Skip to content
Link copied to clipboard

Cooney: Sixers' Okafor will have to adjust to bench role

ALL THROUGH the preseason, 76ers coach Brett Brown has had the unenviable task of trying to get his team ready for a season while being handcuffed in how many minutes he was allowed to have his players on the court.

ALL THROUGH the preseason, 76ers coach Brett Brown has had the unenviable task of trying to get his team ready for a season while being handcuffed in how many minutes he was allowed to have his players on the court.

Joel Embiid, entering his first season on the floor after sitting out two due to his foot injury, started the preseason on a 12-minute restriction, which has since been upped to about 18. Gerald Henderson was limited with a sore hip. Various other players were also curtailed in playing time due to nagging injuries.

Brown had to be as much mathematician as coach for much of the seven exhibition games. And that won't change all that much come Wednesday when the team opens the season at the Wells Fargo Center against Oklahoma City.

Embiid likely will get around 20 minutes, and Henderson should be a full go, but Jahlil Okafor, who saw his only preseason minutes in Friday's win over Miami, will be restricted for the foreseeable future as he battles soreness in his surgically repaired right knee.

It will be about five weeks before we see Nerlens Noel again, as he is scheduled for a procedure on his left knee for an inflamed plica, and who knows when Ben Simmons and his fractured right foot will be able to get back on the court again?

But before all those injuries heal, and barring any setbacks, Brown will have to figure out how to best use his two biggest assets in Embiid and Okafor. While it is tantalizing to think of the two roaming the floor together, Brown's belief is that it will be a bit of a struggle. So, when both are healthy enough for loaded minutes, it appears Embiid will be the starting center and Okafor will come off the bench. That is certainly not a position the Duke product is used to, as he has rarely, if ever, in his life had to do it consistently.

When he was just 13, a 6-5 eighth-grader, Okafor was already being recruited to play college basketball. Never has anyone entered the ACC in his freshman season and walked away as the league's player of the year, until Okafor did it after leading Duke to the 2015 NCAA title. He paced the Blue Devils in scoring (17.3), rebounding (8.5), blocks (1.4) and field-goal percentage (.664). He has always been the best player on his team - maybe of his age group - from the time he can remember playing until last year, his first in the NBA. Though his season was cut short by a torn meniscus in his right knee, which he had surgically repaired in March, Okafor brought an offensive force by a big man that hasn't been seen in this city in quite some time. Visions of him averaging 20 points and 10 rebounds (and hopes of improvement defensively) flooded the minds of Sixers fans.

And now, Okafor might be relegated to the bench at the beginning of games, even when he is fully recovered - on a team that will fight not to have the worst record in the league.

"I'll be fine. That won't be a tough adjustment for me," said Okafor, playing the good soldier. "I know when I come back I'm not going to be going 30 minutes a night. I'll be in a similar situation that Joe is in now. I'll do probably 12 to 15 minutes and progress as my knee gets stronger and as the season goes along. I'm ready for that and I'm happy to be a part of the team, on the floor in front of the fans."

His patience won't last. That's nothing against Okafor, it's just fact. He's 20 years old and more than eager to showcase his talents. The other day, he discussed his impatience with his recovery from knee surgery, which the team called "minor" when he had it in March.

"I know I told you guys that I wasn't frustrated three weeks ago, but at this point I have been frustrated," Okafor admitted. "I've been doing all the right stuff and I wanted to see me back out there sooner. But I can't rush my body, I can't rush my health."

But he'll certainly want to rush getting back in the starting lineup. That is where Okafor has been his whole life. It is where he's most comfortable. It's just that there is an obstacle that measures 7 feet, 2 inches in front of him.

"I think about it all the time but I talk to him," Brown said of bringing Okafor off the bench. "We've talked about this for months. It's not anything that is going to surprise anybody. He's been fantastic. I feel that, I hope that if we do anything well, we communicate transparently with everybody and the team is No. 1 in that regard. I've talked with Jahlil about a lot of things and that could be, to start the year it will be, a scenario, and that's that. We'll look at it and grow him. Nothing changes from my excitement to coach him, especially. I can't wait to coach him this year. I think he's going to come back and have a great year. His body tells me that. His attitude tells me that.

"And so if it ends up you have Jahlil coming off the bench and he's going against backup 'five' men, then you think that you have quite an advantage there. If he does anything, he scores the ball. He scores buckets, he gets points. You can see how that could be a really nice role for him and for us."

Perhaps, but it doesn't seem feasible envisioning Okafor getting comfortable in a backup role.

"I am optimistic about (playing) Wednesday," Okafor said. "I should be able to go. I'm just trying to get my minutes up now. I just want to get healthy so that I'm able to play however many minutes they throw at me. Eight minutes isn't something that I want to get used to."

You can just hear him saying the same thing about coming off the bench in the not-too-distant future.

@BobCooney76

Blog: philly.com/Sixersblog