Valid wrote:Andrew McCeltic wrote:Smart's great D, awful but improving O = Okafor's exceptional scoring, awful but unfinished D, rebounding.
How is he an "exceptional scorer?" He literally can't do anything more than 10 feet away from the basket. He can't spread the floor. He doesn't get to the free-throw line. He doesn't make free throws when he
does get there. He has a 53.5% TS. He had a -7.5 offensive net rating last season and a -3.8 offensive net rating this season. How is that an "exceptional scorer?"
The guy stinks.
Man, I definitely think you know your basketball, but you certainly pick some weird players to attach yourself to. First it was Dion Waiters, now it's Jahlil Okafor.
Ha, I knew when I rattled off those lotto busts, someone would remember I held out hope for Waiters to get better.
We all know some basketball, but there are always judgment calls - about a player's potential, about how much context has impacted their game, about the margin of error on their ceiling/floor.
The eye test for Okafor's rookie year tells you, he can score over double, triple teams with incredible touch and creativity around the basket. I kind of don't want to follow a league where that's an obsolete skill set. 17+ points as a rookie.
I haven't ever done a deep dive into advanced stats and analytics far enough to know their limitations. I'm at the stage where I take them as really valuable information, but not definitive information. You can't take Okafor's performance for 2/3 of a season on a historically bad team, as a rookie, which didn't have a point guard for the first 2/6 of the year, plus a couple of months back from an injury, a potential all-star playing behind or next to Embiid, a legit infant superstar, and write off his whole career.
Two factors to consider with the advanced stats:
1. Right now, as a raw, developing player, Okafor needs the ball in his hands to be effective. Without it, he's a P.O.S. - the opposite of Olynyk, who always knows where to go and step and be in rhythm with the team. Some of that's on him. But the Sixers haven't had great guard play either, so one issue last year was likely that the team struggled with Okafor on offense because they couldn't get him the ball, or got it to him late in the shot clock. Would have to look at the data on that, but I've never heard it mentioned before.
2. He does suck on defense. That's undeniable. But if his net defensive stats are historically bad, that's likely also because when he goes out on D, the centers who replace him - Embiid and Noel - are historically great. So of course the rest of the sh*t squad tank brigade is going to do better defensively with him out, because they're going to have defensive superstars/all-stars filling in for him, and because center is the position that can have probably the single most defensive impact.
If there's a flaw in that thinking, LMK, not an analytics guy. But the advanced stats on him seem too bad to be true, the eye test says he has incredible raw ISO scoring talent. And that he's young, and raw, and I think that's where a lot of the pessimism is influencing reads on him. He was absolutely oversold as the next Tim Duncan, and his limited role at Duke covered a lot of the holes in his game. Towns, meanwhile, was the exact opposite - he actually is the next Tim Duncan, and his limited role papered over his strengths. That doesn't mean Okafor's done. If he'd been scouted properly - as a scoring savant who needs to slim down, learn to defend, and work on his rebounding - and gone, say, 8th in the draft - and put up 15-17 as a rookie, inventively, while putting up slightly below average defensive stats on a structured team - everyone would just be nodding and saying 'Ok, next Brook Lopez... maybe more?'
