Everyone on Kentucky plays very few minutes, not sure why you think PPG matters for an efficiency stat. He plays 20 minutes a game, 18 pp40 is plenty to put up a good college PER, it's not like 30 is out of this world like the NBA. If anything, I would think playing for Kentucky hurts guys PER, so many other guys to steal shots and rebounds.

I actually just learned something - apparently PER is a per-minute stat and not a 'totals' stat like I previously thought. I've had that misconception for a while apparently - I always thought it was biased towards pure volume rather than per-minute efficiency.

Not too late to abandon the Klowns bandwaggon bro. Save yourself.

he can't really dribble

He has great post moves but calling him the best offensive freshman ever or whatever is crazy. He can't shoot. You're wrong about him having Duncan's great 10-12 ft shot. He has shown mild flashes of touch on a jump shot but he doesn't have any real non-post game at this point.

Sure one can learn/improve a shot. Many great big men have done it. But many also haven't. His post moves alone will not be enough to be the GOAT when he goes up against other elite bigs in the NBA. So the jump shot or lack there of, given his lack of athleticism, will be the difference between him being Al Jefferson and better than Tim Duncan.

Okafor is barely drawing live to being better than Duncan to the point that it's not even worth discussing. Like how much better could he possibly be on offense to make up for the fact that he will never be as good of a defender as Tim is and was?

better lou williams is what came to mind for me

Okafor red flag

http://www.si.com/extra-mustard/2015...gfoot-mermaids

i thought okafor could shoot? all-time offense potential blahzzz blah

man loldukeslappy then

TOWNSSSS

pretty much impossible with out drastically improving his FT%.

i see D'Angelo Russell's best case comparison as a bigger Steph Curry, i don't get a Harden vibe from him at all.

I don't buy Okafor as elite as some are making out to be. The one thing he projects to be elite at has become less important due to even the best offense post-up guys struggling with efficiency. If he projected to be above average on defense I could see it, but right now I think that's a stretch.

Rather have Russell right now if I won the lotto.

Okafor seems extremely overrated

Would still snap him at 1

Russell's ceiling arguably lower than Okafor's floor imo.

Okafor is much more than just postup. He has offensive instincts that can't be taught. He's going to score alot of points and do it very efficiently. Not that concerned with how he's gonna do it.

wtf is this

can't shoot, fat, slow, is a low post space sucker? sounds like a donotwant to me

He's not fat or slow. He's a massively efficient and elite scorer. Pretty sure being able to score a lot of points is pretty important.

I really can't wait to bump this thread in a year and laugh at people hating okafor. I'm a little unsure about the defense, which I think will be fine-ish/average. Not unsure about his offense.

And he has a fine face up 10-12 foot bank shot. Not sure why you'd deny that. I can go comb through youtube highlights if absolutely necessary show it. If his man is playing off him, he frequently takes and makes that bank shot.

yeah okafor looks unreal, so so so skilled, both hands, footwork, etc and danny is correct about his ability to make that intermediate jumper

This

Okafor is the real deal...haters need to rethink and get on the wagon before it takes off for good

He is going to be a top 5 player for a decade of his career

If it's crazy, name a better low-post offensive player as a freshman. From any time period.

Here's the per40 stat line to compare to

Season ▴	School	Conf	G	MP	FG	FGA	FG%	2P	2PA	2P%	3P	3PA	3P%	FT	FTA	FT%	TRB	AST	STL	BLK	TOV	PF	PTS
2014-15	Duke	ACC	25	762	9.8	14.8	.665	9.8	14.8	.665	0.0	0.0		4.2	7.3	.571	12.2	1.7	1.0	1.9	3.5	3.0	23.8

Not sure whether the mermaid thing is hilarious or awful or both. Probably both.

The defensive question is pretty interesting around Okafor. Here's something I could use some help with - what is Okafor's floor defensively?

Basically, who is the worst defender in the NBA with Okafor's length and height (6'11 with 7'5 wingspan. He's 19 and could grow more, but let's just use those numbers)? What percentage of players with that length turn into bad defenders? I can't imagine it's very many, but examples would be good.

I'm thinking of a theory that if you have a certain amount of height/length and try at all, you almost can't be a bad NBA defender. No idea yet if it's true or not. Boogie is the first counter-example that runs into my head (6'11 with 7'6 wingspan). But Boogie fails the 'trying' portion, and he's not that bad of a defender when he does try. Not elite obviously, but pretty decent. It's the not trying that gets him.

so any other good examples of long/tall players who suck on D?

he should be better than 57% from the line, his stroke is alright

Something like Vuc is probably his defensive floor, and Vuc is legit horrible.

probably vucevic is the worst defender currently who compares physically to okafor, and he's quite bad. but i tend to agree that okafor will probably be adequate at worst given his toolz. worth noting that post play is pretty tiring tho, might not be able to go 30usg and still play good d in the nba

Player	Height	W'Span	Reach
Jahlil Okafor	6'9.5"	7'6"	9'3"
Nikola Vucevic	6'10.25"	7'4.5"	9'4.5"

i'm not really hating on okafor, i think he'll be a really good pro. i am just way higher on towns than seemingly everyone no idea why you are down on towns

If you look at DRAPM and DRPM numbers the spread for Centers goes from slightly negative to very positive, so if you are neutral on defense you are a negative with respect to your position even if you aren't compared to the entire population of NBA players.

I mean Okafor is legit terrible at defense and I dont even need stats to tell me. He just looks horrible, like worse than any Plumlee or Zoubek horrible. His defensive floor in the NBA is to be the worst defensive center in the league or at least the worst one that gets meaningful minutes. His offense and rebounding will be fine, but the guy is horrible at defense. He still rates to be a good starter at worst barring injuries with upside to be an all-time great, but his defense seems unlikely to ever be good for his position.