How bad is Okafor's defense...

[chiken Green]

For the life of me I cannot Understand some folks absolute love for a player that does not Fit At all with what our team does. Every player (who we want on the team) Plays really good defense,  whether it be team or individual, runs the floor and Hustles extremely hard and lastly stretch the floor because Brad loves to shoot the 3 ball... (we even had sully and Amir shooting dang on 3's)

Okafor at best is absolutely Zero of those things..  and CBS will not allow a guy on the floor if He cant play defense.   And as for covering for his absolute lack of defense, how, when he is suppose to be the Anchor of the defense. You can cover guards (Steph Curry, Harden) But if the Guy behind him sucks the ENTIRE defense is in a world of trouble.

You can tell by the guys we drafted what types of players we want on this roster.. Okafor is not that type.. Why are we so enamored? What am I missing about Al Jefferson 2.0 (with baggage)

And if you tell me that our offense was shut down in the playoffs last year I will tell you that it should have been without Bradley, KO, a healthy Crowder and added a Fatter Sully.. 

Somebody please help me to understand this.
 

[__ramonezy__]

For the life of me I cannot Understand some folks absolute love for a player that does not Fit At all with what our team does. Every player (who we want on the team) Plays really good defense,  whether it be team or individual, runs the floor and Hustles extremely hard and lastly stretch the floor because Brad loves to shoot the 3 ball... (we even had sully and Amir shooting dang on 3's)

Okafor at best is absolutely Zero of those things..  and CBS will not allow a guy on the floor if He cant play defense.   And as for covering for his absolute lack of defense, how, when he is suppose to be the Anchor of the defense. You can cover guards (Steph Curry, Harden) But if the Guy behind him sucks the ENTIRE defense is in a world of trouble.

You can tell by the guys we drafted what types of players we want on this roster.. Okafor is not that type.. Why are we so enamored? What am I missing about Al Jefferson 2.0 (with baggage)

And if you tell that our offense was shut down in the playoffs last year I will tell you that it should have been without Bradley, KO, a healthy Crowder and added a Fatter Sully.. 

Somebody please help me to understand this.

Talent needs to be nurtured and groomed. No rookie that is drafted comes in as a finished product but persons are totally neglecting the possibility of a 20-year old player getting better. If this is the thinking then we better trade Smart now cuz he can't shoot for crap....

Despite my previous comment I'm not pro-Okafor, because I think we can get Greg Munroe for a lot cheaper in terms of assets, but I think comments made about him such as "he has no hustle" is unfair when he was playing for a team that deliberately wanted to lose.... so what was he hustling for.

[The Oracle]

For the life of me I cannot Understand some folks absolute love for a player that does not Fit At all with what our team does. Every player (who we want on the team) Plays really good defense,  whether it be team or individual, runs the floor and Hustles extremely hard and lastly stretch the floor because Brad loves to shoot the 3 ball... (we even had sully and Amir shooting dang on 3's)

Okafor at best is absolutely Zero of those things..  and CBS will not allow a guy on the floor if He cant play defense.   And as for covering for his absolute lack of defense, how, when he is suppose to be the Anchor of the defense. You can cover guards (Steph Curry, Harden) But if the Guy behind him sucks the ENTIRE defense is in a world of trouble.

You can tell by the guys we drafted what types of players we want on this roster.. Okafor is not that type.. Why are we so enamored? What am I missing about Al Jefferson 2.0 (with baggage)

And if you tell that our offense was shut down in the playoffs last year I will tell you that it should have been without Bradley, KO, a healthy Crowder and added a Fatter Sully.. 

Somebody please help me to understand this.
 

^^Exactly^^Chiken gets it!

[chiken Green]

For the life of me I cannot Understand some folks absolute love for a player that does not Fit At all with what our team does. Every player (who we want on the team) Plays really good defense,  whether it be team or individual, runs the floor and Hustles extremely hard and lastly stretch the floor because Brad loves to shoot the 3 ball... (we even had sully and Amir shooting dang on 3's)

Okafor at best is absolutely Zero of those things..  and CBS will not allow a guy on the floor if He cant play defense.   And as for covering for his absolute lack of defense, how, when he is suppose to be the Anchor of the defense. You can cover guards (Steph Curry, Harden) But if the Guy behind him sucks the ENTIRE defense is in a world of trouble.

