TTP wrote:Ericb5 wrote:
That what I have always said about him defensively. He doesn't' know how to play team defense. It isn't that he can't. It's that he is confused, and that seems like something that can be improved with coaching, at least to a certain extent.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
I'd buy this a lot more if he were giving too much effort, jumping too frequently for blocks, being over aggressive like how Holmes is. When he goes into statue mode, looks sluggish, doesn't jump or close out hard, it starts looking a lot more like he can't.
That differs for every person and this is unfair to Okafor. The kid was his entire life an offensive force and coaches probably let him hang around the basket to conserve his energy and keep him out of foul trouble, this even seemed the case at Duke. Now he's having an extremely hard time to not only adjust to the NBA pace, but also catching up on defensive fundamentals.
It's much easier sitting at your couch watching tv than standing in the middle of the paint and elite athletes running around you. This probably causes mild brain meltdowns at times and the logical thing to do is relapse to his old habits.
From what I'm seeing he's a willing kid but one with underdeveloped defensive fundamentals. It's going to be a long process to erase those habits, create new ones and play team basketball on the offensive end as well. The coaching staff should take one step at the time and start with the most important one, defensive fundamentals.
For us it's the case of remaining patient if the team is willing to invest in Okafor. He will alternate between decent games from a defensive standpoint (Cleveland) to very, very poor ones (Utah), but we should see some development in the long run. Personally I'm not a fan of Okafor and would rather invest in somebody else, but I'm not going to rebel at every single topic when he makes a single defensive mistake. I think none of us should.