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I got a bit bored and viewed the last few pages of this forum and it was crazy seeing the amount of bashing Okafor took. I know he didn't play too well during stretches, but he was still effective, especially for what seemed like constant fueding with Sam Vincent. One thing I never understood and probably never will is why Sam Vincent didn't play Okafor more. I guess by mpg, he isn't playing much more this season, but the minutes are much more consistent from game to game, which is all I thought he needed along with some willing passers.

Alright, enough venting.

Might have to do one for Felton in a few weeks, though.

Search for Bowens + Brickafor or jokafor, that guy was relentless.

Defenately one post for Felton to and even I was guilty of that and he was my favorite college player ever,

As for Mek it's easy to see why people hate on him so much. He should be averaging 20 points 12 rebounds and 3 blocks. For a guy who is sopposed to be a hustle guy, a work horse he hasn't seem to improve much at all.
If he was truley deticated he would have spent his offseason learning to perfect the midrange jumper, hit a free throw at a reasonable % and develop at least 1 go to move. Plus he is so unaggressive. If he isn't getting points of boards or an easy open dunk or layup from Diaw or a teammate he would average 6 points.
On top of that he plays for the Bobcats a team with no scorers, no 20 point a game scorer so on a team like the Bobcats your average will go up. That is why Raja Bell looks like a premier scorer out there on offense. There leading scorer averages 15 points by Wallace who scores off garbadge points so there is a good chance Mek if on another team would average about 10-12 points and a guy with his talent that is so unexceotable. Also people hate on him because his blocks are way down. Sometimes I think he needs to work on his game and sometimes I think they need to except him for what he is and get an offensive C.
I hope and pray under Larry Brown next year they get him a big man coach or LB on his own can get him to be aggressive and average 18 points, Felton average 17 or 18 and Diaw to average at least 16 but more importantly I hope LB gets him to rebound. He's got to get it up to 7 rebounds. Radman is another guy who gets 4 boards but is 6'10.

I don't expect LB to improve them that much this year but next year with a training camp with the new players and new team I believe all the players will be much improved. I know LB had time with Mek and he didn't do much for him this year but I am hoping next year he will.

I read the first two sentences and stopped....

....just thought I'd let you know.

Alright Dex, I read your enitre post.

All I can say is Okafor has improved and I don't get why you can't see that. Take out the first month of the season and his scoring has been very good.

October - 7 ppg in 37 mpg (1 game)

November - 10.3 ppg in 32.9 mpg (15 games)

December - 17.8 ppg in 36.6 mpg (16 games)

January - 14 ppg in 32.9 mpg (15 games)

February - 14.7 ppg in 31.9 mpg (13 games)

March - 14.3 ppg in 31.3 mpg (3 games)

When you say all of Wallace's points are garbage points and Okafor would only average 6 ppg if this or that happened or didn't happened, I just shake my head and think is this person actually watching the games or just forming their own bizzare opinions based on absolutely nothing.

It's hard to find a single Stat that Mek HASN'T improve in this year....

FG% is up
pts per 36 is the same but we played much faster last year....so thats up
turnovers are better
rebounding is slightly better
ft% is better
blocks are slightly better
etc.

The don't subtract points because it was an "easy" bucket. A dunk with nobody around is worth the same points as a slick post move.

Also...In the NBA there isn't really any such thing as a "dunk with nobody around" there is always somebody helping from somewhere, Mek deserves credit for finishing MUCH better this year compared to last.

e4,

Do you have the stats from last season, such as how he finished around the rim? I know he was amongst the lead leaders in getting his shot blocked, but I don't know the percentage or total.

And of late, I have seen Mek get a lot of and1 opportunities. I'm certain he leads our team in and1 opportunities and wouldn't be suprised if he was near the top of the league. Don't have the stats to back that up, though.

i will freely admit i have been very hard on okafor over the years, mainly due to frustrations over his inabilility/unwillingness to finish strong at the rim. 4 things changed this year that have helped ease my okafor frustrations

1) okafor is finishing stronger at the rim. finally, after 4 years of watching him try to ease the ball with little flip shots etc, he finally decided to be a MEKWARRIOR and dunk it hard. i can no longer give him the toodles nickname.

2) diaw's passing means okafor can get the ball in a position to score immediately. we are no longer reduced to watching mek get the ball in the post in an iso and watch him try to execute a crude post move. its not his game. it will never be his game. diaw makes okafor a much better offensive threat.

3) okafor playing more center this year. brezec is gone and nazr is on the bench. okafor at center means we dont have to watch him try to guard quick pfs on the perimeter, which is a good thing.

4) okafor is finally taking that 10 foot jumper when he is open. i've been saying all along that he needs to take that shot if its in the flow of the offense. i'm glad to see he now has the confidence to shot it when open.

now he just needs to work on that awful FT%

I am not talking about improvement from the beginging of the year to now but what about career? Correct me if im wrong but aren't you sopposed to be alot better in your 5th year then you were in your rookie year? The fact that he averaged more points rebounds and same blocks in his rookie year to now speaks volumes. It shows he needs to put in more work in the offseason. He has been in the league 5 years and now he starts to hit a 10 foot jumper a little? He should have that perfected and be a good 15 foot jump shooter.
In his 3rd year he averaged a full block more a rebound more and the same points.

And the 6 points per game remark was a joke or an exgaration although he did average 7 points for a solid month.

