Where is Jahlil Okafor?

[SelfishPlayer]

Then I remember none of them are legit threats to score. Why leave your man if you see TJ driving. You know he's just going to circle and pass it out anyways.

There needs to be advanced stats for aborted/avoided simple basketball plays due to a lack of ability and/or fear. Sergio and TJ have a style of basketball that's remarkably similar that differs from over 90% of NBA players at the PG position. They never try to outrun guards down the floor to receive outlet passes from the defensive rebounder. Their first inclination is to always run back towards the defensive rebounder to get the basketball or whoever on their team has the basketball even if it resulted from a defensive steal. There are a list of simple basketball plays that these two avoid making even when the opportunity is extremely favorable for the normal NBA player at their position and presented with the very same situation.

[76ciology]

Why is Brett Brown comfortable with placing Dario at center with Ersan at PF but we never see Embiid, Holmes, and Okafor on the floor at the same time? Ersan got dunked on by Bazemore and Dwight. When Dario and Ersan were the big me that Atlanta team ran up the lead. Jahlil feasted against Kris Humphries' defense, a man that has been a PF over the bulk of his professional career. I want to see a lineup that dictates that Okafor is guarded by the power forward. Teams do not have enough big men to match up against the Sixers.

Mike D'Antoni while sitting on Sixers bench as assistant coach last season for us..

MDA: Brett, you know what's better than small ball?

BB: what?

MDA: two stretch fours. I call it Stretch 8. You know when the paint is tight and the spacing is poor..

..you need to stretch 8.

[SelfishPlayer]

Why is Brett Brown comfortable with placing Dario at center with Ersan at PF but we never see Embiid, Holmes, and Okafor on the floor at the same time? Ersan got dunked on by Bazemore and Dwight. When Dario and Ersan were the big me that Atlanta team ran up the lead. Jahlil feasted against Kris Humphries' defense, a man that has been a PF over the bulk of his professional career. I want to see a lineup that dictates that Okafor is guarded by the power forward. Teams do not have enough big men to match up against the Sixers.

Mike D'Antoni while sitting on Sixers bench as assistant coach last season for us..

MDA: Brett, you know what's better than small ball?

BB: what?

MDA: two stretch fours. I call it Stretch 8. You know when the paint is tight and the spacing is poor..

..you need to stretch 8.

This is a weird offense that values spacing but it doesn't have any perimeter players to take full advantage of the spacing. You space the floor so that your best perimeter players can have their way with the defense. The Sixers perimeter players are a bunch of limited players. The big men usually create their own offense even if it means driving from beyond the 3 point line. It's not even like the perimeter players compliment the big men. I rarely see a double team of the big result in an open 3 point attempt. With the way that the Sixers run their offense, it doesn't make sense to have a PG on the floor given that the PGs on the roster aren't a threat and the passes that they make to the one big man are passes that the SGs, PFs, and SFs can make. TJ and Sergio are so slow and non aggressive that it makes sense to just bench them and have a SG or Dario give the ball to the one big man and let that big man go to work. If TJ and Sergio are replaced with a moderate threat to score then the offense will run better especially if two big men are on the floor at once. Embiid, Okafor, Dario, Covington, Henderson is a team that I want to see take the floor. Let Dario initiate the offense, which is basically give it to the big man. By Dario having the basketball over long stretches he'll be in position to take a lot of three point shots and he is a threat from there.

[TTP]

That lineup seems perfect if your goal is to score 85 points on offense and give up 125 on defense.

[spikeslovechild]

I said it all last year when teams go small we should just feed the ball to Okafor until they are forced to take the player off the court. Sure we will give up some 3P opportunities because of Okafor being on the court but it won't come close to making up for the points they'll be giving up inside.

But brett brown coaches afraid. He'd rather have Daric-Ersan out there and even after seeing what Dwight did them he won't respond in kind when teams go small.

Don't give me well he's injured and on a minutes restriction either. Brett was pulling this same crap last year. I'm done with him.

[LloydFree]

That lineup seems perfect if your goal is to score 85 points on offense and give up 125 on defense.

Stop making too much sense. Don't you know having players 1-4 who can't possibly guard their position (or spread the floor) is the most optimal line-up the 76ers could possibly put out there?

[Unbreakable99]

That lineup seems perfect if your goal is to score 85 points on offense and give up 125 on defense.

