Jahlil Okafor : What went wrong ?

A telling case of bad timing.

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$21,649,023. That is Jahlil Okafor’s total salary earnings for his 6 year NBA career. Among all top 3 draft picks since he was drafted, and excluding players who are yet to play out their contract extensions, that is the lowest figure by a long shot. The next lowest would be James Wiseman, who will have made $41.8 million after he plays his 5th season in 2025; almost two times the amount Okafor has made.

Now, this isn’t shocking news because the NBA world had a good amount of eyes on the Sixers during Okafor’s rookie season who infamously went 10-72. From Okafor's infamous street fight to Okafor’s horrid defensive effort on the court, Okafor was heavily scrutinized by fans who saw him as the tank commander for the “Trust the Process” Sixers.

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This article intends to be a bit more forgiving and positive for Okafor because amidst all the negative views towards him and the Sixers, people still saw a talented offensive player, albeit with a selfish playstyle, who averaged 17.5 PPG and 7.0 RPG in his rookie season. What got people talking even more was that 2 seasons after that, he would only play 28 games with averages of 6.3 PPG and 3.0 APG. He never got close to the numbers in his rookie season after. We will be talking about the perfect (or maybe imperfect) storm of unfortunate circumstances that essentially doomed Okafor’s career right when it started.

His Game

Jahlil Okafor’s game was all about post ups, and he didn’t mind taking his time down there. He had to rely on craftiness to make up for his lack of athleticism compared to other bigs. In the 2015-16 season, Okafor had 10.0 post ups per game which would put him at 6th in the league. He also had 2.73 seconds per touch and 1.31 dribbles per touch, both 1st among centers, and 72.1% of his shots were within 10 feet of the basket. Just from these stats alone, you could tell he was cut from the same cloth of Al Jefferson and Zach Randolph, and his touch and footwork showed that even more. Okafor’s postups would usually end with him inviting contact or utilizing an infinite amount of pivots to get the shot he wanted. He also had a go-to push hook shot in his arsenal. We may not have realized it then but Okafor may have been one of if not the last of the post-up, paint-only big.

Video clip sourced from Evin Gualberto Youtube Channel. Original Video

The First Bullet : The 3PT Explosion (and not adapting to it)

When the Warriors proved you could shoot your way to a title in 2015, their message to the rest of the NBA was clear, outshoot them or get a superhuman on your team. Then they decided to go 73-9 the next season and confirm the tidal shift. That same season, a rookie Jahlil Okafor was still trying to get a footing in the league. The problem with the league favoring more outside shots for Okafor was that : 1) the bigs had to expand their range too, 2) the NBA was getting faster, leaving behind slower bigs, and 3) the bigs would have to get used to switching and defending the perimeter. All these were things Jahlil couldn’t and possibly didn’t want to do and it ultimately led to his role rapidly diminishing once Joel Embiid was cleared to play for the team.

He ended up never deciding to work on his 3PT shot like his peers, making only 6 in his career. His pick-and-roll (PNR) game was also just average, with his screen setting being mediocre at best in terms of roll timing and contact, while also ranking in the 54.8th percentile in points per possession as the PNR roll man in his highest scoring season. With the PNR being a bigger part of the game during this era, you would expect better.

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His own game that he found success in in his rookie season also worked against him, with teams wanting to have more movement, turning his long post-up durations and 0.9 APG career average into a black hole on offense. It’s no wonder that the aforementioned Al Jefferson and Zach Randolph, players he played like, also started to see their roles and production slow down with the rapid change in the NBA. It also must be a little bit of cruel irony that after Steph Curry’s legendary 46-pt game against OKC, Okafor would play one game the day after and be shut down for the rest of the season due to injury. Even in his stints with other teams he was never able to crack double digit scoring averages. His style was just not needed for the new game.

The Second Bullet : His Defense

Okafor had viral clips of how bad his defense was. Not a lot of players get that treatment and that shows that fans, casual or not, could easily see the issue.

Surprisingly, a few of his advanced numbers in his rookie season were pretty good. According to NBA.com, Okafor’s opponents shot 4.1% worse when he is guarding them within 10 feet of the rim and 4.9% within 6 feet during his rookie season. These numbers would be consistent throughout the years with them peaking in 2020, 8.5% worse within 6 feet and 9.0% worse within 10 feet. Aside from these numbers, which are definitely not telling the whole story, watching film on his defense gives a better view of his lack of effort and inability to acknowledge the scouting report. He routinely was in the hundreds in the league in terms of ranking in Defensive Box Plus Minus, Defensive Win Shares, and Defensive Win Shares. A quick search will see many people exposing Okafor for his bad positioning, lackluster closeout attempts, mistakes when it came to who he guarded during the PNR, and his flat-footedness when trying to keep up with players driving. He also was easily tossed around by players when they used contact.

If you can’t keep up with Enes Kanter in a foot race, that might be a sign.

Video clip sourced from multiple sources. Source 1 : Motion Station Youtube Channel Original Video | Source 2 : Allen Wang Original Video | Source 3 : Official NBA Youtube Channel Original Video | Source 4 : HNBMEDIAtv Youtube Channel Original Video

Some Hope ?

This all begs the question, could Okafor still be a quality rotation player for teams in today’s game ? I personally think the answer is yes … but maybe for two to three few who can have him come off the bench and are willing maximize his offensive talents while hiding his deficiencies. You could pair him on the court with a good roaming defensive big who can clean up his defensive lapses while also not getting in his way when he posts up. Having good shooters and spacing around him may also make that pass read easy for him. If we always make the case that great players will adjust to the era you decide to put them in, then why can’t role players, who need to adapt to the era they’re in to just stay afloat in the league. Do I think that an at least league-average 3-PT shot would come eventually for him ? Maybe, but at low volume and just to confidently take a wide open shot to still make defenses honest. The conditioning of today’s league (and from teams not named the 2016 Sixers) may also help in priming Jahlil for defending and the fast-paced play. I don’t think he would be a star, hell, he might just be a bench contributor doing 10 PPG and 6 RPG at best, but if someone like Richuan Holmes can make $13 million a year with a similar skillset, who’s to say Okafor can’t.

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Okafor’s game and his attitude may have been eviscerated by the rapid changing of the NBA game and the media respectively, but he still was a talented scorer. This is why I personally believe that he is one of if not the biggest casualty of the 3PT rise in the NBA. Every other player who were heavily affected by it that you can think of; Z-Bo, Al Jefferson, Roy Hibbert, and Josh Smith among many others, were lucky to get into the league and have turn their skillsets into a successful and lucrative career before their roles greatly lessened. Okafor was never able to make more than $5 million in one year. He is a pretty good case of someone who came into the league too late and may have been more effective in older eras. Put him in the right organization today and we may see someone who has been waiting to contribute ever since he was deemed to be not sought after by teams 3 years ago. We are talking about someone who came in the league in the worst possible time for his playstyle; a playstyle that was still able to show some promise and was a very impressive show of his skillset in putting the ball in the basket.

Jahlil Okafor was a promising basketball scorer who would have made more noise in 1995, it just so happens he was born in 1995.