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2015 Nba Draft Discussion: Russell, Nance Jr., Brown

Discussion in 'Lakers Discussion' started by LaVarBallsDad, Oct 14, 2014.

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unpossibl1 - Rookie -

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No link yet, but apparently Okafor was just interviewed on the Rusillo show and they asked him if it would be more of a win if he went to LA instead of Minnesota, and he said "Yeah it'd definitely be...". Getting that from a comment on SS&R though, didn't hear it first hand. Hopefully a transcript or link to the audio will be up soon.

unpossibl1, Jun 22, 2015

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He's coming for first -- the sort of first that's decided in the Finals, not on draft night.
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Alright Ford, I'll give you this one.

lakerfan2, Jun 22, 2015

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lakerfan2 said: ↑

I mean, his size and length alone are already great tools. And as he's said himself, he's won at every level. I don't think you can go through the toughest competition he's gone through without playing some defense, and I'm not particularly sold that Justise Winslow was the sole engine of the Duke defense that won. He just needs to put a little effort and intelligence in his defense and I think it'll be adequate. All we really need him to do is change shots and move his feet on pick and rolls to keep guards honest. His offense should outbalance his defensive deficiencies for the most part.
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Well it's clear watching him that he just honestly doesn't know defense very well. His footwork is bad, his timing is off, and he really doesn't apply himself on that end. Sure he's not as bad as has been given, but he's pretty bad.

The thing is, like you said, he's got a ton of room to grow on that end. If he was Kwame and had no footwork and bad hands, then sure he's got a lot of issues. Just looking at his footwork in the post though, I'm confident he can develop into an adequate defender. Good enough to at least keep his team in play and certainly good enough to make him and his offense a net gain for the team. It might take a year or two or maybe more, but he'll figure it out.

therealdeal, Jun 22, 2015

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unpossibl1 said: ↑

The article is below the video, but I think it's Insider only. Here I'll post it, and if Insider stuff isn't allow someone please delete:

Note: This is the fifth piece in a series of features making a case for each top prospect as the No. 1 pick. I've made the case for Karl-Anthony Towns,D'Angelo Russell, Emmanuel Mudiay, and Kristaps Porzingis. We close out the series today with Jahlil Okafor.

SANTA BARBARA - And the first, shall be last.

For Jahlil Okafor's entire career, first is the only number that's ever mattered.

The No. 1 ranked player in his class four straight years in high school.

State champion in Illinois his senior season.

Gold medalist with Team USA in the 2012 FIBA Under-17 World Championships and again in 2013 in the FIBA Under-19 World Championships.

High school national player of the year by Parade, USA Today and McDonalds his senior season.

MVP at the McDonald's All-American and Jordan Brand Classic games.

ACC Player of the Year.

First team All-American as a freshman.

National champion with the Duke Blue Devils in April.

But with 12 days remaining before the NBA draft, for the first time in his career, there is a dark cloud hanging over first. Karl-Anthony Towns and D'Angelo Russell have passed him on our Big Board. Okafor, the national champion. Okafor, the All-American. Okafor, the first in his class his entire career, is in an unusual position. For once, he has to convince the basketball experts that he's No. 1.

His case will be a simple one.

"I'm a winner," Okafor said when asked what he would say to the teams at the top of the draft about why he should be the No. 1 pick. "I've always been a winner. And I'm a great teammate."

Interview over.

Sticking to the script

Ford/Bilas: Debating the draft's best bigs
Who is the best big man in the 2015 NBA draft? Jahlil Okafor? Karl-Anthony Towns? Kristaps Porzingis? Draft experts Jay Bilas and Chad Ford make their cases for the top big.

Ford: Ranking NBA draft prospects by tiers
Karl-Anthony Towns stands alone as a Tier 1 prospect in this year's draft.

Ford: Kristaps Porzingis' case for No. 1 pick
Is his last name all that is holding the Latvian big man back from being the No. 1 pick? Chad Ford examines Kristaps Porzingis' stock heading into the draft.

"I have videos of me playing basketball in diapers," Okafor said. "I've always been a basketball player. My earliest memories are of playing basketball. I was born playing it. It's why I'm so comfortable on the floor."

In the eighth grade his comfort level hit a new high when he met a local big man trainer named Rick Lewis. Lewis saw Okafor's talent immediately and wanted to give him a strong foundation to build upon. Okafor was already using his size and strength to dominate the paint. But Lewis knew that being the biggest and strongest would only last so long before others caught up. If he was going to stay No. 1, he needed skills to go with his obvious strength.

