Welcome Okafor

[Mik317]

I don't think you can knock the heart of a dude who legit made himself nauseous and lightheaded over caring too much about basketball. I think Noel really really wants to be good and play good..he takes losing very hard and his maturity throughout the **** has been outstanding.

also to say he hasn't added ANYthing to his game since entering the league is just **** stupid.

Its gotten to the point where I want one of these dudes gone so I can stop reading all of these **** arguments in which both sides are making up **** to prove their point. You can prefer one to the other...but lets not lie to do it

[Unbreakable99]

its as if people expect bigs to be nothing more than airheads who can catch alleys and thats acceptable. Nerlens is not going to expand his game every year, at best he'll hit the 20ft consistently towards the end of his career. He is not a building block on a championship level team, he's a utility player. Okafor however has the skills to carry an offense, I'm literally wondering what is so difficult to see

Aha. That's it. No one thinks Noel is a player you build around. Maybe he is a utility guy on a championship level team. If he is then that's very valuable. You don't build around Noel. You build around Okafor. But the next aha is that we have an even better prospect than Okafor who plays the same position who you build around. That man is Joel Embiid. That makes Okafor less of a must to build around. And since Embiid isn't a defensive liability nor a bad rebounder like Okafor it can be the main reason why Okafor could be the one dealt. We won't build around both. Since Noel doesn't need to be built around that's why it could be in his favor that he could stay.

[ET Da Gawd]

^^makes no sense whatsoever, send the least skilled player and keep the best two...okc tried some stupid reasoning like that and decided to roll with thabo bc he "fit" better. You keep and play your best players period. There is no reality where nerlens is better than jahlil

[ET Da Gawd]

Maybe I'm different, I would like to have 2 bonafide post players in the playoffs. I think thats they key to winning a chip, 2 talented post bigs...all this other small ball stretch 4 with an unskilled alley catcher is gimmick basketball.

[Unbreakable99]

Maybe I'm different, I would like to have 2 bonafide post players in the playoffs. I think thats they key to winning a chip, 2 talented post bigs...all this other small ball stretch 4 with an unskilled alley catcher is gimmick basketball.

Maybe they do keep Okafor and Embiid. I'm just explaining why Okafor could be dealt. It could be overkill to keep Okafor and Embiid. Neither one can guard a stretch 4.

[ET Da Gawd]

Who cares about guarding a stretch 4? Is a stretch 4 ready to guard Jah or Joel?????? You make the defense adjust to your style!!!

[Mik317]

Who cares about guarding a stretch 4? Is a stretch 4 ready to guard Jah or Joel?????? You make the defense adjust to your style!!!

This I kinda agree with but "true" stretch fours are guys who will be able to defend centers if need be...thats kinda the whole point. Draymond is an outlier and it is not smart to expect everyone to get a Draymond type but thats what the league is chasing now...his best skill is his ability to guard post bigs.

[ET Da Gawd]

you can't chase whats not there, theres only 1 draymond green in the league

[Unbreakable99]

Who cares about guarding a stretch 4? Is a stretch 4 ready to guard Jah or Joel?????? You make the defense adjust to your style!!!

I hear you. I'm pretty anxious to see if Okafor and Embiid can dominate down low at the same time. I do somewhat agree with you that people are getting enamored with small ball. It's really more about elite talent. Curry is once in a lifetime. I think Draymond Green would be in trouble trying to guard Okafor or Embiid. People are letting Curry cloud their judgement. Everyone can't play like Golden St. In fact no one else can play like them.

Look at the other top teams outside of GSW. It's not like they're unbeatable and you have to matchup with them on small ball. Cleveland isn't small ball. San Antonio isn't small ball. OKC has two great wing players. It's about acquiring top talent. Once GSW comes back to earth in a few years I don't think small ball will be as stressed. Small ball works for them because their best players are elite wing players.

With all that said I don't think it's wise to just think you can pound teams to death. You can't win a title without a very good wing player.

[phifans]

It's pretty simple. Okafor has been one of the worst performers in the NBA this year. Noel has shown to be a high level performer for two years now. Anyone that would chose the former over the latter would be a terrible GM.

No he's not ....
And Your hates on your favorate team's young rookie may be the worst performers as a fan I've ever seen before in my life.
And I like both Okafor and Noel whatever flows they have they are the best talent we have right now and I will always hope for the best for them. I can't believe some of you just called them out every time given a chance and try to claim one of them are bad player and will never improve. Im wondering what does that(keep calling Okafor for bad) benifit you actually ? Does that ( assuming Okafor are the worst player which is ridiculous) makes you happy ?
I seriously doubt that you have ever hoped Okafor being better or from the very beginning youre begging him to be a bust to show that you were right for not being a fan of him before the draft ?

Agree with Kobble. That's why there's a difference in opinion. If you look at present impact of Noel, he has already shown ability to provide atleast star caliber impact on the defensive end.

Betting on Jah is more of hoping in the future that he eventually stretches the floor on offense like a wing and provide footspeed to guard guys like Draymond Green and Gay. And right now in the scale of 1 to 10, Jah is probably at 3-4? Jah has long ways to go. Personally, I'm optimistic because I think he has the age,tools and the skillset to be that kind of player while he has shown some glimpse of it in his rookie year.

