Where is Jahlil Okafor?

[eagereyez]

Disgusting performance by Okafor against the Rockets. He played with horrible effort on both ends.

That's not fair. He's only 20...

and injured...

and he doesn't have any teammates...

and the Coach is stupid...

Don't forget that he's gonna lose weight over the summer and transform into Kevin Garnett.

[spikeslovechild]

I don't understand the point you are trying to make. He is still recovering from an injury. Coach is stupid. Unless you have been watching different games then me with the exception of Embiid the rest of the team is awful (which is why they are 1-9). He's also still only 20. He did lose a ton of weight this offeason.

...But he's also played awful most of the year.

I don't know why these things have to be mutually exclusive. I also still have faith in him as a basketball player. I'm not forgetting what I saw of him last year and the improvements he made prior to getting injured but right now he's not right. Whether or not it's injury, mental, or whatever he needs to get it fixed or sit. It really is that simple.

[Ericb5]

I'm perfectly fine with Okafor playing 25-30 minutes a night as a super sub off the bench. Instant offense from him.

Me too.

Long term we would still need to determine if a role like that is best for Simmons, and Embiid, but there is a chance that it can work.

To me it will come down to determining what the best position for Simmons to defend is. If he is at ease defending 3's(as I suspect) then Okafor may have enough of a role on this team for him to stay.

Otherwise, he will have to be traded.


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[OleSchool]

Disgusting performance by Okafor against the Rockets. He played with horrible effort on both ends.

That's not fair. He's only 20...

and injured...

and he doesn't have any teammates...

and the Coach is stupid...

Don't forget that he's gonna lose weight over the summer and transform into Kevin Garnett.

Well, to be fair he did lose weight.

What i dont understand , and a huge problem to me is, where is his stamina? guy is 20. He should be able to run up and down all night.

Last year, I wrote off his lack of stamina to the rigors of the NBA. In the off season he lost weight thought he would come back with some energy. It looks like 2 trips down the floor has the guy laboring.

I think that's part of his problem on defense. Yes, he lacks help awareness, and hes a below the rim player but, when you're tired it makes his reaction time even slower.

[TTP]

I'm perfectly fine with Okafor playing 25-30 minutes a night as a super sub off the bench. Instant offense from him.

Me too.

Long term we would still need to determine if a role like that is best for Simmons, and Embiid, but there is a chance that it can work.

To me it will come down to determining what the best position for Simmons to defend is. If he is at ease defending 3's(as I suspect) then Okafor may have enough of a role on this team for him to stay.

Otherwise, he will have to be traded.


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Assuming that Okafor was an offensive positive, which is still not a given, I still don't see how it would work offensively.

Embiid and Simmons are likely to be 55-60% usage between them. Okafor has been a 27% usage player thus far and that's unlikely to change in the role you envision him in. How are all 3 going to be able to get all the touches they need/want if they're sharing the court?

I'm expecting Simmons to be a ~35 min player and Embiid to be a ~30 min player. This means that if Okafor is playing 25-30 mpg, he and Embiid are sharing the court for 7-12 minutes. So you're either giving them those 7-12 minutes together while Simmons is off the court (meaning you're reducing Embiid and Simmons' minutes together to fit around Okafor), or you're playing all 3 together and cutting into Simmons'/Embiid's usage just to get Okafor more touches. Both options would have Embiid and Simmons making sacrifices for Okafor. This seems incredibly foolish - why would we marginalize our top two players to fit in Okafor, especially given that he hasn't shown to be an offensive positive yet?

This is even worse when we already have Saric who doesn't require as much usage and likely fits better with the others than Okafor does.

Now add in that we're very likely to end up with a top 5 pick that is going to be playing 20-30 minutes and likely demand 20-25% usage, and the fact that you're almost always going to want two 3 and D guys with around 15-17% usage on the court as well and you're looking at a complete mess.

One of the reasons it makes more sense to prefer Noel over Okafor is because you don't have the usage issues with Noel. He's only commanded 17.8% usage thus far in his career and it's a lot easier to envision him succeeding with significantly less, whereas the style of Okafor's game makes that difficult.

Notice that none of this even addresses defense, which would be ridiculously lol.

[Negrodamus]

Trade Okafor. Keep Noel and have him off the bench. Embiid and Nerlens will dominate the defensive end, Simmons and Saric will be their PF. Those four will be the cornerstone of our starters and bench. There will be enough minutes to go around.

[TTP]

Yeah my main point is that you can't just look at minutes, you have to look at usage within those minutes. 25-30 minutes of a guy that needs the ball in his hands to function is vastly different than 25-30 minutes of a guy that does most of his work off ball, setting screens or standing in a corner.