"The first time I saw him play," Lewis recalled, "I asked him after the game, 'How many assists did you have? Not that many. That's going to change. You're the biggest thing on the floor and you're going to get double and tripled teams and you'll start forcing up shots. You have to learn to pass.'

"He went to his first tournament and called me after and said, 'Did you see my left hand dunk?' because he couldn't dunk with his left when I first got him. 'But how many assists did you have? One, two? That's not enough.'"

Okafor remembered the conversation too. "It's funny you mention the not-many-assists story," he said. "Now people see me as a big man who knows how to pass out of the post. And it started with that conversation. He's helped me so much on and off the floor."

Passing was just one of the areas Lewis focused on. He began creating a plan for Okafor that included daily workouts that worked on footwork and post moves. In an era where big men are more happy playing like wings, Lewis wanted to create an old-school, Patrick Ewing-esque low post monster.

"I've trained a lot of guys over the years and he's been the first guy I have had that I can say has bought into the entire script and the entire program," Lewis said. "Every move he does is off a script. He doesn't do anything that is brand new. He doesn't make up anything on the floor. Everything he does on the floor we have a drill for. It helps him to know what he's doing. And it keeps him from getting injured on non-contact moves."

That script Lewis is referring to is what NBA scouts have been drooling over for months. Okafor's unique ability to read defenses, react and dominate the paint. It's been a decade, maybe longer, since a big man could do what he's done at his age.

"I stick to the script," Okafor said. "Different moves and counters. It's instilled in me. I've never gone off that script."

Even when he got to Duke and suddenly the competition was bigger, stronger and more advanced.

"The script stayed the same," Okafor deadpanned. "I got bigger, I got stronger. We've been doing the same thing since the eighth grade."

The "same thing" has put up huge results for Okafor. As a freshman at Duke, Okafor averaged 17.3 points and shot an incredible 66 percent from the field. That number went up to a ridiculous 76.5 percent at the rim, according to Hoop-Math.com. He was so efficient as a freshman that Kevin Pelton's formula for projecting WARP freaked out, essentially calling his numbers a fluke and pushing him to sixth and later to 14th among draft prospects.

Wrote Pelton: "He's not currently at the top of my rankings of projected WARP (he's sixth, in fact), but there's actually a good explanation for that. The system doesn't believe anyone can be as good at finishing as Okafor has been. As of now, Okafor's 2-point percentage would be the second-best by a major-conference player to average at least 15 points per game in College Basketball Reference's database (back to 1997-98), trailing only Villanova's Michael Bradley in 2000-01 (.727). And Bradley did that as a fourth-year transfer. If we narrow the list to freshmen, Okafor is No. 1 by a huge margin over Arizona State's Ike Diogu (.625 in 2002-03)."

In other words, Pelton's system felt that Okafor's shooting percentage was just too good to be true. At the time Pelton still believed Okafor would be the No. 1 pick.

It wasn't until February that things started to get fuzzier.

The slip
DeAndre Jordan and Dwight Howard every time they touched the ball. It's more of an issue now than ever.

Second, was the rise of Towns. After a slowish start at Kentucky, Towns really started coming on in March. While the two players were roughly the same size, Towns was more athletic, a much better shot blocker and showed off an ability to face the basket -- a skill Okafor lacked.

In the old NBA (the one that emphasized isolations in the post), Okafor would have been hands down the No. 1 pick. In the new NBA (one that emphasizes rim protection, switching on defense and big men who can space the floor) Towns fit the mold as the new "it" big.

Scouts and GMs alike drooled at the possibility of the two of them going head-to-head in the national championship game. But a Kentucky loss to Wisconsin in the Final Four ended that dream. It was around then that, for the first time all year, the majority of teams now had Towns ahead of Okafor.

As the draft process continued, more and more teams also put Russell ahead of him. LeBron James, Steph Curry, James Harden and a host of other guards or wings were now dominating the playoffs. There wasn't a dominant big man in the mix. Starting centers like Andrew Bogut and Timofey Mozgov were spending huge chunks of time on the bench in the Finals.

"The NBA is trendy," one GM said. "Okafor's game doesn't fit the trend. It's old-school. And I think that once someone said it out loud, people began jumping off the bandwagon. But I think it's a huge mistake. The reason the league has changed is because we can't find dominant big men any more. The highest percentage shot available is at the rim. I think Okafor will cause major problems for teams that have gone away from bigs. He'll dominate the paint. And the defense? I don't worry about it. He's 19. He'll get in better condition. He'll learn to play it well enough to not be a liability. And then people will be asking in a few years whether we just passed on the next Shaq, the next Tim Duncan, for the next Chris Webber. I'm not sure trendy is ever really a good thing."

