The draft is, for the most part, a gamble. No matter who a team picks at whatever early selection they have, there is no guarantee that he works out.
That is what happened when the Philadelphia 76ers selected Jahlik Okafor with the third overall pick in the 2015 NBA Draft. Okafor was a highly touted prospect at Duke and he was expected to be with the Sixers for a long time. Instead, he had a tumultuous rookie season that included an ugly bar fight in Boston and he was then traded to the Brooklyn Nets early in the 2017-18 season.
Due to being such a high draft pick combined with the lack of production and his skill set not working for today’s game, one can legitimately call Okafor a draft bust. His name has been mentioned on this list of draft busts from Bleacher Report.
B/R on Okafor:
Had Jahlil Okafor been drafted with the third overall pick in 2005 instead of 2015, he wouldn’t be on this list of busts. Instead, he stands out as the near-perfect example of the evolving NBA.
He doesn’t have the true size of Rudy Gobert, Joel Embiid or Nikola Jokic. He doesn’t have anything close to Jokic’s passing game. He also doesn’t offer much defensively. He’s not versatile enough to guard multiple positions, so switching onto guards is a problem. As a rookie, he blocked 1.2 shots per game, but that’s a career high he hasn’t touched since.
The NBA has evolved over the past decade, going away from traditional big men. A few outliers remain, but Okafor just isn’t at the same level.
Now with the New Orleans Pelicans, Okafor is averaging 7.6 points and 4.3 rebounds off their bench. He has seemed to have found a niche in New Orleans as more of a backup big man than anything. However, he truly will never live up to the hype and the status of being the third overall pick of his draft class. [lawrence-related id=30168,30161,30144]