Meliorus wrote:tao_jin wrote:well if there's one thing I'll never see see in my life, it's Okafor diving into the stands for a loose ball.
Can't understand why people want him. He would be in the exact same situation as Nicholson. Teams would pick and roll us to death and Okafor would not be able to stay on the floor. Also, even with his good post moves the team's offense will suffer because post-ups are INEFFICIENT. A team with a decent defensive center neutralizes him easily.
He is a center that fits no parameters. He's not an athletic, low-usage rim-protector. He's not a stretch 5. He's useless and 76ers fans would be laughing to the bank if you offered them a 2017 1st rounder.
Last night he dove out of bounds to save a bad pass and it ended up leading to Philly three.
The criticism that he's not athletic and that he doesn't hustle just isn't accurate. He is faster than Gortat, and has way more ability to score over top other bigs. He schooled Gortat again last night and Gortat is a good man defender.
And it's one thing to play the center position with John Wall and Brad Beal as your guards and with Otto Porter on the wing. It's another to play center with Sergio Rodriguez, Gerald Henderson, TJ MCConnell, and Nick Stauskas as your guards. Philly's back court players are, to a man, absolute garbage. None of them can space the floor, make an entry pass, or guard a pick and roll. As a group, they are probably the worst rotation of defenders that any team has in their backcourt.
It'd be a whole different situation for Okafor to be running pick and rolls with Wall and Beal and getting to set up down low against single defenders because the opposing team can't cheat off the perimeter.
And I wouldn't write him off as a defender yet. He came out of Duke after one season, Coach K hasn't taught his guys how to play defense in ten years. And then he ended up on hopeless Philly teams. He doesn't know how to play defense yet. He has room to improve. And as Oubre and Otto mature into bigger and more complete players, we'll be able to use them as our forward tandem, and they will give us more flexibility at the C spot.
Okafor is a talent who is floundering on a terrible team where he was never a good fit in the first place. We're probably going to pick around 17 or 18 at the earliest. Spending that pick to get him PLUS getting out of Mahinmi's contract? That's a good deal.
-- go make that deal, dude!! The sooner the better! 