Coming to win
Andre Drummond, he'll be much more athletic.

On the court, though, Okafor has been sticking to the script.

While scouts want to see improvements in his perimeter game, Okafor, in the light workout I saw on June 20, spent all of his time refining his moves in the paint.

"My main focus, my pride is right there on the block," Okafor said after the workout. "That's where I've always played and my focus has always been. That's my bread and butter and I don't want to go away from that."

Even when the league now wants big men to step out and shoot?

"He's not afraid to be a true big man," Lewis said. "He has to be the stretch-the-floor big man. He understands that. He is mentally prepared to do that. With the scouting report the way it is, people are going to leave him. They are going to back-up off of him. In order for him to get open again, he has to make that 15- to 17-foot jump shot."

But maybe Okafor won't have to adjust. The way the lottery balls fell on draft night may have played into Okafor's hands. The analytics revolution that has captured the NBA hasn't quite landed in Minnesota and Los Angeles. While both teams use the numbers, Flip Saunders and Mitch Kupchak are both old school executives.

Both teams are seriously considering Okafor with the No. 1. pick.Saunders has been a huge Okafor fan all year. He'd love to have a dominant low-post scorer to pair with Andrew Wiggins. He's getting push back from his staff, which prefers Towns, and that has raised some question about what the Wolves will do at No. 1.

If Towns goes No. 1, the Lakers have been debating between Okafor and Russell. While Russell is sexier and fits the mold of a Steph Curry or James Harden, the Lakers have traditionally been built on the back of elite centers. With a gaping hole in the middle, will they really pass on Okafor for a wing like Russell?

If the Lakers take Russell, things get a little messier for Okafor.

The Sixers, at No. 3, don't seem to have Okafor heavily in the mix at all. The Knicks do like Okafor and would likely take him at No. 4. But with Phil Jackson pressing to improve defensively, and with the Knicks entertaining trades as well, it's not a slam dunk.

For the first time in his life, Okafor may have to wait to hear his name called.

And, for once, being first doesn't matter so much to him. Because being first in the draft has nothing to do with winning. Nothing to do with basketball. Okafor's focus remains on those two things.

"This is my sanctuary," Okafor said, pointing to the court. "It's where I go to clear my mind from things. Now I potentially will get paid to do it. This is what I love to do. I just want to win. Doesn't matter where I go. Just know wherever I go, I'm coming to win."

The first, scripture says, shall be last. And the last shall be first. For Okafor, wherever he goes on draft night, whether he goes one or four, the end goal will be the same.

He's coming for first -- the sort of first that's decided in the Finals, not on draft night.
Click to expand...

Ahhh .... OK! Thanks, yeah that was awesome. I still cannot believe the Lakers have hit the Jackpot. We are going to be old school, get out and run capable, BRUISING big boys with a center that is flat out going to dominate. It's who he is and he's proud of it. Kobe is going to love this kid and for certain will teach him new and trickier Big Man moves. Amazing. And the more I think about it maybe Byron deserves an oscar for pulling off the epic Tank of 2015, once it was needed in a way that appeared like he was fighting it the whole time.
Last edited: Jun 22, 2015

LTLakerFan, Jun 22, 2015

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RandleROFY said: ↑

No shocker it's Okafor. Good choice. Probably most surest thing in this draft and has the ability to improve.
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That about sums it up. If you're the Lakers, you bring in Russell and Mudiay to ensure you're not passing up any future franchise players, then if all checks out, take a sure big man in Okafor. To echo the last few posts, media and draft experts have been placing too much emphasis on small ball based on the small sample size from the last few finals games. Need we remember, the majority of NBA Championships this league has seen in the last 15 years has had superior post play in their offenses: Shaq, Duncan, Rasheed, Miami Shaq, Garnett, Pau, Bynum. Had it not been for a Ray Allen 3 pointer and Timofeys constant need to take one dribble on post ups and put backs rather than keeping the ball above your head like you're taught in 3rd grade, we could easily see the media sentiment reversed to how small ball never works and the need to draft a big like Jahlil.

EJones06, Jun 22, 2015

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RandleROFY said: ↑

Agreed with the last part. However, I like Okafor, but he's not Cap, Shaq, or Hakeem. Could he change the direction of the way this league is going? Potentially, but I wouldn't count on it. However, if Randle is in attack mode, I don't Okafor standing around clogging up penetrating lanes standing still; same goes for everybody else on our teams. We get everyone on the move and wreak havoc inside the painted area.