Stop making too much sense. Don't you know having players 1-4 who can't possibly guard their position (or spread the floor) is the most optimal line-up the 76ers could possibly put out there?

Plus Saric as our PG who would also be the one guarding the other PG or SG in that scenario. That lineup is a disaster.

[SelfishPlayer]

I said it all last year when teams go small we should just feed the ball to Okafor until they are forced to take the player off the court. Sure we will give up some 3P opportunities because of Okafor being on the court but it won't come close to making up for the points they'll be giving up inside.

But brett brown coaches afraid. He'd rather have Daric-Ersan out there and even after seeing what Dwight did them he won't respond in kind when teams go small.

Don't give me well he's injured and on a minutes restriction either. Brett was pulling this same crap last year. I'm done with him.

He's a very old man that's set in his ways. The last "new" thing he possibly picked up was the idea of the stretch 4 and he's sticking with it through thick and thin. Brett Brown is the sort of guy that back in the 90's he would have made a guy like Dirk a center and kept him in the post. Brett is just a regular guy that's in over his head and his record is evidence of that fact.

[TeamHigh]

I said it all last year when teams go small we should just feed the ball to Okafor until they are forced to take the player off the court. Sure we will give up some 3P opportunities because of Okafor being on the court but it won't come close to making up for the points they'll be giving up inside.

This isn't likely going to play out on the simple fact that 3 > 2.

So you give up open looks to a stretch player from 3 because you run Okafor on defense. If that player shoots 40% from 3, you would need to shoot >60% on 2 to make up for it on the other end. If he's shooting 45% on 3, which isn't unlikely considering they're probably wide open looks because you're running Okafor on defense, you would need to shoot > 67.5% from 2s. And this is simply to break even, not to actually force them to take the player off the court.

There are enough decent post defenders that can probably keep Okafor from shooting in the mid 60%s while abusing his presence on the other end. This is what people are talking about when they're mentioning how the NBA is changing and post play is dying out. There's very few post bigs in NBA history that shoot well enough from the post to counter a team that shoots 40% from 3 on the other end. So you need your post big to be able to play in the post situationally, but also not be a liability against modern NBA offenses on the other end.

Obviously post play is still important sometimes. If it's late game and you need any kind of score, coaches probably would prefer options that result in points 60% of the time over something that results in points 40% of the time. There's also plenty of post-play to open up the game (like running to set up the pass). There's also post and kick, which is arguably the most efficient play in the game if you have an elite post big. But the idea that you can simply disregard a post player's bad defense by abusing opponents inside on the other end is pretty dead in the modern NBA.

[LloydFree]

This idea that Brett Brown is committing some sort of malpractice by not playing Okafor at Power Forward is laughable. Okafor has no idea what is going on around him on the defensive end, cannot put up minimum resistance on any pick-n-roll, and can't guard anything on the perimeter. If Brett Brown is doing anything right, it's not subjecting his team to the comical sight of Okafor attempting to guard other team's Power Forwards

[CoreyGallagher]

This isn't likely going to play out on the simple fact that 3 > 2.

So you give up open looks to a stretch player from 3 because you run Okafor on defense. If that player shoots 40% from 3, you would need to shoot >60% on 2 to make up for it on the other end. If he's shooting 45% on 3, which isn't unlikely considering they're probably wide open looks because you're running Okafor on defense, you would need to shoot > 67.5% from 2s. And this is simply to break even, not to actually force them to take the player off the court.

≥45% on what NBA.com considers wide open, 6+ feet of space, is actually considerably above league average. Only 41 of 246 players that attempted at least half of a wide open 3 point fga per game last season shot above that threshold, 105 of 246 shot ≥40%. That lowers with less feet of space given, so it actually would be unlikely.

There are enough decent post defenders that can probably keep Okafor from shooting in the mid 60%s while abusing his presence on the other end. This is what people are talking about when they're mentioning how the NBA is changing and post play is dying out. There's very few post bigs in NBA history that shoot well enough from the post to counter a team that shoots 40% from 3 on the other end. So you need your post big to be able to play in the post situationally, but also not be a liability against modern NBA offenses on the other end.

There aren't many decent post defenders that can also shoot 3's and even less if they'd be wings playing up to PF in small ball lineups. What I'd be unsure about is if he could still use his footwork in conjunction with his strength as effectively scoring in isolations against more agile defenders because that's what he's most efficient at doing right now. His + post scoring efficiency would have to counter balance that, if it's actually even an issue.