Also he shot it better from the stripe in his rookie year and had less turnovers.

If he was a Center who didn't have allstar potential we all would be thankful for having A center who at 6'10 but never plays small and who gets us 14 and 10 with some blocks but he should be doing more.
Another thing like I said is the killer instict. It could be a situation were the other teams bigs fouled out and he could have a 3 guarding him and I can't see him yelling for the ball and dominating the mismatch. He's to quiet and needs a killer instict.

Dexmor wrote:I am not talking about improvement from the beginging of the year to now but what about career? Correct me if im wrong but aren't you sopposed to be alot better in your 5th year then you were in your rookie year? The fact that he averaged more points rebounds and same blocks in his rookie year to now speaks volumes. It shows he needs to put in more work in the offseason. He has been in the league 5 years and now he starts to hit a 10 foot jumper a little? He should have that perfected and be a good 15 foot jump shooter.
In his 3rd year he averaged a full block more a rebound more and the same points.

And the 6 points per game remark was a joke or an exgaration although he did average 7 points for a solid month.

We only played one game (the first one) in the month of October.

As for not being a lot better, his PER has gone up since his rookie season and the roster is far more talented. I would say it's tough to get much better if you average 15-11-2 your rookie season. And unless you've actually seen Mek's offseason workout regimen, I don't see how you can say "it shows he needs to put in more work in the offseason".

Put this Emeka Okafor on that expansion team and I think he would be much better than 15 and 11 on 45% shooting, which show's improvement to me.

I have always maintained that "Okafor doesn't dunk" was a myth... since he was top 10 in dunks last season, and is in roughly the same shape this year.

Anyway, y'know what I see in those months you posted, thruthefire? Exactly the same production as his entire career. He's always been a ~14ppg player, in fact he's making exactly the same number of baskets as last year, he's just taking one fewer shot every two games.

The frustration with Okafor was simply that he wasn't improving, and I think that's probably still valid. He's the same guy he's been for two years now, if you blame the slight uptick in FG% on LB and the downtick on Sam Vincent. I'm not sure why people calmed down about it this season, but nothing is really different.

Oh, also, technically Okafor is actually taking FEWER jump shots than he did last season, and scoring fewer points from them, though he's shooting a better % on them.

There is no reason with being a hard worker he shouldn't have a perfected jumper with some goto post moves which should make him average at least 18 a game. That's my take on it judging by his talent and potential.

^^Your stupid stats can't touch my feelometer

This is 1 year under coach Brown. I am hoping they make the playoffs which gives him a stronger drive plus with Felton getting 8-9 dimes a game as of late with Diaw next season he raises his average.
He should work all offseason on the jumper and post moves and get MIP. I don't know about you guys but when he was drafted I was sure he would be a17-20, 12 rebound guy wih at least 2 blocks.

Dexmor wrote:This is 1 year under coach Brown. I am hoping they make the playoffs which gives him a stronger drive plus with Felton getting 8-9 dimes a game as of late with Diaw next season he raises his average.
He should work all offseason on the jumper and post moves and get MIP. I don't know about you guys but when he was drafted I was sure he would be a17-20, 12 rebound guy wih at least 2 blocks.

I think he can become a 17 point scorer, 20 probably not.

If he had a killer instict and was completely deticated to winning and being the best he can be he would average over 20.
He would demand the ball more and take more shots
He would have a good free throw %
He would hit that 10-18 footer like Amare
He would have 1 to several go to moves

If he did all that being he is a Center he would also get doubled so he would get assists his team would win more and with those 5 things he would add about 10 points to his average he could be a superstar. He could be right behind Howard for best Center. We would be a top 4 team in the East.

What I think and hope will happen at least is Brown will get him to do one of those things I listed and next year he will end up averaging 17 a game. I would be happy with that but 14 a game is basically slightly above average scoring for a guy who gets alot of pt.

Mek doesn't play alot of minutes as his game log would show. The one month he played a lot of minutes (36.6 mpg), he average 17.8 ppg. On the season, he is averaging under 34 mpg, so in my book, that is not a lot. I would like to see him averaging 38 mpg.

I never realized his minutes were so low. Is it foul trouble or preventitive back issues or is it just what LB does.
That's actually not that bad for 33 minutes or whatever it is. I guess that is why his boards and blocks are down to.

...Emeka plays the 4th most minutes of any center, more than Yao, Nene, Camby, Horford, Biedrins... if he played 36 minutes, he'd be scoring 15 points, and very few bigs play a lot more than that. Even if he played 40mpg, he'd still only be at 16.8.

It's not easy at all to learn to shoot free throws or midrange jumpers as a big man. If it were, every player would do it. Do you think Shaq and Dwight Howard just don't put the minutes in? There's an element of natural skill involved that Emeka, like those players, lacks and will likely always lack. It's not realistic at all to just tell him to start shooting like Amare, he does not have that in him.

It's really not that hard to see why he is limited (though by no means bad) on offense... to score a lot of points as a big man in the NBA, you either need to be huge (Yao, Shaq), super athletic (Dwight Howard, Nene), or have a way to score outside of 5 feet (Al Jefferson, most of the great PFs). If you're not big enough to push people, fast enough to fly by them or jump over them, or skilled enough to range out or hit turnarounds, you're not going to be an elite offensive player.

Anyway I could certainly see him stepping up to 16ppg, but probably only if we increased our pace or he had a flukish year at the free throw line.