Jahlil Okafor Rumors | Hoops Rumors

Northwest Notes: Saunders, Jazz, Thunder

May 23rd, 2015 at 8:33pm CST by Arthur Hill

Wolves owner Glen Taylor expects Flip Saunders to return as coach next season, reports Charley Walters of The St. Paul Pioneer Press. Saunders, who also serves as president of basketball operations, led the team to a 16-66 record this year, which was the worst mark in the league and helped Minnesota land the top pick in the draft. However, the Wolves were hampered by injuries all season. “I think he worked so hard last year with all those problems that he wants an opportunity to see if we are healthy, if we really have the team he thought he had,” Taylor said. Saunders expects to hold pre-draft workouts with at least five players, including Kentucky’s Karl-Anthony Towns and Duke’s Jahlil Okafor.

There’s more news from the Northwest Division:

The Jazz will bring in six more players for pre-draft workouts Sunday [Twitter link]. The players are Andrew Harrison of Kentucky, Terry Rozier of Louisville, Vince Hunter of Texas-El Paso, J.P. Tokoto of North Carolina, Terran Petteway of Nebraska and Aaron White of Iowa.
Re-signing free agents Enes Kanter and Kyle Singler is as much a business decision as a basketball decision for the Thunder, writes Darnell Mayberry of The Oklahoman. The columnist questions the wisdom of giving an eight-figure salary to a defensive liability like Kanter, but concedes that Oklahoma City has few options to replace the two players if they sign elsewhere.
Anthony Morrow was the best free agent signing in Thunder history, Mayberry contends in a separate story. Morrow inked a three-year, $10MM deal last summer and gave Oklahoma City the outside shooting threat it needed. He connected on 43.4% of his shots from downtown and managed to lead the team in games played.

Western Notes: Jordan, Lakers, Nuggets

May 21st, 2015 at 10:30pm CST by Eddie Scarito

Now that the Clippers have been eliminated from the playoffs, the team needs to look toward the offseason and find a way to improve despite the franchise’s challenging salary cap situation, Fran Blinebury of NBA.com writes. According to coach/executive Doc Rivers, Los Angeles’ first order of business this summer will be re-signing center DeAndre Jordan, Blinebury notes. “Our first priority is D.J.,” Rivers said. “That’s obvious. I don’t know how much I can say there. Can you tamper with your own guy? If that’s true I’m going to go tamper right now.” The Clippers will have competition for the unrestricted free agent’s services, and Jordan has already expressed through back channels that he’ll be “extremely interested” in signing with the Mavs this summer.

Here’s more from the Western Conference:

The Nuggets are taking their time looking for a new head coach, and a decision isn’t expected for another couple weeks, Christopher Dempsey of The Denver Post writes. “It’s exactly how we thought it would go,” team president Josh Kroenke said. “We’ve had several conversations with a lot of people. I think that it benefits us to talk to as many people as we can. We have some people in the back of our mind that we think would be great fits. I’ve talked to enough people, and going through the process before, your coaching hire is probably going to be your hardest hire because there’s so much that goes into that role in today’s sporting industry.”
Kroenke also relayed that the Nuggets aren’t concerned about the length of time the coaching search has taken thus far, Dempsey adds. “It’s beneficial for us on some level to be patient,” Kroenke said. “I think more candidates have opened up since the end of the season. Based on different organizations wanting to go different directions with different guys, I think there was never a time when we wanted to rush into anything. Until you have that guy that you know is the one that you want, I think it really benefits you to talk to as many people as you can. Because also during the course of these interviews you’re getting to pick some of the best basketball minds that are out there. That’s an incredible benefit to the process.“
The Lakers aren’t 100% set on drafting either Karl-Anthony Towns or Jahlil Okafor, and the team is intrigued by D’Angelo Russell and Emmanuel Mudiay, Dave McMenamin of ESPN.com tweets.

Draft Notes: Okafor, BDA Sports, Vaughn

May 21st, 2015 at 4:02pm CST by Eddie Scarito

Approximately 150 NBA executives and scouts are expected to be in attendance at BDA Sports Management’s pro day, which is being held today in Santa Barbara, Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress reports (Twitter link). Displaying their wares for the various league personnel will be 19 draft hopefuls, including Frank Kaminsky, Kelly Oubre, Robert Upshaw, and Stanley Johnson, Givony notes. There will also be six free agents performing, including Andre Dawkins, Al Thornton, and Drew Gordon, the DraftExpress scribe adds.

Here’s more draft related news:

Jahlil Okafor downplayed the recent reports that he doesn’t want to play for the Timberwolves, Andy Greder of The Pioneer Press relays. “Just for clarification I made this comment prior to the lottery,” Okafor tweeted. “I’ve never been the type to talk myself up.”
Givony released his full prospect profile and video breakdown for UNLV shooting guard Rashad Vaughn, whom DraftExpress ranks as the 45th best prospect in the 2015 NBA Draft. Chad Ford of ESPN.com (Insider subscription required) thinks a bit more highly of the 18-year-old, slotting him as the No. 23 overall player.
With the NBA Draft lottery now complete teams will now focus on determining which players are worthy of being selected within the top 14 picks. Jared Zwerling of Bleacher Report breaks down each of the players expected to be off the board by pick No. 15.
Sixers GM Sam Hinkie noted that he never expected to receive the Lakers‘ 2015 first-rounder, which would have conveyed to Philadelphia if it fell outside of the top five, Baxter Holmes of ESPNLosAngeles.com writes. “I said the day we traded for the Lakers pick, we anticipated they’d get a top-three pick. And they did. Good for them. … We never anticipated we’d get the Lakers’ pick this year. We all get to a night like this and we can all dream about our 17 percent, but we never anticipated we’d get the Lakers pick this year,” said Hinkie.

