Every guy that plays for Brett Brown plays hard except for Jahlil Okafor and you guys are defending him like he's a superstar in the making. SMDH.
Other than ETdagawd I don't see anyone saying that he is a superstar in the making.
What jumps out at me from watching those gif's is that he is unsure what to do. That is what I always see with him on defense. He doesn't know if he is supposed to follow the person that he is defending to the top of the key, or stay under the basket. He is slow to react, and he isn't explosive enough like Noel to make up for the poor recognition with athleticism.
He looks bad in these clips, but I will be much more concerned if he looks like this on defense at the end of his third year. Most naysayers think that he is what he is, and I think that he needs major coaching, and will improve.
I feel like you're not appreciating the utter lack of effort he showed. It's beyond being unsure, it's not caring.
This has been a consistent issue with him his entire career, why do we think it will improve?
The effort is not there, but I don't think that is the biggest issue. He just doesn't have quick instincts or quick twitch athleticism to become a good defensive Center. If it was all about effort (like young Shaq) Id say that's something he can improve easily. That's not all that I see though.
Fischella wrote:I think none of you guys that are pro-Embiid no how basketball works today.. is way easier to win it all with Omer Asik than Olajuwon. Actually if you ask me which Center I want for my perfect championship caliber team, I will chose Asik hands down
Every guy that plays for Brett Brown plays hard except for Jahlil Okafor and you guys are defending him like he's a superstar in the making. SMDH.
Other than ETdagawd I don't see anyone saying that he is a superstar in the making.
What jumps out at me from watching those gif's is that he is unsure what to do. That is what I always see with him on defense. He doesn't know if he is supposed to follow the person that he is defending to the top of the key, or stay under the basket. He is slow to react, and he isn't explosive enough like Noel to make up for the poor recognition with athleticism.
He looks bad in these clips, but I will be much more concerned if he looks like this on defense at the end of his third year. Most naysayers think that he is what he is, and I think that he needs major coaching, and will improve.
I feel like you're not appreciating the utter lack of effort he showed. It's beyond being unsure, it's not caring.
This has been a consistent issue with him his entire career, why do we think it will improve?
His entire career consists of 50 some games. His effort will have to improve on defense or he won't succeed. Any experience before the NBA has him playing a position(Center) that he won't be playing here. He has never been asked to defend more than 10 feet away from the basket before.
His lack of effort primarily shows up in help defense situations, and I think that it is very difficult to untangle his lack of awareness from his lack of effort. It is hard to be aggressive when you don't know what to do.
Look, here is what it comes down to for me with Okafor. He is already here. We aren't deciding whether or not to draft him. We have him already. The fit is obviously not ideal with Simmons and Embiid. Now we need to evaluate whether we keep him or trade him. I am willing to trade him for a better fitting piece of similar talent, but if the value isn't there at the moment, I sure as hell am not going to give him away simply to get rid of him. Marcus Smart doesn't really fit either as he isn't a scorer or shooter. He is a defender and that is good, but it isn't like he has the upside of Okafor.
The REAL risk with Okafor is under selling him, and not keeping him too long. Offensively, he is a special talent. I don't see why he can't be EVERY BIT the player that Carmelo Anthony is/was. You can argue that that isn't a winning player, but he still is as allstar in the nba that signs for max contracts. You don't want to be in the situation where we traded someone like that for peanuts.
If his effort and awareness on D doesn't improve then he won't reach his ceiling. Now that we have Embiid and Simmons, we aren't depending on Okafor to become a star. He is house money in a sense. Let's give him the chance to play his first 3 years in the league before we bail on him. Back in the day he would be going into his junior year in college, and people are already writing him off.
He's quite bias on the defensive issues of Okafor. He just cut out the horrible stuffs, even that sequence when Jah ran down the court after doing a good job challenging a perimeter shot (they were letting him leak out at the PF position at that stretch). Same can be done with Noel if you just cut out the bad parts. Team just played horrible defense the entire season.
He showed two sides of Okafor's game on offense, why not do the same on defense and I know it's possible because I've done it before. Jah challenge almost 8 shots at the rim per game at 49DFG% with better %contest numbers than D12, Hibbert and Porzingis, there's definitely some clips you can share where he played good defense.
There’s never been a time in history when we look back and say that the people who were censoring free speech were the good guys.
Unbreakable99 wrote:76ciology go ahead and tag Okafor and his dad in those series of tweets. It's on you.
would you believe that I was blocked by Okafor on his instagram account because I was telling him what parts of his game he needs to improve on? And I wasn't even going "KOBBLEHEAD" mode at him yet, just really friendly advise LOL I can't let that happen on my twitter account LOL
There’s never been a time in history when we look back and say that the people who were censoring free speech were the good guys.
