Jahlil Okafor played 12 seconds of the worst defense I’ve ever seen in my entire life. Please, enjoy it here ... or boil with anger, or laugh merrily at its ridiculousness. There are a lot of proper emotions for this clip.
Jahlil Okafor plays 12 seconds of the worst defense you’ve ever seen
He’s not even trying.
Okafor is fine at first. He’s hanging back on a high screen because Hassan Whiteside isn’t a shooting threat and T.J. McConnell, defending Goran Dragic, is working his way over the pick. McConnell runs Dragic directly into Okafor, and Dragic recognizes this, shooting the floater. It’s bad, though maybe not egregious, that Okafor gets caught flat-footed and doesn’t contest the shot.
After that, though, there’s zero effort given the rest of the play. I guess Okafor has fully committed to the tank.
This is Okafor’s problem. He doesn’t try on defense and isn’t good on that end even if he does try (although he would obviously be better than this!) He’s a very talented low post scorer who doesn’t pass and can’t stretch out to the three-point line. There’s no need for his skill set in the NBA, none at all. And when you see him giving this kind of effort, it discourages teams from even trying.
