Player Jahlil Okafor

[ZackM]

Which is also the reason why you can theoretically score 100 points in a single possession (And-1, miss and rebound, repeat.)

 

[savedukebball]

Hi, CMC. Welcome to the show. I hope you have a finely-tuned sarcasm meter, you'll need it here.

Thanks for the warm welcomes everybody. I'd actually consider sarcasm my native language so that shouldn't be a problem.

- There's multiple possessions where Jahlil has gotten a look in the post, missed, and then immediately collected his offensive rebound for the putback. In terms of points per possession, this would equate to 1 (2 points in 2 possessions), but most people would view this as one possession, as the ball was never reset. Just food for thought as I'm sure counting these instances as 1 possession instead of 2 could have a big impact.

An offensive rebound does not result in a new possession, it is an extension of the current possession. So he does indeed get credit for 2 points in 1 possession.

Oh okay. I must have had the formula for total possessions mixed up in my head. Thanks for the clarification.

 

[stickdog]

The thread on TDD about this convinced me to come over here, even though I already spend more than enough of my time thinking about and discussing Duke basketball.

Nice work and nice to see some adult responses to it.

 

[ZackM]

Welcome, Stick.

 

[deepdarkblue]

Hello, Stick.

Enjoy the rest of the basketball season. March will come and go soon, and then we'll have nothing to do but anguish over recruits, with Anno Domini Beats playing in the background.

 

[aiw]

Glad to have you, stick. If you come around enough, you'll see that, outside the sarcasm, there is actual thought going into most of these message board posts

 

[NOD]

Glad to have you, stick. If you come around enough, you'll see that, outside the sarcasm, there is actual thought going into most of these message board posts

Except for mine.

They're pretty much drivel.

 

[aiw]

True. Check your pm. Got a question about Tulane.

 

[physicsfactor]

Welcome, n00bs! It's always good to add new perspectives to the board. Stop by and contribute often.

 

[deepdarkblue]

They should come for game chat. Or maybe not, it can be scary.

 

[NCCUknow]

The Okafor Theory- Part II

https://okafortheory.wordpress.com/2015 ... heorizing/

 

[Thain]

Welcome Stick!

 

[Thain]

Glad to have you, stick. If you come around enough, you'll see that, outside the sarcasm, there is actual thought going into most of these message board posts

Except for mine.

They're pretty much drivel.

and most of mine are drunken rants.

 

[Pantone287]

Somewhat related question - doesn't it make more sense to have an offense swayed more towards post points vs. 3PT shots in college vs. the NBA due to the tournament structure?

NBA teams are built to win 4 out of 7 games, but college teams have to be built to win 6 out of 6 games. Game-to-game variance must be much more important, then, in the college game, and I assume the efficiency of 3PT shots is more variable than is the efficiency of post offense. You can absorb an off-night or two in an NBA series, but not in college - winning a college championship is all about consistency.

Obviously I'm not saying sacrifice 0.5 PPP or anything just to pound it into the post, but it has to be a factor, right?

 

[ZackM]

Somewhat related question - doesn't it make more sense to have an offense swayed more towards post points vs. 3PT shots in college vs. the NBA due to the tournament structure?

NBA teams are built to win 4 out of 7 games, but college teams have to be built to win 6 out of 6 games. Game-to-game variance must be much more important, then, in the college game, and I assume the efficiency of 3PT shots is more variable than is the efficiency of post offense. You can absorb an off-night or two in an NBA series, but not in college - winning a college championship is all about consistency.

Obviously I'm not saying sacrifice 0.5 PPP or anything just to pound it into the post, but it has to be a factor, right?

I'll do a statistical analysis.

 

[DurhamSon]

That can be examined pretty easily in the data SM has put together. Just look at the variance in the 200 some nokafor possessions versus the variance in the ones with him. I suspect there will be little meaningful difference if any.

 

[SeanMayTriedToEatMe]

If Duke were Kentucky or healthy Virginia this season, I would be on board with the lower variance involved with post offense than with 3s. Duke seems to be about the level of a 50-100 ranked team with Okafor on the court, so I don't think Duke should be relying on a conservative approach to survive and advance. Duke would probably be best off bombing away and hoping they catch a hot streak from 3 like VCU that one season and kind of like Kentucky last season.

Duke can be ice cold for 30-35 minutes against healthy Virginia, on the road, and explode in the end with 3s to win. If Duke had given up on taking 3s in that game, they obviously lose.

The bigs who carried their teams to titles recently were just way more dominant than Duke. May's UNC, Hansbrough's UNC, Horford/Noah's Florida. The "fluke" champions relied on hot perimeter play from Shabazz and Kemba on offense. I can't imagine this Duke team beating those UConn teams, while they were so hot, trying to match Shabazz and Kemba with Okafor post ups all game. I'd rather Duke try to be those UConn teams for 6 games this year.

 

[deeyoukayeee]

I'm not entirely certain I think that post offense is necessarily that much less volatile. Teams too reliant on it can run into a team with a good shot-blocker and bigs (well, those who play defense) tend to get into foul trouble more easily I would imagine. UNC '05 IMO is the last team that really won by riding a great offensive big - UF and UNC '09 teams were supremely balanced and as/more deadly from the perimeter than the post. In theory, great shooting teams should be a bit harder to contain, since it is a lot trickier to deny/double team farther from the basket.

As always, it probably pays to have a diverse offense, which is of course why Nokafor seems so repellent to so many even if it is clear that Okaforty needs to be tweaked to truly maximize the offensive diversity.

 

[rhfarmer]

Nokafor really isn't less diverse, IMO, it's more diverse. In Nokafor, you have driving lanes and p'n'r's that don't exist when Oak is in the game. Actually, those same things could exist with Okafor in the game, it's just the way that Okafor is used when he is in the game.

Okafor is an excellent passer, and seems to understand from where helpside defenders are coming. It's not like Okafor is making the offense less efficient due to his lack of skill, it seems to be the lack of vision of the game plan.

 

[Pantone287]

If there was some way to do an analysis with Synergy data or something that charted PPP and ____ standard deviations for shots within 8' or so vs. three pointers, I'd be really surprised if the lower end of the PPP +/- ____ standard deviations range for the close shots was lower than the lower end for the 3PT shots, if that makes sense. It seems logical to me that the entire range would be within the range of the 3PT shot. I'm not enough of a stats person to know how broad the range would need to be to account for a 6-game series or anything though.

However, I guess there was no need to focus on post offense in my original post, as any shot around the the rim should have the same reduced variance, if that's even a thing. So even if the variance thing is true, it doesn't imply that you should be more likely to run post offense in college, all else equal, it should rather underscore the value of being able to get shots at the rim and/or to the line if necessary, by whatever method you can (or rebound offensively at an absurd rate, if you're 2010 Duke).

My take for this team would probably be that it's not dominant enough take the inefficiency/consistency tradeoff of Okafor offense, but not enough of an underdog to just launch threes and hope for the best. The good news is that our guards are actually really good at getting to the rim this year, so those aren't the only two options; as others have said, our Nokafor offense seems very dynamic. It was the years in which we had no scoring bigs nor guards that could reliably attack the rim that "living and dying by the three" was actually an issue, IMO.