Unbreakable99 wrote:76ciology go ahead and tag Okafor and his dad in those series of tweets. It's on you.
would you believe that I was blocked by Okafor on his instagram account because I was telling him what parts of his game he needs to improve on? And I wasn't even going "KOBBLEHEAD" mode at him yet, just really friendly advise LOL I can't let that happen on my twitter account LOL
Lol. That's funny. You know Okafor must be really irked when fans tell him what he needs to work on and I definitely understand that. It's not like he doesn't know what he needs work on. And why would he listen to some random fan? Lol. So you know he probably saw those tweets anyway. Someone probably alerted him and I bet he looked at them. But go ahead and tag him anyway. What's one more blocked account? Lol.
What Okafor needs is for the coaching staff to dedicate time to improving his weaknesses. They need to stay on him, and do a lot of film study with him.
There is plenty of low hanging fruit in the help defense, and rebounding areas that could improve quickly. Meaning that he could improve those areas by 20-25% just by doing some simple things, and focusing on forming the new habits.
I would be shocked if his bad metrics are anywhere close to as bad next spring as they were this past year.
Problem with these kind of analysis is that a writer can unfairly influence the reader with the selection of those little gifs. Don't get me wrong, Okafor was a HORRIBLE (P&R) defender and defensive rebounder, but I do think he showed some improvement late in the season (before his injury).
If you compare this analysis with Jokic' analysis the narrative is completely different. Jokic was a fairly poor defender as well, but he laid the emphasis on the hypothetical possible improvements Jokic could make. He could have showed multiple weakside blocks, terrific one on one defensive possessions of Okafor, but somehow he chose not to.
I'm curious what the more competitive roster and lower usage rate will do with Okafor. Right now I'm not a fan, but it is far too soon to give up on him.
Unbreakable99 wrote:76ciology go ahead and tag Okafor and his dad in those series of tweets. It's on you.
would you believe that I was blocked by Okafor on his instagram account because I was telling him what parts of his game he needs to improve on? And I wasn't even going "KOBBLEHEAD" mode at him yet, just really friendly advise LOL I can't let that happen on my twitter account LOL
Lol. That's funny. You know Okafor must be really irked when fans tell him what he needs to work on and I definitely understand that. It's not like he doesn't know what he needs work on. And why would he listen to some random fan? Lol. So you know he probably saw those tweets anyway. Someone probably alerted him and I bet he looked at them. But go ahead and tag him anyway. What's one more blocked account? Lol.
Pretty sure he knows it by now, just as long as he don't ask for Jabari parker's advise on defense.
There’s never been a time in history when we look back and say that the people who were censoring free speech were the good guys.
Kolkmania wrote:Problem with these kind of analysis is that a writer can unfairly influence the reader with the selection of those little gifs. Don't get me wrong, Okafor was a HORRIBLE (P&R) defender and defensive rebounder, but I do think he showed some improvement late in the season (before his injury).
If you compare this analysis with Jokic' analysis the narrative is completely different. Jokic was a fairly poor defender as well, but he laid the emphasis on the hypothetical possible improvements Jokic could make. He could have showed multiple weakside blocks, terrific one on one defensive possessions of Okafor, but somehow he chose not to.
I'm curious what the more competitive roster and lower usage rate will do with Okafor. Right now I'm not a fan, but it is far too soon to give up on him.
Agree.
Aside from Kanter and Bargnani, both guys who I don't think are better defenders than jah right now, most bigs actually do struggle once they enter the league nowadays because of the pace and space thing. It's just KAT and KP's game are tailor fit (both guys are athletic, can shoot and block shots). If you look at Tristan Thompson or Olynyk's DRPM they are getting like -1.2 to -1.5 @ 2013-2014 (if im not mistaken) and now they are like +1.2 to +1.7 at 2014-2016. Plumlee was -1.6 DRPM and he's like +2.4 right now.
I think the ideology of the guy who started the thread is that the center NEEDS and it's non negotiable to be in the Whiteside/Gobert mode. And Jah will never be that kind of player. And it's as if doesn't accept a non-defensive anchor but positive two way center like a DMC or Horford, something I think Jah can possibly be.
There’s never been a time in history when we look back and say that the people who were censoring free speech were the good guys.
Ericb5 wrote:What Okafor needs is for the coaching staff to dedicate time to improving his weaknesses. They need to stay on him, and do a lot of film study with him.