You can tell by the guys we drafted what types of players we want on this roster.. Okafor is not that type.. Why are we so enamored? What am I missing about Al Jefferson 2.0 (with baggage)

And if you tell that our offense was shut down in the playoffs last year I will tell you that it should have been without Bradley, KO, a healthy Crowder and added a Fatter Sully.. 

Somebody please help me to understand this.

Talent needs to be nurtured and groomed. No rookie that is drafted comes in as a finished product but persons are totally neglecting the possibility of a 20-year old player getting better. If this is the thinking then we better trade Smart now cuz he can't shoot for crap....

Despite my previous comment I'm not pro-Okafor, because I think we can get Greg Munroe for a lot cheaper in terms of assets, but I think comments made about him such as "he has no hustle" is unfair when he was playing for a team that deliberately wanted to lose.... so what was he hustling for.

I agree with you about talent but it takes alot more than that to be  the kind of player that we have success with.. Sully had all the talent in the world in College but We could not make him into anything more than he already was.. He really never improved in any of the areas he was bad in and in the end we never truly fit and we had to let him walk.

Okafor is not a bad prospect but At his best he will still not fit this team..  And the part about the losing.. This is what scares me the most about him. We have guys who you can not Force a losing mentality on..  You cannot force any of the core members on this team to accept that.. It's  that dog in these guys that makes them consistently perform way beyond their talent level. This is a team full of fighters.. Strong mentality guys.. IF you stuck Marcus Smart on the Sixers he would not fade into the nothings.. He would actually shine.. You cant break his mental like they did with Okafor... In my opinion Okafor will never get that part back, if he ever had it.

[LooseCannon]

It's better than James hardens!

I'm not convinced this is true.  I think it is very possible that Okafor never shows more effort than Harden on defense.

[Moranis]

Physically, he has the capacity to be an average defender.  Lack of experience was an issue.  Lack of surrounding talent was an issue.  I assume motivation was also a major issue.  Mentally, it had to be a challenge for a rookie to give it 110% out there knowing that there was a massive cloud hovering over on whether or not he'd factor into the team's long-term plans.  That, and it was widely out in the open the franchise was trying to tank and the team was made up of d-leaguers.  The whole situation was a sham.  Why bother?

I agree, people act like he is a ten year veteran.   The guy was a rookie.  I think honestly, the jury is still out on him.   He has room to improve.    If we had a guy who shot over 50% and went for 17 PPG and 7 RPG here we would be happy.   But since it happened elsewhere, the guy is a bum to some people in this thread.   That is double standard.  The guy has room to serve.   I think he would be an upgrade over what we had at Center last year.

When you're playing on a lottery team someone has to score. It's just the way things go. So putting such great emphasis on scoring is really shortsighted. However, put him on a playoff team and not only will the scoring decrease considerably due to less opportunity (last year Okafor had a higher usage rate than Chris Paul!), but he would still give you the same crappy defense and below average rebounding. His rebound percentage was lower than Tyler Zeller's.

Where he ranked in other analytics-

Defensive +/-  #354

Offensive +/- #361
 
Defensive win shares #256

Offensive win shares #302

Value over replacement player #466


Those numbers are pathetic. If you look at only his rankings, ignoring the name, you would think it was some journeymen/end of the bench guy. With the way teams value analytics it's no wonder they aren't exactly knocking down the Sixers doors with trade offers. Then factor in his off the court issues, recent knee surgery, documented laziness, and poor fit for today's modern game and it's easy to see why his value has plummeted.

His scoring efficiency though would have been significantly better such that his overall offensive rank would have improved significantly and his overall numbers might not have dropped that much.  I mean take a guy like Kyrie Irving, usage drops down about 2%, but his efficiency goes up significantly and ends up scoring about a point more on 1 less shot per game playing next to James that first year than playing without James the prior year. 

You can't just focus on the bad things when you talk about playing on a better team.  Almost across the board throughout the entire history of the league a player's efficiency increases when he has less of an offensive burden and is less a focus of the defense.  Given that Okafor was already an excellent mid-range shooting big man and a fairly respectable shooter overall as a rookie on a terrible team and as the #1 option, you would expect his efficiency to go into an elite range with him getting the ball in better positions to score (which would happen on a better team).  He would become an elite offensive player, something you can't just ignore in this situation.  Also a good bet that he would try a bit more defensively playing on a better team with better teammates.

