NBA 2015 Off-Season Thread

All very fair points, really ready to see what some of these young team can do. Sadly my team is not one of them lol.

I am also going to need DJ & LMA to make decisions tonight, running too many potential Plan C's through your head etc are not healthy.

My worries with him are entirely on the defensive end. You guys remember how every PG used to torch the Shaq era Lakers and everyone blamed it on Fisher? The reality of the situation was Shaq was too slow/disinterested to defend anything involving a switch. The entire middle of the court was always just available for the opposing team's PG to do whatever they wanted.

This is the entire modern NBA. Ball handling, guard driven pick and rolls. It's the reason why a player like Kevin Love, despite being a better man defender than people give him credit for, just won't ever excel at team defense. You have to shield these guys with a whole lineup of long and athletic defenders (Cavs go a long way to do this with TT, LeBron and Shump), but good teams will still look to exploit it. They'll still draw Love/Okafor out and force them to defend and these types of players just can't hedge or blitz those screens to the level necessary. Add on to that the fact that Okafor's strength will be in ball stopping, iso situations on offense and you end up having to add shooting to the previous caveats of long, athletic defenders.

This is the whole reason Russell is the obvious pick. A guard with his scoring/shooting ability combined with what is legitimate 'run an offense' level court vision is essentially the prototype of what every team is looking for to base a team around. Low post scoring isn't just rare because these prospects don't come around as often, it's also just a far less efficient way to play basketball in comparison to plays that cause movement and switching on defense.

You can look at a team like the Spurs and see the very natural progression of what the league once was to what it is now. 5 years ago they were an inside/out team centered around Duncan. Today they're entirely based on motion, passing and mismatches (all with essentially the same core in place). You don't see plays where they give Tim the ball and ask him to score anymore. It's far more efficient to work the ball, force the D to move and get an open shot.

Just my opinion, bros. But I think Russell transitions much easier and faster into the modern game. He's much more of a prototype for today's league than Okafor.

Okafor has the length to be a rim protector. He does not have the quickness to hedge a PnR, which is something I think is almost mandatory for the modern NBA big man. Those that can't do that have to be shielded but will still get exploited and you have to hope their contributions elsewhere make up for it. Love is a good counter example because his shooting and rebounding certainly make up for his inability to hedge a screen.

Maybe Okafor is good enough offensively to make up for that deficiency. I'm not saying that is impossible.

And yeah, I think Russell will be better out the gates as well as long term. I'm amazed at how well he was able to play at Ohio State considering how awful the rest of his team was.

I think Russell's upside is Harden. I think Okafor's upside is Al Jefferson with length. Those are both good players. One is a lot better.

Those of you that go the other way with this, what is it you think he develops into? People made Tim Duncan comparisons before the draft (Flip up here made that one every time he spoke to the media) but I think it completely ignores one side of the ball. I don't think it's possible for him to be anywhere near that level of a defender.

Still though, it really sounds like I'm dogging Okafor and I don't mean to. I think he was the right pick at 3 and the 3rd best prospect in the draft without question. I still think he can be good. I just think there will be aspects to the team game that will make him a hard player to build around. I keep repeating this but it is the main point. Not that Okafor won't be good, just that you have to build a really specific squad around him.