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Isaac 3 & D Okoro - A Two Way Playing Basketball Savant

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Who is Isaac Okoro's Favorite Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Emperor?

  • Arcadius (if one does not count Constantine as first)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Justinian the Great

    Votes: 8 14.3%
  • Zeno

    Votes: 2 3.6%
  • Heraclius

    Votes: 3 5.4%
  • Basil II, the Bulgar Slayer

    Votes: 6 10.7%
  • Nikephoros II Phokas, the Pale Death of the Saracens

    Votes: 7 12.5%
  • Alexios I Komnenos

    Votes: 4 7.1%
  • John II, the Beautiful Komnenos

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Constantine XI

    Votes: 4 7.1%
  • Jim I Chones, the Magnificent

    Votes: 26 46.4%

  • Total voters
    56
Donavan Mitchell had 35 points tis afternoon. Was that Okoro's man?
 
Donavan Mitchell had 35 points tis afternoon. Was that Okoro's man?
I don't know what JBB was doing. Okoro didn't start guarding Mitchell until halfway through the second quarter. By then Mitchell was already 6/7 for 15 points. All 15 were scored with Lauri on him.

Mitchell with Okoro on him was 1/4 for 7 points, 3 fouls, 1 TO, and 1 tie-up [that led to a jump ball that Cleveland won]. During the end of the first half, Okoro was denying Mitchell the ball and Mitchell did not attempt a single shot.

Garland guarded him well too. Mitchell was 0/3 with 2 TOs when Garland was on him.
 
I don't know what JBB was doing. Okoro didn't start guarding Mitchell until halfway through the second quarter. By then Mitchell was already 6/7 for 15 points. All 15 were scored with Lauri on him.

Mitchell with Okoro on him was 1/4 for 7 points, 3 fouls, 1 TO, and 1 tie-up [that led to a jump ball that Cleveland won]. During the end of the first half, Okoro was denying Mitchell the ball and Mitchell did not attempt a single shot.

Garland guarded him well too. Mitchell was 0/3 with 2 TOs when Garland was on him.
I watched the highlights and Mitchell definitely scored more than 1 FG with Okoro as his defender. I counted three, maybe four if you’re willing to count one where Mitchell started the fast break and had Okoro behind him the whole way, for a total of 8 points. And then there were the two shooting fouls, one on a three point shot and on on a two point shot, which added another 5 points. Technically two of those field goals weren’t scored “over Okoro” because Mitchell beat him so badly on the drive that a big had to pick him up but it seems silly when talking about how Okoro defended him to ignore the shots where he scored by getting past Okoro’s perimeter defense. All in all, I really didn’t see Okoro doing a great job tonight and those shooting fouls were real momentum turners.
 
Time to give Korver a ring and see if he can do whatever he did with Cedi
 
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Isaac Okoro is our "shooting" guard and his defender is 7'1 center Gobert who has both feet in the paint while the Jazz don't even attempt to pretend to defend him. That's a wide open corner three, a shot defenses normally do whatever they can to prevent, and yet Utah is literally conceding that shot as an alternative to anything else. Do you understand how much that handicaps your offense on every single possession when an extra defender can just clog the lanes for driving and rolling? It's not about just the shots Okoro misses. It's also the shots he makes more difficult for Garland and our bigs because an extra defender - especially when that defender is Rudy Gobert - can just cheat over and help contest the shot or block their path. It's insane to me how low the expectations are for Okoro that as long as he makes a couple plays here and there, like getting a steal or hitting a couple of wide open threes despite shooting like 25% on all those open shots on the while, he had a positive impact out there according to people.

Having Okoro out there instead of Cedi at the end of the game after how Cedi played (and really after how he's played all season) is such an indictment on JBB's blind favoritism for Okoro and perhaps the organization's obsession with developing Okoro and playing him more minutes than he deserves that's consistently hurting this team's chances of winning games.

Nailed it.. keep hearing “oh he’s only 20 can’t judge him yet”…

The kid can’t shoot, 22% is awful and since opposing teams don’t guard him that’s 22% on mostly uncontested 3s

JBB has been great this year but his obsession over Okoro (maybe because he was his guy) is getting old.
 
Unless he improves his shooting he is basically useless. Anything he gives defensively is negated by his atrocious offense.

