{"id":113722,"date":"2024-12-24T06:30:59","date_gmt":"2024-12-24T11:30:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=113722"},"modified":"2024-12-24T04:32:43","modified_gmt":"2024-12-24T09:32:43","slug":"can-jahlil-okafor-find-his-way-back-into-the-nba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/12\/24\/can-jahlil-okafor-find-his-way-back-into-the-nba\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Jahlil Okafor Find His Way Back Into the NBA?"},"content":{"rendered":"

There was a time when some believed that Jahlil Okafor<\/a> could be the first pick in the 2015 NBA Draft. The 6-foot-10 center played just one year collegiately at Duke. That year, he was a First Team All-American, the ACC Player of the Year, and also helped guide the Blue Devils to a national championship<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While Okafor wasn\u2019t selected first overall, he was taken third by the Philadelphia 76ers, only behind Karl-Anthony Towns<\/a> and D\u2019Angelo Russell<\/a>. Okafor would be joining the 76ers in their \u2018Process Era<\/a>\u2019 where they stocked draft picks and weren\u2019t looking to contend for the playoffs at the moment. He became the focal point of the offense right away as a rookie on a 10-72 team.<\/p>\n

Remarkably, Okafor\u2019s last game in the NBA came when he was just 25 years old. Now 29 and playing in the G League, can Jahlil Okafor find his way back into the NBA at some point?<\/p>\n

Can Jahlil Okafor Find His Way Back Into the NBA?<\/h2>\n

Okafor\u2019s NBA career certainly didn\u2019t go as many expected. When selected with the third pick, it isn\u2019t anticipated that the play won\u2019t be playing in the league anymore at age 26. Okafor is hoping to eventually get a call back up to the league though.<\/p>\n

The G League just completed their Winter Showcase<\/a> which had an eight-team tournament that was single elimination. The other 22 G League teams played in games that weren\u2019t part of the tournament. The All-Showcase team was announced on Monday. Four of the five players took part in the tournament. They are Josh Christopher<\/a>, Leonard Miller<\/a>, T.J. Warren<\/a>, and Jahmir Young<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Who was the one player named that wasn\u2019t a part of the tournament? That would be Jahlil Okafor. Playing for the Indiana Mad Ants, the Indiana Pacers G League affiliate, Okafor averaged 22 points, nine rebounds, and four assists in the two games at the Winter Showcase. The two outings were impressive enough for him to make the team despite not being in the tournament.<\/p>\n

This is Okafor\u2019s second year playing in the G League. In 2022-23, he was rostered by the Mexico City Capitanes. This season, he has appeared in 15 games for the Mad Ants. Playing 29.0 minutes per contest, Okafor has averages<\/a> of 18.6 points, 8.7 rebounds, and 3.3 assists. He has shot 64.5% from the field.<\/p>\n

NBA<\/h3>\n

Okafor\u2019s most productive season was his rookie one in 2015-16. He averaged 17.5 points, 7.0 rebounds, and 1.2 blocks. The year saw him finish fifth in Rookie of the Year voting and be named to the All-Rookie Second Team.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, his playing time dwindled later in his career. Okafor had his warts while in the league. He wasn\u2019t much of a defender. He didn\u2019t have any type of outside shot. Okafor was also somewhat of a black hole as ball movement often stopped once the rock was in his hands. The on-off splits showed that each year, teams performed better when he was off the court rather than when he was in the game.<\/p>\n

Okafor has played in 247 career NBA games with the 76ers, Brooklyn Nets, New Orleans Pelicans, and Detroit Pistons. He is hoping that his play in the G League shows teams that he has evolved his game and deserves a second chance to be a part of the league.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There was a time when some believed that Jahlil Okafor could be the first pick in the 2015 NBA Draft. The 6-foot-10 center played just one year collegiately at Duke. That year, he was a First Team All-American, the ACC Player of the Year, and also helped guide the Blue Devils to a national championship. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5060,"featured_media":113800,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,62,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-113722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-nba","category-76ers"],"modified_by":"Kenny Kluska","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5060"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113722"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113722\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":113798,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113722\/revisions\/113798"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}