We didn’t have nearly the sample size to go off of on Danny Green that we do on Okoro. Green played just 207 minutes his first two seasons. And when he played he actually wasn’t even bad. He posted a -0.2 and -0.6 BPM in each of those two years.
Okoro has played over 3000 minutes so far. Almost 15 times as much as Green did his first two years so he’s been given far more opportunity than Green to show us what he’s capable of. And Green is an extreme exception, not the rule. Furthermore, this is why I mentioned indicators in a prior post. Two guys can be just as bad as one another and yet have way different projections of improvement, like Garland his first 1.5 years for instance compared to Okoro so far. Despite being a very clear negative impact player at the time, Garland showed the makings of potentially elite shooting. He could shoot off the dribble and move off the ball and shoot it off the catch. And his great FT% suggested the three ball would start falling eventually. He was clearly a great ballhandler. Clearly has very good vision and playmaking talent. He just needed to get stronger, get a feel for the speed of the game, learn to make better decisions, and get adjusted to the longer NBA three.
Okoro’s indicators of potential thus far are not very inspiring to me. Poor FT%. His shot chart suggests how limited he is offensively as a result of his lack of handle, instincts, and creativity. He doesn’t have great touch around the rim. His low assist rate and mediocre ast/to ratio point to his lack of playmaking talent and vision. And being that his calling card is his defense, his low rebounding and steal numbers and overall lack of height and length don’t give me confidence he’ll top out as one of the most impactful defenders on the perimeter in the league. Which he kind of needs to be in order to warrant a starting spot with such weak offense. I think he’ll be a fantastic individual defender of the guard spots but his team defense and switchability will be lacking as a result of those aforementioned limitations.
People keep saying we have to wait years and years before we can really judge Okoro but I disagree. We have a great team right now. If we were posed to be a lottery team for the next couple years, maybe I wouldn’t be so hard on him and I’d be willing to wait as long as you guys are for him to prove himself. And then if he doesn’t, oh well. But Mobley has clearly accelerated this team’s timeline. We honestly have a chance to earn the #1 seed in the East THIS YEAR. And yet I don’t think anyone believes we can beat a healthy Brooklyn or Milwaukee in a playoffs series, and our lack of production at the 2 and perimeter creation on the whole is a huge reason why. If we can package Okoro with Sexton, Rubio, and/or picks to bring back a long term solution, we absolutely have to consider that. And that’s why it’s important to have this discussion on what the realistic expectations for Okoro are. You don’t want to just wait holding the bag until his trade value potentially totally depletes and we miss out on an opportunity to really upgrade this team.
