorer in the NBA and as much as Towns may be more of a fit for the current NBA with some better defensive skills--no way could I pass it up on Okafor.

Pick #3 and #4 are really not edged in stone but picks #1 and 2 are. It is possible for Mudiay and Russell to move down to picks 5 and 6(probably no later). Hey the NBA guys are calling this the best draft since 2004 thats 10 years. Were going to geta great player and w ehave a 50% chance at getting a great post player. I feel good about our chances.

I don't think Towns wants to be a great player... heart and desire are the only reasons I discount Towns but they happen to be pretty big reasons

FistOfOakley wrote:

Swishfm3 wrote:(I see the point that you are making and agree...I just want to comment on the last statement)

K.Love didnt get traded to GS because Minnesota was getting greedy. If I'm not mistaken, it was GS that initiated the trade with Minnesota with the main pieces being K.Thompson and K.Love.

according to bill simmons... it was a back and forth like any trade but golden state did pause because of the defensive fit... the whole league was curious on why golden state passed on the deal if you remember...

I'll take your word for it (don't want to search for it)...I just seem to recall that GS wanted to include Daivd Lee but Minn didnt want him. They wanted Barnes and draft picks. Since GS couldn't attach D.Lee to the deal (and didnt want to give up draft picks), they balked.

I like K.Love but I felt that was bad trade for GS but only because I thought K.Thompson was a better fit for GS.

SupremeCommander wrote:

BRIGGS wrote:

SupremeCommander wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:Based on the stats and what I've seen in highlights, I'd go with Okafor, Russell, Towns in that order.

believe it or not, that's my same exact board too

No Towns at #2 is a no brainer. If he actually had grew those 2-3 inches that his doctor said was plausible during this year--he wouldve been a runaway number 1 pick. Hes young and he could still very well grow--but I cant make a decision based on those kinds of IFS. AS IS Towns easily the #2 pick. He's raw in many ways--plays out of control but you can see his triple threat potential--his own soft touch and I think he projects much better than Okafor from 16-18 feet on the offense(thats not Okafors game). The NBA game will give him more space--I think hes going to be a really really good player. I mean just like I said 3 months ago it really is 1 and 1A not really 2. But Okafor is clearly to me the SAFE bet and a guy who projects to a 30 point scorer in the NBA and as much as Towns may be more of a fit for the current NBA with some better defensive skills--no way could I pass it up on Okafor.

Pick #3 and #4 are really not edged in stone but picks #1 and 2 are. It is possible for Mudiay and Russell to move down to picks 5 and 6(probably no later). Hey the NBA guys are calling this the best draft since 2004 thats 10 years. Were going to geta great player and w ehave a 50% chance at getting a great post player. I feel good about our chances.

I don't think Towns wants to be a great player... heart and desire are the only reasons I discount Towns but they happen to be pretty big reasons

I know Towns is a very talented player but its hard, for me, to evaluate him when he is on such a good team and playing with, possibly, the best defensive player in CBB (Stein).