There is plenty of low hanging fruit in the help defense, and rebounding areas that could improve quickly. Meaning that he could improve those areas by 20-25% just by doing some simple things, and focusing on forming the new habits.
I would be shocked if his bad metrics are anywhere close to as bad next spring as they were this past year.
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I don't know if I've said it here before.
The thing Jah needs to learn is that most centers aren't scorers. With that said, he needs to play defense like DeAndre Jordan which I can describe as "fake individual defense with strong bias in weakside defense and grabbing rebounds".
Then on offense, the guy he needs to follow is DMC which has a balance of shooting/drive/post game. Shoot allows you to score with low TO%&extra pps if 3pts while drive allows you to get FTA&better assist opportunity.
And I hope that's what Jah mean when he said that he is observing DMC/DeAndre play on USA team.
There’s never been a time in history when we look back and say that the people who were censoring free speech were the good guys.
mksp wrote:This has been a consistent issue with him his entire career, why do we think it will improve?
why were his best games against KAT, Cousins and the Zinger? seems like he has a motivation problem playing on a 10 win team.
Yeah, see, I hate this line of reasoning.
They were a 10-win, *in part*, because Jahlil Okafor was a net-negative player. By like, *a lot*.
And he was a net negative player, among other reasons, because his poor effort and defense.
But we've reached the point where we're all just gonna talk ourselves into circles about Jahlil.
Maybe he'll play with effort this season.
Exactly. They were a ten win team partly because he was on the floor. They were a 19 win team and Noel almost won ROY with Henry Sims in the same spot.
Fischella wrote:I think none of you guys that are pro-Embiid no how basketball works today.. is way easier to win it all with Omer Asik than Olajuwon. Actually if you ask me which Center I want for my perfect championship caliber team, I will chose Asik hands down
I'll say this. If Okafor is still on the team this season then his usage percentage should go down some. Simmons will have the ball in his hands a lot. Also, Okafor's minutes may go down with Embiid and Saric joining the team. Okafor was counted on a lot to score last year plus he loves to shoot anyway. Simmons should give him easier looks and less of a chance for Okafor to hold the ball looking to score. Simmons could give him the ball where all he has to do is put it in the basket instead of scan the court and look around and hold the ball. This should cut down on his turnovers too. Simmons is looking to pass and Okafor is looking to score. The more Okafor knows if he puts himself in position to receive the ball in favorable positions then the more he will fight to get in those positions so Simmons can pass him the ball.
rzzzzz wrote: why were his best games against KAT, Cousins and the Zinger? seems like he has a motivation problem playing on a 10 win team.
Yeah, see, I hate this line of reasoning.
They were a 10-win, *in part*, because Jahlil Okafor was a net-negative player. By like, *a lot*.
And he was a net negative player, among other reasons, because his poor effort and defense.
But we've reached the point where we're all just gonna talk ourselves into circles about Jahlil.
Maybe he'll play with effort this season.
Exactly. They were a ten win team partly because he was on the floor. They were a 19 win team and Noel almost won ROY with Henry Sims in the same spot.
Not fair. They were 2-21 after he got hurt so they didn't get better at all.
mksp wrote:This has been a consistent issue with him his entire career, why do we think it will improve?
why were his best games against KAT, Cousins and the Zinger? seems like he has a motivation problem playing on a 10 win team.
Yeah, see, I hate this line of reasoning.
They were a 10-win, *in part*, because Jahlil Okafor was a net-negative player. By like, *a lot*.
And he was a net negative player, among other reasons, because his poor effort and defense.
But we've reached the point where we're all just gonna talk ourselves into circles about Jahlil.
Maybe he'll play with effort this season.
Are u drunk? Lmaoo, dude, we were a 10win team because our backcourt was Ish Smith & Isaiah Canaan, our Wings are trashhhhhhh get beat 100% of the team but no one says SH*T....its weird man, this team has ass guards and SFs but Noel/Okafor get all the blame like they should guard everyone, dudes overplay the screen, dont recover hard, dont fight over the screen, poor feet sliding, no one gives 2 Fs. How Sway??
Ericb5 wrote:What Okafor needs is for the coaching staff to dedicate time to improving his weaknesses. They need to stay on him, and do a lot of film study with him.
There is plenty of low hanging fruit in the help defense, and rebounding areas that could improve quickly. Meaning that he could improve those areas by 20-25% just by doing some simple things, and focusing on forming the new habits.
I would be shocked if his bad metrics are anywhere close to as bad next spring as they were this past year.
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Wow, if that's the case why so many players with the same problem didn't improve significantly?
