Jahlil Okafor Owned Karl Anthony Towns Last Night
The Sixers lost. Let’s just get that out of the way real quick.
OK. On to more important things: Jahlil Okafor – the subject of silly, maddening trade speculation already – completely abused Karl Anthony Towns last night. Just pure domination. 25 and 12 from BIG JAH to little kat’s 6 and 2 (and four fouls). The only problem, if it really even matters, is that Okafor didn’t get a shot in the final five minutes. Bob Cooney describes:
Okafor finished with 25 points and 12 rebounds, but inexplicably, didn’t get a shot attempt in the last five minutes of the game. It was during that time the Sixers lost a six-point lead, getting outscored, 20-9, over the final four minutes, 58 seconds as they dropped to 0-15 on the season after the 100-95 setback.
Gross. But whatever. Okafor showed that he was the class of the draft, against the number one overall pick. Now, about that awful trade rumor Chad Ford sprayed onto the restricted interwebs yesterday– Okafor to the Lakers for D’Angelo Russell, who was picked just one spot ahead of Okafor.
I don’t get this. I mean, I get the speculation and why it’s a fun thought experiment* because, had the Lakers drafted Okafor ahead of the Sixers, Russell would’ve likely been a Sixer, unfortunately for him. Fine. At the time, it would’ve made sense since it was assumed that Joel Embiid would, you know, play basketball during his second year in the league.** But at this point, now that Okafor has shown that he may possess generational big-man skills, if the Sixers were to trade him – and I can’t imagine this is actually a consideration – it would result in a mutiny – not a figurative one, an actual mutiny – of Sam Hinkie, Scott O’Neil, Joshua Harris and his helicopter pilot. It would indicate a genuine unwillingness to move forward. It couldn’t be sold to fans. Adam Silver would need to step in. Columnists would rail against the plan, Howard Eskin would likely have a coronary, and Jim would… gosh, I shudder to think what would happen to Jim (and then wonder if I’d be on the hook to pay for it).
Ford’s thinking is that the Sixers have Nerlens Noel, a potential future defensive monster, but they need a guard and the Lakers would be happy to take Okafor and send the Sixers Russell and probably a pick. That is true. But trading Okafor would be conceding to build around Noel (and Embiid?), when, early on, it seems obvious that Okafor is the guy. You can more easily build defensive teams with skill-deficient athletes (see Sixers, 2001) or replace someone like Noel than find the hands-of-God-given-as-gifts-to-the-masses that BIG JAH has. He looks like a future top 50 NBA player. That’s not hyperbole. He’s 19 and his on-court maturity is off the charts. He’s the NBA’s Jennifer Lawrence. She was only 21 or 22 when Silver Linings Playbook was shot, and yet she made it seem like she had been banging out emotional, character-driven hits for years a la Meryl Streep. The sort of person who looked like they could pull you aside between takes and regale you with tales of flying into Van Nuys with Sinatra, or, in the case of Okafor, hooping it up with Horace Grant at Wicker Park. Seasoned well beyond their years, they are destined for greatness, and the only thing that can derail them is an out-of-their-hands event… like someone hacking their iCloud. Lo, until someone gets into BIG JAH’s photos and discovers that he takes, like, the weirdest selfies, the Sixers can not, should not, and most likely will not, trade him.
*The phrase “thought experiment” was not cleared with uber douchebag David Murphy, the limited ™ owner of that phrase.
**People dismissed my missives that drafting Okafor meant Embiid was possibly more hurt than we knew. And yet… the blogger without pants was right again.