The Rage Monster wrote:monsterpile wrote:The Rage Monster wrote:The excitement is real! Now the pressure is on, assuming we keep the pick we need to get it right since we have our choice of everyone available. We need to take the best player regardless of position or the media's idea of who should be #1.
Right now I'm thinking that Okafor is the guy. I'm not a big fan of comparisons because 2 players never really turn out the same but the Duncan comparison seems accurate, at least offensively. Defensively the comparison breaks down, they're similar in size and athleticism but Duncan seems to play a little longer and has good timing on rotations when protecting the rim.
It would be worthwhile to compare their freshman years in college. Duncan averaged almost 4 blocks a game his freshman year and his college career. Okafor averaged 1.4 at Duke. That's a pretty big difference. Just sayin
I agree, that's why I said the comparison breaks down. In my opinion the only thing that separates the 2 players is timing on the rotations, it's not like trying to compare Okafor to a typical rim protector like Howard. The big if is if Okafor can learn when to rotate and get a feel for the timing of when to go up. I'm sure if KG is back year to mentor the young guys Okafor's defense will improve to Duncan levels.
Some interesting stuff on Duncan's freshman year scoring.
He was 4th in FG attempts on that team there were 2 players that each took almost twice as many shots as Duncan. Despite all that he scored almost 10ppg as the 4th option. Not bad especially considering...
2. Wake was 219th in scoring that year scoring under 72 ppg. Duke was one of the top scoring teams in the nation at over 78 ppg
3. Okafor was the top dog on his team getting the most FGAs and therefor scoring the most points. He only had to beat out some decent upperclassman and some fellow freshman for shots.
It's fun to look back at some of this stuff and part of it makes you appriciate players from the past. It's interesting stuff to compare prospects from years past to know you can take some things but probably only so much.
I've said it before we are pretty hard on Okafor (that comes with being a top pick) he is still a young player that obviously can improve but it sounds like there are plenty of NBA minds that are worried about his defense and sorry I am not buying KG coaching players up. I'm glad KG is here and he would be great to work with one of these bigs but it's always this myth that whatever a guy's weakness is he can learn improve be taught whatever. Sure but its a weakness and until they show improvement I'm going to stay a little skeptical especially when Okafor doesn't play physical when I saw him. Thats probably the thing that bothers me the most actually.