Regardless, I think it's doable, he shot 58.8% since New Years of last season which is when he was getting into rhythm, so for 23 games. Ish made his life simpler scoring as well, but they played for 2/3 of possessions together and he was assisted on only 44.3% of his fgm. If he could bump that up even marginally being defended against smaller counterparts than it would/could be worth TRYING, at least, which is all that anybody actually wants to happen.

[TTP]

If we're going to use a 23 game sample with Ish to highlight Okafor's peak performance last year, we should also mention that even with Ish and Okafor on the court, the team scored 98 points per 100 possessions and with Ish and no Okafor, the team scored 103.1. So even when we use the sample that shows Okafor in the best possible light, he still significantly dragged the offense down.

Now with better teammates this season, his FG% is 50%, which is actually lower than the 50.8% he averaged last season, and significantly lower than the 58.8% that the best sample referenced. Obviously he's been injured and on a minutes restriction so we'll see if he actually improves on those.

The weird thing to me is that I see some people complain about winning or lack of wins and then also want us to try Okafor at the 4 or just play him more in general. If our goal was solely to win games now, he wouldn't be seeing the court at all outside of garbage time.

[76ciology]

Not a fan of post offense unless it's being switched by a smaller player. But an offense where he's ISO'd at the FT, could be something we can worked on.

[CoreyGallagher]

If we're going to use a 23 game sample with Ish to highlight Okafor's peak performance last year, we should also mention that even with Ish and Okafor on the court, the team scored 98 points per 100 possessions and with Ish and no Okafor, the team scored 103.1. So even when we use the sample that shows Okafor in the best possible light, he still significantly dragged the offense down.

I was citing it specifically for the possibilities of his own scoring efficiency. I mentioned his own rhythm as well because even in lineups without Ish he was shooting +9.2% better than he had been prior to then. I think having more capable PG's - not just Ish - would do wonders for all of our bigs.

Now with better teammates this season, his FG% is 50%, which is actually lower than the 50.8% he averaged last season, and significantly lower than the 58.8% that the best sample referenced. Obviously he's been injured and on a minutes restriction so we'll see if he actually improves on those.

First two games of the season, though, he has been shooting better in all of them except the game that he played only a few minutes in recently.

EDIT: Contrary to my belief, he has actually been scoring better with TJ McConnell this season, fg% with him is 55.2% and only 46.2% with Sergio. Continuity may have benefited him.

The weird thing to me is that I see some people complain about winning or lack of wins and then also want us to try Okafor at the 4 or just play him more in general. If our goal was solely to win games now, he wouldn't be seeing the court at all outside of garbage time.

Eventually. Until now they've both been on minute restrictions, I'm not going to blame BB for not having played them much together to this point. Heck, I'm surprised they even had that short stint together already, but I do want to see it. This season is still about developing our young players, I'd just prefer not to set marks of futility in the process.

[TTP]

He's played with the first unit plenty in the games Embiid hasn't played. Also, when he plays with the second unit, he's playing against worse players, so you'd expect some improvement in his numbers just from the decrease in difficulty of competition.

He's actually played more with Sergio than TJ (85 minutes vs 65 minutes), but just looking at who he shared minutes with in each year and the fact that he's not having to share the court with Nerlens, it looks safe to say that he's playing with better teammates (or at least in a better situation). Last year he played 48% of his minutes with Canaan, 23% with Jakarr, 8% with Marshall. Those guys are worse than anyone he's sharing minutes with now. He's played roughly 40% of his minutes with TJ in each season. 44% of his minutes with Nerlens was a disaster as well that he's not dealing with this season.

[CoreyGallagher]

He's played with the first unit plenty in the games Embiid hasn't played. Also, when he plays with the second unit, he's playing against worse players, so you'd expect some improvement in his numbers just from the decrease in difficulty of competition.

You'd expect more overall efficiency playing against the opposing team's second units, scoring more efficiently seems to be just a matter of time. As I mentioned, his first two games (with the lack of preseason) has affected his overall scoring efficiency early on, but it is trending positively. I've been disappointed with his overall efficiency, though, I thought we'd see him giving more regular effort and I'm hoping it's just a matter of him being out of shape and will improve as the season progresses. When he does give it, I've liked what I've seen.