I'll be completely honest, though. As much as I want to see Okafor/Randle work, I have concerns.
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Me too.

ElginTheGreat, Jun 22, 2015

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For all the small ball talk anyway, the first five picks in the draft could very well feature four big men: Towns, Okafor, Porzingis, and Cauley-Stein.

therealdeal, Jun 22, 2015

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unpossibl1 said: ↑

Wolves told Towns he will be taken #1: http://www.silverscreenandroll.com/2015/6/22/8824779/lakers-draft-2015-wolves-towns-number-1
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LTLakerFan, Jun 22, 2015

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lakerfan2 said: ↑

I'm not saying Okafor is going to be any of those guys, but he's miles ahead of the competition in terms of bigs with skills in the post.

You also have to realize, Okafor was one of the best offensive rebounders in the game. That type of size kills small ball lineups defensively. When we had Pau and LO playing volleyball in the paint, teams running small ball like the Suns and Nuggets were helpless. He's an intelligent basketball player that will certainly learn to utilize his skills with a player like Randle. I can see the same with Randle as well.

Randle has pretty decent vision when he drives, underrated passer for his size. We saw it in Summer League last year. I can see him drawing doubles on his bully drives and handing it off to Okafor for an easy 2. I can see Okafor commanding a double in the post, and making a nice pass to a cutting Randle, Randle finishing through contact for an And 1.

These are some talented guys here, I don't think there will be that much of a learning curve as you think there will be. These aren't Deandre's and Earl Clark's we're working with here.
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LTLakerFan, Jun 22, 2015

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While I enjoy reading all of these tweets, I just want to hear it on Thursday night from Adam Silver already.

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We were talking earlier about Towns not working out for the Lakers, but here is something else: there are no reports of Okafor working out for the Sixers. Isn't that just as odd? He worked out for the Wolves once and the Lakers twice, that's it. Very telling.

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unpossibl1 said: ↑

We were talking earlier about Towns not working out for the Lakers, but here is something else: there are no reports of Okafor working out for the Sixers. Isn't that just as odd? He worked out for the Wolves once and the Lakers twice, that's it. Very telling.
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Let's me know these two know they're going first and second. Any talk of Porzingis or Russell or Mudiay in the Top 2 is mostly smoke and diligence.

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therealdeal said: ↑

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OMG. Best Okafor highlights clip and soundtrack EVER. Clean and clear too. Where are you pulling these great new ones from, realdeal? I agree, he gets in prime shape and is motivated to stay there, unlike Shaq, and he does jump into the Tim Duncan comparisons. He's freaking 19 though, not a college senior like Timmy was. Everyone already has him MORE advanced than Timmy when he came out 2 or 3 years later than Jahlil. And he's going to be like a Timmy but with Shaq's nasty edge to him. He clearly likes to dominate. Alpha Dog all over this guy. Winner. Those just jump out at you. He's got the fire and is no shrinking violet ....wants to be the next great Lakers Big Man.

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Yeah, it really doesn't make sense for Towns not to work out for anyone but Minn unless he is definitely going number 1. Same can be said for Okafor, it seems his camp must be REALLY CONFIDENT that he is going in the top 2.

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Jahlil and D'Angelo on First Take

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therealdeal said: ↑

Nailed it. All this small ball talk is hilarious when you consider how effective a stiff like Mozgov was in these Finals. If Cleveland had a truly skilled Center, they would have taken this thing to 7 at least.
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Agree 100%. Conversely, if GS had a skilled big instead of Franken-Bogut they would have steam rolled the Cavs.

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That Okafor highlight vid, wow. I regret watching it now considering there still is a chance he will not be in a Laker uniform.

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unpossibl1 said: ↑

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Let's get that up to 100-0.

TIME, Jun 22, 2015

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"The NBA is trendy," one GM said. "Okafor's game doesn't fit the trend. It's old-school. And I think that once someone said it out loud, people began jumping off the bandwagon. But I think it's a huge mistake. The reason the league has changed is because we can't find dominant big men any more. The highest percentage shot available is at the rim. I think Okafor will cause major problems for teams that have gone away from bigs. He'll dominate the paint. And the defense? I don't worry about it. He's 19. He'll get in better condition. He'll learn to play it well enough to not be a liability. And then people will be asking in a few years whether we just passed on the next Shaq, the next Tim Duncan, for the next Chris Webber. I'm not sure trendy is ever really a good thing."
Click to expand...

good to hear a gm say it. i know many of us have been saying it.

abeer3, Jun 22, 2015

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therealdeal said: ↑

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Minnesota passing on this BEAST......

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