The 2014-15 NBA season has officially come to a close; a new champion has been anointed and the draft has concluded. The end of the NBA season is also the unofficial start of the worst five weeks in a sports fan's life as it is the slowest and quietest period of the year. There are some fairly minimal NBA trades that get done and there will be some free agent news to follow; however, there is little drama to this offseason with only Kevin Love and LaMarcus Aldridge creating much intrigue.
This is the fitting time of the year to sum up the NBA draft and profile the incoming lottery selections. eDraft Sports has highlighted the best sleeper picks of the draft and now we move into more in depth analysis of each lottery selection. Granted any true reflection on these players would be much better served after at least a couple seasons of experience; however, we will offer initial reviews and projections for the upcoming season.
Once the Los Angeles Lakers announced their selection it became fairly apparent whom Philadelphia would be drafting. With a near consensus top three prospects entering this draft the last to fall among the trio was Jahlil Okafor who Philly quickly stepped up and took with their third overall selection. There had to have been some internal discussions about trading this pick in case this scenario unfolded; however, the 76ers ultimately decided to continue to stockpile front court talent.
With Okafor the 76ers now boast of Nerlens Noel and the currently injured Joel Embiid as all recent draftees of the franchise. News broke prior to the draft that Embiid did have some injury setbacks that may jeopardize next season as well and potentially beyond. While this would be a huge blow for the team, they certainly got a more than capable insurance policy in Okafor should the worst case scenario with Embiid come to reality.
It certainly isn't too hard to picture Noel and Okafor playing alongside one another; however, any combination of the three lottery selections playing alongside one another is not realistic under any set of circumstances. Sam Hinkie is not a stupid man and he knows he value of having capable big men in this league. Best case scenario for Philadelphia is that all three of these guys turn out to be very good, at which point the franchise would be able to make a trade and bring back some young backcourt talent to space the floor and play off the remaining 'twin tower'-style offense.
Okafor should enjoy a healthy dose of minutes right from the start and it is conceivable that after a good showing in Summer League and training camp that he is a starter from day one with the team. He is fortunate that the quality of the centers in the East is fairly limited to a handful of players and Okafor should be able to compete physically with all of them right from the start.
Okafor is a prototypical post up player who must work on his face-up game if he truly wants to be a devastating Center in the Association. Without the short game variety and explosiveness to the basket; opposing teams are too good and too big to get muscled around in the paint on a regular basis. Okafor will need to improve his offensive versatility as well as his rebounding presence in the paint. Once he matures into these skills, he will become a handful for teams to cope with and within a few years teams will have specific defensive schemes in place to deal with him.
It is hard to imagine Okafor stepping in right away and putting up double-double like numbers. A far more realistic output would have him averaging about 8.0 ppg and 6.7 rpg over 28 minutes per game.