He's actually played more with Sergio than TJ (85 minutes vs 65 minutes), but just looking at who he shared minutes with in each year and the fact that he's not having to share the court with Nerlens, it looks safe to say that he's playing with better teammates (or at least in a better situation). Last year he played 48% of his minutes with Canaan, 23% with Jakarr, 8% with Marshall. Those guys are worse than anyone he's sharing minutes with now. He's played roughly 40% of his minutes with TJ in each season. 44% of his minutes with Nerlens was a disaster as well that he's not dealing with this season.

Yeah, sometimes I hit submit before I've fact checked everything, it's a bad habit. I had actually went back and edited my post with the more research I had done with regards to lineups and PG pairings this season.

[SelfishPlayer]

I said it all last year when teams go small we should just feed the ball to Okafor until they are forced to take the player off the court. Sure we will give up some 3P opportunities because of Okafor being on the court but it won't come close to making up for the points they'll be giving up inside.

This isn't likely going to play out on the simple fact that 3 > 2.

So you give up open looks to a stretch player from 3 because you run Okafor on defense. If that player shoots 40% from 3

Starting power forwards that shoot 40% from 3 are rare. Starting power forwards that can seriously guard Okafor on the block without help may be even more rare. These are the PFs starting for the top teams in the east Kevin Love, Pascal Siakam, Paul Millsap, Taj Gibson, Marvin Williams, Amir Johnson, Jabari Parker, Marcus Morris, Thaddeus Young. You build your team to make it out of your conference. Once you are to that level THEN you can worry about making moves to thwart Draymond Green who will be doing your team a service if he becomes the focal point of their offense because they believe that he has a favorable machup on Okafor. Let Draymond Green beat us!

[TTP]

I said it all last year when teams go small we should just feed the ball to Okafor until they are forced to take the player off the court. Sure we will give up some 3P opportunities because of Okafor being on the court but it won't come close to making up for the points they'll be giving up inside.

This isn't likely going to play out on the simple fact that 3 > 2.

So you give up open looks to a stretch player from 3 because you run Okafor on defense. If that player shoots 40% from 3

Starting power forwards that shoot 40% from 3 are rare. Starting power forwards that can seriously guard Okafor on the block without help may be even more rare. These are the PFs starting for the top teams in the east Kevin Love, Pascal Siakam, Paul Millsap, Taj Gibson, Marvin Williams, Amir Johnson, Jabari Parker, Marcus Morris, Thaddeus Young. You build your team to make it out of your conference. Once you are to that level THEN you can worry about making moves to thwart Draymond Green who will be doing your team a service if he becomes the focal point of their offense because they believe that he has a favorable machup on Okafor. Let Draymond Green beat us!

1) They don't need to be 40% from 3 overall. They need to be 40% on wide open 3s, which teams will get a ton of with Okafor guarding the perimeter. Many teams came close to or exceeded that threshold last season: http://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/wide-open-3s-and-ranking-how-each-nba-team-fared-at-making-defenses-pay/

2) The 40% was a fairly arbitrary and inaccurate threshold for Okafor. Okafor is averaging only 50% FG for his career. Let's be generous and bump that to 56%. The equivalent 3 point percentage would be 37.3%, a number that will be achieved by just about every playoff team.

3) This doesn't factor all of the times that Okafor wastes a possession by trying to make something happen and either draining the shot clock and forcing someone into a contested shot or turning the ball over - these situations don't affect his percentages but affect the points generated by an offense. Okafor made basically every lineup worse last year in terms of offensive points per possession. People are just taking it as a given that we'll be able to get him mismatches and he'll start destroying people consistently as an offensive juggernaut - he hasn't shown that to be the case thus far into his career.

4) The bolded looks like some ridiculous narrative/rule. You build your team to accomplish your goals and the Sixers goal has been to win a championship. However, even if I accept your ridiculous rule, let's look at the top teams in the East. The Cavs would likely just shift and guard Okafor with Lebron. Good luck having Okafor guard Lebron on the other end. The Celtics have Horford and Amir Johnson, who are both very good defenders and would benefit from facing another two big lineup. The Raptors are only starting Siakam because Sullinger is out, so you're being incredibly disingenuous there. Sullinger is a good defender, will be back in time for the playoffs, and gave Okafor a lot of trouble last year. So even if you are building to get out of the East, this strategy doesn't even work well offensively vs the top 3 teams in the East.