However, I doubt we make any drastic changes because this issue only becomes apparent when we play elite teams.

We can get away with it even against good teams.
 
Unless he improves his shooting he is basically useless. Anything he gives defensively is negated by his atrocious offense.

However, I doubt we make any drastic changes because this issue only becomes apparent when we play elite teams.

We can get away with it even against good teams.
That, plus the lack of alternatives. Okoro isn’t starting because he’s “JBB’s boi” or whatever; he’s starting because there is almost literally nobody else on the roster. At the moment, anyway.

The one guy who could start (paging @KilgoreTrout ) is Cedi. It makes sense. That said:

1. It leaves the second unit with even less scoring punch, and
2. After several years, they finally have Cedi in a role where he can succeed. Cedi has always struggled with trying to do too much in a larger role. Now that he’s finally succeeding as a bench scorer, I wouldn’t want to chance putting him back in a role where historically he wasn’t very good.

Other than that … it’s Denzel Valentine time. And I think we can all agree (this includes Denzel’s mom, if she happens to be lurking here) that more Denzel is not what we want to see.
 
That, plus the lack of alternatives. Okoro isn’t starting because he’s “JBB’s boi” or whatever; he’s starting because there is almost literally nobody else on the roster. At the moment, anyway.
Nobody will be satisfied until we get a two-way player. Read the earlier game-threads when Sexton was our two guard and you'll see complaining about how he can score but doesn't defend and/or bleeds points.
 
That, plus the lack of alternatives. Okoro isn’t starting because he’s “JBB’s boi” or whatever; he’s starting because there is almost literally nobody else on the roster. At the moment, anyway.

The one guy who could start (paging @KilgoreTrout ) is Cedi. It makes sense. That said:

1. It leaves the second unit with even less scoring punch, and
2. After several years, they finally have Cedi in a role where he can succeed. Cedi has always struggled with trying to do too much in a larger role. Now that he’s finally succeeding as a bench scorer, I wouldn’t want to chance putting him back in a role where historically he wasn’t very good.

Other than that … it’s Denzel Valentine time. And I think we can all agree (this includes Denzel’s mom, if she happens to be lurking here) that more Denzel is not what we want to see.
The solution we have on the roster is Windler. If only JBB runs him more.

We can get away with him in the starting line up because he is not a midget. Defensively he can still compete because of his length and he is a potent threat offensively (if his brain commands him to shoot more)
 
Donavan Mitchell had 35 points tis afternoon. Was that Okoro's man?
He was torching Okoro in the first quarter. Garland probably did the best job slowing him down.
 
The solution we have on the roster is Windler. If only JBB runs him more.

We can get away with him in the starting line up because he is not a midget. Defensively he can still compete because of his length and he is a potent threat offensively (if his brain commands him to shoot more)
If the solution is Windler the question must be who on this team is even more invisible than Okoro on offense. Windler clearly has an an allergy to leather because as soon as he touches the ball he passes it off.
Okoro is most likely a wasted pick and I think the team pretty much realizes it, but without Sexton they have no other options. The first few games this year finally saw Okoro out of the starting lineup but right now we have no other options. They can't risk losing the efficiency they are getting out of Cedi so they won't start him, so the only 2 other playable guards are Garland and Rubio. You can't play them 48 minutes a night and we are already seeing Rubio revert offensively to his career norms, so I'm not sure you'd even want to. We need to acquire a decent combo guard but that's easier said than done. Perhaps if they keep playing at this level and look safely playoff bound they maybe willing to move our draft pick, but until then we go to war 4 on 5 with Okoro.
 
Unless he improves his shooting he is basically useless. Anything he gives defensively is negated by his atrocious offense.

However, I doubt we make any drastic changes because this issue only becomes apparent when we play elite teams.

We can get away with it even against good teams.
Thats why we need a vet SG this season if we want to make the playoffs. Let Okoro come off the bench as a Defensive stopper or something.
 
I'd rather Okoro eat up minutes as a second year player for the sake of hopeful development than worry about using those minutes solely to win games.

I understand that the record has some folks antsy, but I'm not about putting the cart before the horse in terms of this team's overall trajectory. Okoro is much more important to that than stretching Cedi's role or letting Windler, whose skills are what they are, hit a few more shots.
 

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