Former Duke big man Jahlil Okafor will work out on Tuesday for the Los Angeles Lakers amid rumblings that he could tumble to the Knicks at No. 4 in the upcoming NBA Draft.
The theory is that Okafor’s perceived inability to defend the pick-and-roll could cause him to slide to No. 4, with Kentucky’s Karl-Anthony Towns going No. 1 to the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Los Angeles Lakers and Philadelphia 76ers taking some combination of Ohio State’s D’Angelo Russell, Duke’s Justise Winslow and point guard Emmanuel Mudiay, who spent last year in China, at Nos. 2 and 3.
If that were to happen, Knicks President Phil Jackson could end up with the option to draft Okafor even after the disappointment of finishing fourth in the lottery. Jackson has expressed his preference for a defensive-oriented big man, which might make the selection of Okafor somewhat ironic. Still, he could end up being a franchise center for the next decade.
“I think there is a little truth to it,” one NBA scout told SNY.tv of the possibility of Okafor falling to No. 4. “With the way the NBA is playing now, a low-post player who can’t defend pick-and-rolls is not effective. The NBA looks more like college basketball 15-20 years ago, which is not a bad thing. [Timofey] Mosgov and [Andrew] Bogut hardly played in the fourth quarter and OT [of Game 2 of the NBA Finals].”
Of course, all of this is premature with Okafor yet to even work out for the Lakers, who had the 6-5 Mudiay in on Saturday for a workout before he works out Tuesday (today) for the Knicks. The Lakers also worked out Russell on Monday.
DraftExpress.com still has Okafor going No. 2 to the Lakers, with the Wolves selecting Towns at No. 1, the Sixers picking Russell at No. 3 and the Knicks choosing Winslow, who worked out for them on Monday, at No. 4.
Amid all this speculation, Okafor has defended his defensive abilities.
“I know I’m going to get better,” Okafor told Alex Kennedy of BasketballInsiders.com of his defense. “I can get better at everything I do, and I always improve. I don’t think my defense was as bad as people made it out to be. We did win a national championship and all of my coaches were extremely happy with the way that I played on both ends of the floor. Also, I couldn’t get in to foul trouble and with the way our defense was set up, I wasn’t really in rim-protecting situations.
“Honestly, that is one of my flaws that I can improve on, but I can also improve on the offense end. Luckily, I’m 19 years old and I think I have a lot of time to improve my game. … I think a lot of people forget that a lot of us are still 18 or 19 years old. We’re put under the microscope and expected to be perfect, on the floor and sometimes even off the floor. Oftentimes, I do think people forget how young we actually are.”