I just don't get all those Noel has more impact on the court. Of course he is. This is the second year he's been on the court and the third year he's been with the team. He SHOULD have a better impacts that's what we called development.
Remember at the beginning of last season when Noel played like crap ? No one bashed him because of that cos we all know development takes time. Then right now see what happens ? I'd say Okafor has a better rookie season so far than Noel and some people here bashed him this hard like he'll never improve anymore. That's the point u see ? That Kobble guy try to persuade you Okafor will never improve what he's been doing now is what he will be doing during his whole career. And he try to claim anyone who has different opinion to him "has no logical on basketball" as if we all ignore OK4's weakness and blindly embrace his "20 point game". Would you hope/assume one of your better prospect never ever improve and fix their weakness ? Normal fans wouldn't. Only haters with "most logical" will.

[phifans]

And all in all. Since we have three prospects who basically play the same position. I think the one (or two) has to be traded eventually if he a). do not has the highest ceilling among three and b). can't translate to play PF.

[76ciology]

No he's not ....
And Your hates on your favorate team's young rookie may be the worst performers as a fan I've ever seen before in my life.
And I like both Okafor and Noel whatever flows they have they are the best talent we have right now and I will always hope for the best for them. I can't believe some of you just called them out every time given a chance and try to claim one of them are bad player and will never improve. Im wondering what does that(keep calling Okafor for bad) benifit you actually ? Does that ( assuming Okafor are the worst player which is ridiculous) makes you happy ?
I seriously doubt that you have ever hoped Okafor being better or from the very beginning youre begging him to be a bust to show that you were right for not being a fan of him before the draft ?

Agree with Kobble. That's why there's a difference in opinion. If you look at present impact of Noel, he has already shown ability to provide atleast star caliber impact on the defensive end.

Betting on Jah is more of hoping in the future that he eventually stretches the floor on offense like a wing and provide footspeed to guard guys like Draymond Green and Gay. And right now in the scale of 1 to 10, Jah is probably at 3-4? Jah has long ways to go. Personally, I'm optimistic because I think he has the age,tools and the skillset to be that kind of player while he has shown some glimpse of it in his rookie year.

I just don't get all those Noel has more impact on the court. Of course he is. This is the second year he's been on the court and the third year he's been with the team. He SHOULD have a better impacts that's what we called development.
Remember at the beginning of last season when Noel played like crap ? No one bashed him because of that cos we all know development takes time. Then right now see what happens ? I'd say Okafor has a better rookie season so far than Noel and some people here bashed him this hard like he'll never improve anymore. That's the point u see ? That Kobble guy try to persuade you Okafor will never improve what he's been doing now is what he will be doing during his whole career. And he try to claim anyone who has different opinion to him "has no logical on basketball" as if we all ignore OK4's weakness and blindly embrace his "20 point game". Would you hope/assume one of your better prospect never ever improve and fix their weakness ? Normal fans wouldn't. Only haters with "most logical" will.

Personally, I just like to hear both sides and analyze. I like Jah better than Noel BTW. But Noel has shown his dominant skill to translate at the NBA in terms of on court impact. And while Jah can score 17-20ppg, the impact isn't as high as Noel's. That if I can just translate Noel's defensive impact into offense, it's like trading 3s for post-ups. For Jah, there's still long ways to go on his development. He needs to almost (not entirely) start from scratch where there's a radical change on his game on both ends. I'm talking about shifting from heavy post game to a more balanced one with the additional of more volume of dribble drives and jumpers on offense (will lead to assists, FT rate, lower TO% and higher FG%) while shift from zone and stationary defense/rebounding to be more rangy defender/rebounder. And it's non negotiable.

[76ciology]

Who cares about guarding a stretch 4? Is a stretch 4 ready to guard Jah or Joel?????? You make the defense adjust to your style!!!

I hear you. I'm pretty anxious to see if Okafor and Embiid can dominate down low at the same time. I do somewhat agree with you that people are getting enamored with small ball. It's really more about elite talent. Curry is once in a lifetime. I think Draymond Green would be in trouble trying to guard Okafor or Embiid. People are letting Curry cloud their judgement. Everyone can't play like Golden St. In fact no one else can play like them.

Look at the other top teams outside of GSW. It's not like they're unbeatable and you have to matchup with them on small ball. Cleveland isn't small ball. San Antonio isn't small ball. OKC has two great wing players. It's about acquiring top talent. Once GSW comes back to earth in a few years I don't think small ball will be as stressed. Small ball works for them because their best players are elite wing players.

With all that said I don't think it's wise to just think you can pound teams to death. You can't win a title without a very good wing player.

They aren't small ball. But they can play small ball and their best players allows them to play small ball.

Kawhi-TD or LMA
LBJ-Love or Tristan
Durant-Ibaka

You can't just play on a single style. You need flexibility on a playoff atmosphere were you can change your cards if things aren't going your way. And if you look at the NetRTGs and RPM, small ball does work. The trickier thing IMO is how to make the big line-up to be just as effective where you will need a heavy defensive team like GSW,OKC&Spurs starting unit.

..and after you've figure out your frontcourt you will face the problem of how do you match-up the scoring duos/trios headed by Curry,LBJ and KD. We're not yet on the main course.

[Mik317]

TBF you kinda don't match up with Curry, BronBron or KD....you just die

[76ciology]

TBF you kinda don't match up with Curry, BronBron or KD....you just die

That's what the other teams are facing. There are bigger problems once this frontcourt is resolved. Once you'll have a frontcourt that can play big or small, having enough offensive fire power to match-up with those guys will be crucial (should have done the opposite way but this is the card handed to us).