Player Jahlil Okafor

[rome8180]

Cauley-Stein is the reason there's this whole separate award called "Defensive Player of the Year."

I posted a few comments on the article. I find it pretty telling that the Okafor section mentioned him once and spent the rest of the time talking about the ACC. If Brennan had actually mentioned his stats over the last several games, it would have become obvious how absurd his argument is.

 

[deepdarkblue]

Justin Anderson at #4. #notgoodenoughforDuke

Was he the same recruiting class as Gbinije and Murphy? God, I hope not.

 

[rome8180]

He entered college one year later.

 

[deeyoukayeee]

He entered college one year later.

Yep. But we were set with Gbinije. Anderson was 'redundant'. To be fair, it is hard to predict when an awful HS shooter will suddenly become the best college shooter in the country. Especially since it is unprecedented.

 

[torontoduke]

Another dominant performance. Would like to see his defensive rotations improve....but fuck, this guy is awesome.

 

[rome8180]

He got left on an island a lot. Our guard got burned and then there was no collapsing on the interior to help him. Marshall might have been okay in those situations, but he doesn't have the foot speed.

 

[torontoduke]

Fair enough. I should also acknowledge the 4 blocks Jahlil had. Pretty good.

 

[rome8180]

I don't understand why he's started coming way out of the paint on defense lately. I thought the strategy was to not do that.

 

[StopThePumpFakesShav]

Anyone think the arc on the FTs was higher today? I mean the stroke just looked good, but maybe it's looked good all year and I'm just trying to find a reason for the better shooting.

 

[ZackM]

It looked exactly the same to me...except they went in the hoop.

 

[rome8180]

Even before today, he hasn't tended to miss in a way that makes me think it would be a chronic problem. Amile's FTs have no arc. Jahlil's are just often too long or short but with good arc. They're more often short than long, btw.

Marshall's FT form has definitely changed, however.

 

[aiw]

Unfortunate attitude.

 

[DurhamSon]

I thought Wake shoved and bumped him the whole fucking game.

Have to learn to handle that though. Louisville will be no different.

 

[aiw]

They absolutely did. If no fouls are called and your game suffers for it, it counts as pretty good defense.

 

[torontoduke]

He will adjust - J.O. has shown himself to be a pretty smart player.

 

[rome8180]

I thought the bad passes were uncharacteristic. I mean, what did Wake do that some of the other teams that have double- and triple-teamed him didn't do?

 

[StopThePumpFakesShav]

Agree the bad passes weren't the result of the defense necessarily. I thought the best he has been defended this season was in Brooklyn in both games at the Champions Classic and tonight.

KPOM O rating actually backs up my eye test statement (I just looked after writing). He had an ORating of 87 against Stanford and 93 against Temple. 88 tonight. Otherwise it's not been below 108 in any game.

 

[rome8180]

I mean, it's not like he got the ball stripped that often (once, I believe). And it's not like he tried to go up through double-teams and forced bad shots. He just threw the ball where a player wasn't. I'm not sure how the defense can be said to have caused that.

 

[rhfarmer]

Jah has one really bad habit that cost him last night. He holds the ball off of his body with one hand, and when he makes those skip passes, it's just not as controlled as a two handed pass would be.

He clearly has the vision to see where the double is coming from, and he recognizes where the ball needs to go, he's just not fundamentally sound in the pass making process. It's fixable, but I doubt it even gets addressed in the three months of basketball left before he goes pro.

You have to think the blueprint is set for Jah-- attack him directly in the paint and force him to defend without fouling and push him off of his spots on offense and double him off of Amile.

 

[rome8180]

That blueprint is going to be hard to execute for most teams and he'll score anyway. It's not like they were the first team to double off of Amile.