How Jahlil Okafor Could Be the Next Carmelo Anthony

Jahlil Okafor’s career already mirrors Carmelo Anthony’s in several ways, but will this trend continue?

From college, draft, and perception of the player’s ability to lead a team to the championship in the NBA, Jahlil Okafor could be the next Carmelo Anthony. Before Okafor was drafted he was compared to Tim Duncan at best or Al Jefferson at worse. After watching him a few times in college and almost every game he has played for the Philadelphia 76ers this season, I don’t believe the Duncan/Jefferson comparison explains the benefits and issues with a player like Okafor.

Watching Okafor on offense, I can see where the Duncan comparison comes from. Okafor has great post moves and has shown the ability to eventually make midrange jump shots including using the backboard in a way similar to Duncan’s signature shot, but watching Okafor on defense shows a player that may never be as good as Robin Lopez and has no hope of every becoming the defender Duncan is. I also find it hard to believe Okafor will not become a better player than Jefferson. It wasn’t until Jefferson’s third season that he managed to score at least 16 points per game, and Okafor currently averages at least 17 points per game. So how does the career of a small forward/power forward in Anthony create a possible script of how Okafor’s career could play out? History doesn’t just repeat itself in Star Wars, but often repeats itself in real life with some differences, and there are so many similarities between Okafor and Anthony that it’s kind of creepy.

Both players are extremely skilled scorers that aren’t great athletes or defenders. In Anthony’s one year in college he lead Syracuse to the national championship, with 22.2 points and 10 rebounds per game, but there have been questions about whether it’s a good idea for the Knicks to build around Anthony. In Okafor’s one year in college he lead Duke to the National championship, with 17.3 points and 8.5 rebounds per game, but there have been great articles questioning Okafor’s fit with the Sixers on this very website.

Both Okafor and Anthony were selected with the third pick in their respective drafts, but the players selected before and after them could have better careers. LeBron James was the first pick and Dwyane Wade was the fifth pick in the 2003 NBA draft, which was the draft Anthony was selected third. Most people would agree that James and Wade had better careers than Anthony, and I can’t imagine anything happening in Anthony’s career to change this perspective. In the 2015 NBA draft, Karl-Anthony Towns was selected first and Kristaps Porzingis was selected fourth. While it is too soon tell who will have the better career, many people believe that Towns and Porzingis will have better careers than Okafor, who was the third pick of that draft.

Where the comparison can change or continue down similar paths is when you look at each player as the face of their franchise. There was no question that Anthony was the face of his franchise with the Denver Nuggets and New York Knicks, but Joel Embiid becoming healthy and reaching the potential that most people believe he has could possibly end with Okafor and Nerlens Noel eventually being moved. I personally think it is a stretch to believe Embiid could successfully move to power forward after playing center his entire life without playing a single game of competitive basketball in two years. Getting Embiid use to playing basketball again and staying healthy is a big enough challenge that doesn’t need him learning a new position. Embiid and Okafor playing together might work only slightly better than Okafor and Noel. Defensively Embiid and Okafor would probably be worse, because Embiid is not as fast as Noel and would likely struggle more to cover power forwards. Offensively it would be better, because Embiid is a better shooter than Noel.

While I hope I’m wrong, I see an Embiid and Okafor line up ending similarly to the Anthony and Allen Iverson line up. Both Anthony and Iverson were great ball dominate scores and had some success together, but their play styles weren’t a good match, if your goal is to build a championship team. With Okafor and Embiid being post players on offense, they could form a good offense together, but might not become a great offense.

The Sixers other 2014 draft pick, that will hopefully join the team next season, Dario Saric, has potential fit issues with Okafor. Saric is a great passer and a better three point shooter that would be the perfect power forward on the offensive end for all three of the Sixers centers, but Saric’s biggest weakness is defense. Both Embiid and Noel could cover for Saric on defense, but I can’t see Okafor protecting the rim and consistently providing help defense for Saric’s man.

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To truly build a team around Okafor, the Sixers might need to trade Noel, Embiid, and Saric for players that fit better with Okafor. But committing this much to Okafor could leave the Sixers in the same position the Nuggets were in 2011 when they traded Anthony to the New York Knicks. While I’m not saying Okafor is destined to force his way out of Philadelphia, it should be considered when people talk about which of the three centers to keep. Noel seems to take pride in playing for the Sixers and Embiid could have easily avoided being drafted by the Sixers by refusing to give them his medical records before the draft, and you can see from the tweet below that this was a tactic his agent was using.

Joel Embiid's agent, Arn Tellem, is controlling which teams get medical info on his client in order to steer Embiid to certain teams.
— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanHoops) June 23, 2014

Okafor hasn’t spent a full season with the Sixers and there are already reports that he didn’t want the team to draft him and his father openly criticizes the team. Even if the Sixers make the playoffs multiple times with Okafor as their best player, I wouldn’t be shocked if he forced a trade to his hometown team the Chicago Bulls during the final year of his contract or left the Sixers for the Los Angles Lakers in free agency.

All of these scenarios are “what ifs” and I wouldn’t trade Okafor this season, because like Anthony, it’s near impossible to come up with a realistic trade where the Sixers get equal value for a player with Okafor’s potential. I also don’t view Okafor or Noel as the face of the franchise and believe that role can only be filled by the Sixers 2016 draft pick or Embiid. This isn’t meant as an insult to either player, because I believe the biggest issue with Anthony’s career and the struggle Sixers fans have accepting Okafor or Noel, is wanting the player that was draft high that everyone believes is a star to be the Michael Jordan of their team when they should be more like Scottie Pippen or Dennis Rodman.

Imagine an alternate universe where Anthony left the Knicks to join the Bulls during the 2014 NBA offseason. In this universe Derrick Rose returned to his pre-injury self and Jimmy Butler is still a great player. This Bulls team could potentially play the Golden State Warriors in the NBA finals, and what’s left of Anthony’s prime years wouldn’t be spent grooming the team for Porzingis and hoping to somehow make the playoffs as an eighth seed with no chance of getting past the first round. The whole reason I and many Sixers fans supported tanking several seasons was to have a realistic chance to create a team that could compete for championships. If the Sixers fail to win the lottery and Embiid never becomes healthy, “The Process” would have failed and it would be extremely difficult to build a championship team.

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The “Failed Process” Sixers could be more entertaining than the Andre Iguodala Sixers and would have a player in Okafor that could make multiple all-star games, but Okafor will continue to be loved and hated by both Sixers and NBA fans locally and nationally as people question if it’s possible to build a championship team around Okafor, or the way people talk about Carmelo Anthony now.