[TeamHigh]

This isn't likely going to play out on the simple fact that 3 > 2.

So you give up open looks to a stretch player from 3 because you run Okafor on defense. If that player shoots 40% from 3, you would need to shoot >60% on 2 to make up for it on the other end. If he's shooting 45% on 3, which isn't unlikely considering they're probably wide open looks because you're running Okafor on defense, you would need to shoot > 67.5% from 2s. And this is simply to break even, not to actually force them to take the player off the court.

≥45% on what NBA.com considers wide open, 6+ feet of space, is actually considerably above league average. Only 41 of 246 players that attempted at least half of a wide open 3 point fga per game last season shot above that threshold, 105 of 246 shot ≥40%. That lowers with less feet of space given, so it actually would be unlikely.

Of course it's better than league average if your league average includes all 246 players to have taken some threes. That's over 8 players per team. Just think, who's the 8th best 3 point shooter on the 6ers and how many 3s do you want them to take?

It's about team offense. And 41 players that shoot 45% or better on 'wide open' threes averages out to be more than 1 per team, and top offenses likely have multiple such players. If you're trotting Okafor out on defense against small ball offenses, you can bet the perimeter is going to be lightly defended and they'll work to find open looks for good shooters.

Regardless, he's not going to shoot in the mid-60s on the other end, which is the minimum it would take to break even, not actually punish them for having a player like that, so whether or not a team that shoots >40% from three on open threes is largely fantasized in the first place.

I said it all last year when teams go small we should just feed the ball to Okafor until they are forced to take the player off the court. Sure we will give up some 3P opportunities because of Okafor being on the court but it won't come close to making up for the points they'll be giving up inside.

This isn't likely going to play out on the simple fact that 3 > 2.

So you give up open looks to a stretch player from 3 because you run Okafor on defense. If that player shoots 40% from 3

Starting power forwards that shoot 40% from 3 are rare. Starting power forwards that can seriously guard Okafor on the block without help may be even more rare. These are the PFs starting for the top teams in the east Kevin Love, Pascal Siakam, Paul Millsap, Taj Gibson, Marvin Williams, Amir Johnson, Jabari Parker, Marcus Morris, Thaddeus Young. You build your team to make it out of your conference. Once you are to that level THEN you can worry about making moves to thwart Draymond Green who will be doing your team a service if he becomes the focal point of their offense because they believe that he has a favorable machup on Okafor. Let Draymond Green beat us!

The game is not a series of 5 1 on 1s. Starting power forwards may not be able to guard Okafor, but there are those that have a wide enough body that they can contest his post shots. Likewise they would be enough of a threat from the perimeter that your defense has to extend that far, and with good motion they can find open looks on the other end. In fact, that's the entire premise of small ball.

[CoreyGallagher]

Of course it's better than league average if your league average includes all 246 players to have taken some threes. That's over 8 players per team. Just think, who's the 8th best 3 point shooter on the 6ers and how many 3s do you want them to take?

It's of players that attempted at least half attempt per game in a minimum 20 games (which I included to remove such noise), so among players that had attempted a few over the course of the season. Increase that to a full attempt per game and it's 30 of 159, 1.5 attempts per game 14 of 73, only marginal improvements.

It's about team offense. And 41 players that shoot 45% or better on 'wide open' threes averages out to be more than 1 per team, and top offenses likely have multiple such players. If you're trotting Okafor out on defense against small ball offenses, you can bet the perimeter is going to be lightly defended and they'll work to find open looks for good shooters.

It would still be situational, shouldn't be used at all, or - at the very least - used less against lineups with more capable shooters. I doubt he meant against all small ball lineups and I meant just in pairing them in general.

Regardless, he's not going to shoot in the mid-60s on the other end, which is the minimum it would take to break even, not actually punish them for having a player like that, so whether or not a team that shoots >40% from three on open threes is largely fantasized in the first place.

That's my point, he wouldn't usually have to shoot that efficiently to break even whether the numbers are fantasized or not. Not every shot is going to be that wide open either and you'd be surprised how drastic the fall off is by even just contesting within a few feet closer.

I'd be interested in a study to expand the comparison further to consider other factors such as fouls drawn and turnovers while comparing the necessary scoring efficiencies. That's not something I've ever read, but it seems like it would be especially pertinent in this discussion which seems to be becoming more common with the increasing prevalence of the 3 point shot.