It's one reason I don't like a lot of trade or free agency proposals that are brought up. Embiid is currently averaging the second highest usage in the NBA. Obviously I don't think his 40% is sustainable, but most of the NBA's superstars are in the 30-35% range. Simmons is very likely to be in the 25-30% range as well. After we make our draft pick this year, we aren't going to need or want another player that needs the ball in his hands that much, and certainly not another non-guard/non-playmaker.

[Sixersftw]

Trade Okafor. Keep Noel and have him off the bench. Embiid and Nerlens will dominate the defensive end, Simmons and Saric will be their PF. Those four will be the cornerstone of our starters and bench. There will be enough minutes to go around.

It seems real obvious, right?

[Ericb5]

Trade Okafor. Keep Noel and have him off the bench. Embiid and Nerlens will dominate the defensive end, Simmons and Saric will be their PF. Those four will be the cornerstone of our starters and bench. There will be enough minutes to go around.

It seems real obvious, right?

I agree that this is a viable way forward, but the problem to me is that Okafor is too talented to just throw away. I'm willing to throw away Noel seeing as our hand is forced by his contract situation.

If we can get value for Okafor I have always said that trading him makes more sense in a vacuum, and he is a one man logjam buster. Trading Noel still leaves the logjam in place to a certain extent.

When it comes right down to it though, the only opinion that really matters is BC's, and we don't know what he is thinking.

The Noel/Okafor trade will be the first move of BC's of any significance that is solely his. His free agent choices were his as well, but they were of lesser significance.

So far the most consequential move that he has made is signing Sergio, which was a good move, but obviously not a needle mover.

I still expect Bayless to be a good move for us once he gets healthy, but it probably won't improve the team anymore than Sergio has.


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[LloydFree]

Trade Okafor. Keep Noel and have him off the bench. Embiid and Nerlens will dominate the defensive end, Simmons and Saric will be their PF. Those four will be the cornerstone of our starters and bench. There will be enough minutes to go around.

It would take a real idiot to bite on a trade for Okafor at this point. The video of how bad he is is becoming extensive. I don't know what team would give you anything for him.

That being said, I agree with you on how I would proceed. Okafor and that 2015 #3 pick is a sunk cost. We're not getting anything for it. Just make Noel play back-up Center for the next year and a half, until he walks.

[Negrodamus]

Trade Okafor. Keep Noel and have him off the bench. Embiid and Nerlens will dominate the defensive end, Simmons and Saric will be their PF. Those four will be the cornerstone of our starters and bench. There will be enough minutes to go around.

It would take a real idiot to bite on a trade for Okafor at this point. The video of how bad he is is becoming extensive. I don't know what team would give you anything for him.

That being said, I agree with you on how I would proceed. Okafor and that 2015 #3 pick is a sunk cost. We're not getting anything for it. Just make Noel play back-up Center for the next year and a half, until he walks.

Trade him to the Suns for Brandon Knight. We're not winning anything this year, so might as well bring on a disgruntled PG that's capable of shooting and is fighting for his NBA life (also a former 3rd pick if I recall correctly). Then they have a big man that could be something or could be nothing.

[Kobblehead]

Brandon Knight is a dumb basketball player, though. We need to stay the course of adding cerebral players.

[Negrodamus]

Brandon Knight is a dumb basketball player, though. We need to stay the course of adding cerebral players.

Then trade him for a second rounder. I frankly don't care. He serves no purpose on this team moving forward and his presence is going to lose us one of the best defensive bigs in the NBA.

[TTP]

Trade Okafor. Keep Noel and have him off the bench. Embiid and Nerlens will dominate the defensive end, Simmons and Saric will be their PF. Those four will be the cornerstone of our starters and bench. There will be enough minutes to go around.

It would take a real idiot to bite on a trade for Okafor at this point. The video of how bad he is is becoming extensive. I don't know what team would give you anything for him.

That being said, I agree with you on how I would proceed. Okafor and that 2015 #3 pick is a sunk cost. We're not getting anything for it. Just make Noel play back-up Center for the next year and a half, until he walks.

Seriously. Everyone kept saying "he's only 20%! You can't give up on him yet!". There's risk that you give up on a player before they reach their potential and there's risk that a player doesn't improve as well. If you're confident the latter is going to happen before the rest of the league believes so, you go with your read and try to capitalize on it. If you wait until everyone knows that he's not deserving of his high prospect status, you've now lost value. There have been so many indicators that he's a bad fit for the modern game, just a bad player, or both. Unfortunately, a lot of people are just blinded either because of homerism, unwillingness to give up on a high pick early, unwillingness to accept changing league conditions, dislike of advanced stats, or just being unable to accept that a former top of his class prospect is no longer such.