He is?

10 to 16 feet
35%

16 to 23 feet
27%

FT shooting
68%

I don't consider 16 to 23 feet mid-range, that is long two.  But yeah 35% from 10 to 16 feet is quite good.  Better than Bradley, Crowder, Sullinger, Olynyk, Jerekbo, and many other Celtics.  That is from a 20 year old rookie on a terrible team.  And from 3 to 10 feet only Amir Johnson was better than Okafor last year (I'm not counting James Young since he had like 1 shot).  68.6% from the line from a rookie big man isn't bad at all.  Certainly not great, but not too bad either.  Puts him just below average of the centers last year.

Okafor doesn't have three point range, but he is a pretty solid overall shooter and that was as a rookie where he was the main focal point of defenses on one of the worst teams in NBA history.  You put him on a better team and the efficiency increases unless he is the one the incredibly rare players in NBA history whose efficiency gets worse as he ages and gets on better teams.

[ManUp]

We made Sullinger and Olynyk good/decent defenders despite there physical short comings.

I think we can do the same with Okafor who's both bigger and more agile than the two.

Remember, this guys is just 20.

[celticsclay]

A month or two from now when he is traded for Shumpert and a late first, or Gibson, or some other combination of an average veteran and a late first we are going to feel pretty stupid for how much we invested discussing a player that gets that kind of return.

[Ilikesports17]

A month or two from now when he is traded for Shumpert and a late first, or Gibson, or some other combination of an average veteran and a late first we are going to feel pretty stupid for how much we invested discussing a player that gets that kind of return.

And if hes not will you feel stupid?

[celticsclay]

A month or two from now when he is traded for Shumpert and a late first, or Gibson, or some other combination of an average veteran and a late first we are going to feel pretty stupid for how much we invested discussing a player that gets that kind of return.

And if hes not will you feel stupid?

Yes if Okafor is traded for an all star, or a top 4 pick (he was number 3) I would be the first to admit his value was not as low as I had thought/read. I find that to be really unlikely because every NBA writer I follow said the 76ers couldn't even get a top 6 pick in a "weak" draft for him and teams like the Pelicans preferred buddy hield.

[chiken Green]

I don't think we should feel stupid at all over what another teams gives up for him. He may fit with some other team say a Memphis or a Charlotte.  He may have great value to them - he just doesn't have great Value for us..   We will probably win between 51-55 games this year.. Adding him does not push us to 57-60.  He will Make our Team defense worse.. We were already top 10  offense (5 I believe) He will not put us in the top 3.. We have a hole at Rebounding - He doesn't do that either..

Please.. let him go where he can he an Asset.. Have we not learned anything from Love going to Cleveland OR Jeff Green coming here..

[Ilikesports17]

A month or two from now when he is traded for Shumpert and a late first, or Gibson, or some other combination of an average veteran and a late first we are going to feel pretty stupid for how much we invested discussing a player that gets that kind of return.

And if hes not will you feel stupid?

Yes if Okafor is traded for an all star, or a top 4 pick (he was number 3) I would be the first to admit his value was not as low as I had thought/read. I find that to be really unlikely because every NBA writer I follow said the 76ers couldn't even get a top 6 pick in a "weak" draft for him and teams like the Pelicans preferred buddy hield.

There is a huge gap between an all-star or a top 4 pick and a 0-value vet + a late first.

I suspect he will be either kept or dealt for something in between.

Say a lottery pick or more likely an Avery Bradley-Marcus Smart type.

[celticsclay]

A month or two from now when he is traded for Shumpert and a late first, or Gibson, or some other combination of an average veteran and a late first we are going to feel pretty stupid for how much we invested discussing a player that gets that kind of return.

And if hes not will you feel stupid?

Yes if Okafor is traded for an all star, or a top 4 pick (he was number 3) I would be the first to admit his value was not as low as I had thought/read. I find that to be really unlikely because every NBA writer I follow said the 76ers couldn't even get a top 6 pick in a "weak" draft for him and teams like the Pelicans preferred buddy hield.

There is a huge gap between an all-star or a top 4 pick and a 0-value vet + a late first.

I suspect he will be either kept or dealt for something in between.