[Sixersftw]

Brandon Knight is a dumb basketball player, though. We need to stay the course of adding cerebral players.

Then trade him for a second rounder. I frankly don't care. He serves no purpose on this team moving forward and his presence is going to lose us one of the best defensive bigs in the NBA.

Yep, it's addition by subtraction at this point. As Lloyd said, its a sunk cost at this point. Just gotta mitigate the damage now.

[Sixerscan]

That's not fair. He's only 20...

and injured...

and he doesn't have any teammates...

and the Coach is stupid...

Don't forget that he's gonna lose weight over the summer and transform into Kevin Garnett.

Well, to be fair he did lose weight.

What i dont understand , and a huge problem to me is, where is his stamina? guy is 20. He should be able to run up and down all night.

Last year, I wrote off his lack of stamina to the rigors of the NBA. In the off season he lost weight thought he would come back with some energy. It looks like 2 trips down the floor has the guy laboring.

I think that's part of his problem on defense. Yes, he lacks help awareness, and hes a below the rim player but, when you're tired it makes his reaction time even slower.

People said he lost weight based on those weird myspace type pictures he posted in the offseason/general okafor homerism but Okafor himself on media day said he actually gained weight relative to where he was before he got hurt.

[76ciology]

Best to hope Okafor improves whether you want him to stay or get traded. Personally, I don't think he's untouchable and has low probability of becoming a long term piece but I really think he can be much better than most people think he can be.

Really needs to drive and dish more, be able to shoot more jumpers and grab more boards.

[76ciology]

Don't forget that he's gonna lose weight over the summer and transform into Kevin Garnett.

Well, to be fair he did lose weight.

What i dont understand , and a huge problem to me is, where is his stamina? guy is 20. He should be able to run up and down all night.

Last year, I wrote off his lack of stamina to the rigors of the NBA. In the off season he lost weight thought he would come back with some energy. It looks like 2 trips down the floor has the guy laboring.

I think that's part of his problem on defense. Yes, he lacks help awareness, and hes a below the rim player but, when you're tired it makes his reaction time even slower.

People said he lost weight based on those weird myspace type pictures he posted in the offseason/general okafor homerism but Okafor himself on media day said he actually gained weight relative to where he was before he got hurt.

Could be wrong but his declared weight was pretty much the same compared to what he had last season.

[LloydFree]

Trade Okafor. Keep Noel and have him off the bench. Embiid and Nerlens will dominate the defensive end, Simmons and Saric will be their PF. Those four will be the cornerstone of our starters and bench. There will be enough minutes to go around.

It would take a real idiot to bite on a trade for Okafor at this point. The video of how bad he is is becoming extensive. I don't know what team would give you anything for him.

That being said, I agree with you on how I would proceed. Okafor and that 2015 #3 pick is a sunk cost. We're not getting anything for it. Just make Noel play back-up Center for the next year and a half, until he walks.

Seriously. Everyone kept saying "he's only 20%! You can't give up on him yet!". There's risk that you give up on a player before they reach their potential and there's risk that a player doesn't improve as well. If you're confident the latter is going to happen before the rest of the league believes so, you go with your read and try to capitalize on it. If you wait until everyone knows that he's not deserving of his high prospect status, you've now lost value. There have been so many indicators that he's a bad fit for the modern game, just a bad player, or both. Unfortunately, a lot of people are just blinded either because of homerism, unwillingness to give up on a high pick early, unwillingness to accept changing league conditions, dislike of advanced stats, or just being unable to accept that a former top of his class prospect is no longer such.

Exactly. That's why I found it absurd that guys were adamant that they hoped the 76ers didn't trade Okafor for the #3 pick this past draft. I thought if that could happen it would have been a gift from the heavens. Now we're sitting here a month into the season with no hope of getting anything of value for this guy.

[Sixerscan]

Well, to be fair he did lose weight.

What i dont understand , and a huge problem to me is, where is his stamina? guy is 20. He should be able to run up and down all night.

Last year, I wrote off his lack of stamina to the rigors of the NBA. In the off season he lost weight thought he would come back with some energy. It looks like 2 trips down the floor has the guy laboring.

I think that's part of his problem on defense. Yes, he lacks help awareness, and hes a below the rim player but, when you're tired it makes his reaction time even slower.

People said he lost weight based on those weird myspace type pictures he posted in the offseason/general okafor homerism but Okafor himself on media day said he actually gained weight relative to where he was before he got hurt.

Could be wrong but his declared weight was pretty much the same compared to what he had last season.

Well he said he gained 10 pounds since getting hurt. Maybe he lost some during the year prior before gaining it back. Either way he didn't lose weight over the summer, contrary to all of the people that were convinced that he had "transformed his body" because they saw a video of him jumping in a pool.