Say a lottery pick or more likely an Avery Bradley-Marcus Smart type.

I mean I am not trying to move the goal posts on this. I also do not think the Celtics would trade smart for Okafor and would be pretty surprised if they traded Bradley for him also. I mean overall I do 100% believe that the Celtics, and other teams with top 6 picks could have traded their pick for Okafor and all of them declined to do so. For a top 3 pick that had decent raw statistics, that was pretty surprising. Even if the Celtics did trade Bradley for Okafor wouldn't that be pretty poor value for a guy with years left on his rookie contract a year after being drafted 3rd? Is that worth having a new thread every day for a guy that may have the value of Avery Bradley?

Edit: Think about it this way, wouldn't we think it was pretty weird if we went to a Pelicans board and every day this summer one of their hottest threads was discussing Smart's shooting and trade ideas for him?

[Ilikesports17]

A month or two from now when he is traded for Shumpert and a late first, or Gibson, or some other combination of an average veteran and a late first we are going to feel pretty stupid for how much we invested discussing a player that gets that kind of return.

And if hes not will you feel stupid?

Yes if Okafor is traded for an all star, or a top 4 pick (he was number 3) I would be the first to admit his value was not as low as I had thought/read. I find that to be really unlikely because every NBA writer I follow said the 76ers couldn't even get a top 6 pick in a "weak" draft for him and teams like the Pelicans preferred buddy hield.

There is a huge gap between an all-star or a top 4 pick and a 0-value vet + a late first.

I suspect he will be either kept or dealt for something in between.

Say a lottery pick or more likely an Avery Bradley-Marcus Smart type.

I mean I am not trying to move the goal posts on this. I also do not think the Celtics would trade smart for Okafor and would be pretty surprised if they traded Bradley for him also. I mean overall I do 100% believe that the Celtics, and other teams with top 6 picks could have traded their pick for Okafor and all of them declined to do so. For a top 3 pick that had decent raw statistics, that was pretty surprising. Even if the Celtics did trade Bradley for Okafor wouldn't that be pretty poor value for a guy with years left on his rookie contract a year after being drafted 3rd? Is that worth having a new thread every day for a guy that may have the value of Avery Bradley?

Edit: Think about it this way, wouldn't we think it was pretty weird if we went to a Pelicans board and every day this summer one of their hottest threads was discussing Smart's shooting and trade ideas for him?

fair points. I think the intrigue with okafor is partly because weve been tied to him forever. Last year on draft night we were tied to him. We were tied to him at the deadline and again before the draft this year. Second, hes an intriguing case. He was picked 3rd and was really good in terms of counting stats and he was pretty efficient and yet he could maybe be had for pretty cheap.

Its just intriguing.

[BDeCosta26]

Im not sure why everyone focuses solely on a player's weaknesses and not their strengths. A good coach can maximize their output and we have one of the best. Two years ago most persons wanted Kevin Love... I put Okafor in the same category defensively,  but even more versatile as he adds another dimension to our offense... a legitimate low post presence. In the playoffs when the game slows down this is important. Most of the centers that we feel okafor can't guard can be handled by our other big on the floor or play a zone that limits the area he has to cover.

if the price is right I would love him here. We already have a team of defensive studs... now i want someone who can flat out score

Okafor's offense is more versatile than Kevin Love's?  I beg to differ.

Yeah that's just crazy. Okafor is a little better on the block, more gifted post moves, but that's about where it ends. Love is a better shooter, better passer, better rebounder, he's easier to run an offense through, he's more effective when you do. There's just no way Okafor ever gets to that level of versatility.

I'm not saying he's a bad player, it's just that he REALLY needs to improve in a few areas of he's gonna be the kind of player you build an offense around, which is what he'll have to be to best take advantage of his skills. He HAS to become a better passer, you can't be the focal point of a good offense as a post up big man of your constantly trying to take on double and triple teams. You've gotta be an elite playmaker, and Okafor hasn't shown he can do that. Plus he needs to really improve his rebounding and positional defense against other 5's. He's never gonna be able to switch onto any one else, so he has to at least be able to body up guys his size and really protect the paint.

Question is, how easy is it to improve drastically in those things? They're certainly not like shooting, which can be improved upon for most guys. I think he's probably best suited to a 6th man role until he improves on at least 2 out of 3 of those things.