Pacific Notes: Lakers, Divac, Draft, Warriors

May 21st, 2015 at 12:01pm CST by Chuck Myron

The Lakers will look at D’Angelo Russell for the No. 2 overall pick, but preliminary indications are that they’ll take either Jahlil Okafor and Karl-Anthony Towns, depending on which one of those two is left after the Timberwolves pick, as Mike Bresnahan of the Los Angeles Times hears. Trading the pick is also an option, GM Mitch Kupchak says, as Sean Deveney of The Sporting News tweets. In any case, the choices at No. 2 are a bit better than the Lakers would have had if the lottery had gone according to form and the team had ended up with the fourth pick. Here’s more from around the Pacific Division:

Kings president of basketball and franchise operations Vlade Divac said his team should be open to trading its draft pick, but in comments that Jason Jones of The Sacramento Bee relays, he distanced himself from the mechanics of any such move. “I’m leaving that to my basketball people,” Divac said. It’s an odd statement from the team’s top basketball executive. In any case, Chad Ford of ESPN.com identified the Kings, who pick sixth, among the teams most likely to trade their top-10 pick, along with the Magic, Pistons, Heat and Hornets, as Ford wrote in a chat with readers.
The Kings and the Pacers are the teams with the most interest in Willie Cauley-Stein, Ford adds in the same piece.
Andrew Bogut is a fan of the way Steve Kerr handles his assistant coaches, as the big man tells Tim Kawakami of the Bay Area News Group a year after assistant coaches were squarely in the spotlight for Golden State. The departures of assistants Brian Scalabrine and Darren Erman from the Warriors bench last year were symbolic of the tumult near the end of Mark Jackson‘s time as Warriors coach. “In their own way, they all have free reign,” Bogut said of Kerr’s staff. “You see them talk to the media, which is something that wasn’t happening with us the last couple of years. There’s no agendas where a coach thinks, ‘Oh, he’s doing extra workouts with this guy, he’s trying to take my job, or vice-versa, or he’s trying to get himself a head-coaching job.’ We don’t have any of that. We have guys that say something when they need to say something and to be professional throughout.”

Draft Notes: Okafor, Upshaw, Vezenkov

May 20th, 2015 at 9:56pm CST by Eddie Scarito

Duke center Jahlil Okafor is more concerned about finding the right fit than what draft spot he is selected at, Ian Begley of ESPN.com relays. “I don’t know that I should go No. 1,” Okafor said to SI Now’s Maggie Gray. “I don’t care. I just want to go to the right environment for me and the right team. I think the hype about No. 1 is more for the fans.” With the recent report that Okafor prefers to go to the Lakers rather than the Wolves, Okafor’s statement could potentially be construed as the player angling to be bypassed by Minnesota in June’s draft in favor of Los Angeles, who holds the No. 2 overall pick, though that is merely my speculation.

Here’s the latest regarding the 2015 NBA Draft:

Big man Robert Upshaw has a wealth of potential, but him having been dismissed from two college teams due to substance abuse issues has put a damper on his draft stock, Alex Kennedy of Basketball Insiders writes in his profile of the player. Upshaw is currently ranked as the No. 29 overall prospect by Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress and Chad Ford of ESPN.com (Insider subscription required) places him 38th.
Early second-round prospect Aleksandar Vezenkov, who is expected to withdraw from this year’s draft, is garnering interest from a number of European teams, Vezenkov’s agent Nick Lotsos told Sportal.bg (translation by Emiliano Carchia of Sportando). “So far some teams showed interest in Vezenkov but there are no concrete proposals yet. We are not in a hurry to decide the future. We’ll consider carefully what is the best for him to develop as a player. Barcelona? It is one of the teams interested and Aleksandar is interested as well, but as I’ve said it is too early,” Lotsos relayed.
A. Sherrod Blakely of CSNNE.com looked at a number of players, including Jerian Grant, Kristaps Porzingis, and Willie Cauley-Stein, who have improved their draft stock over the past year.
Draft prospect George Lucas, who is also known as George de Paula, said the hardest part of the draft combine was the interviews since he is still learning English, Kennedy writes in his profile of the player. “The language is the most hard,” Lucas said. “I’m trying to learn English the best that I can, so it’s a long process for me and I’m trying to communicate with other people. I’ve always had an English class since high school, but I haven’t had a lot of conversations with other people.”

Northwest Notes: Okafor, Towns, Thunder, Gee

May 20th, 2015 at 8:58am CST by Chuck Myron

Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN Twin Cities believes Jahlil Okafor is the guy at No. 1 for the Timberwolves (Twitter link), who won last night’s lottery, though he cautions that nothing is set in stone. That jibes with the feeling Jerry Zgoda of the Star Tribune had as of a week ago, when he said he thought the Wolves would go with the Duke center. However Chad Ford of ESPN.com and Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress top their mock drafts with the Wolves picking Kentucky big man Karl-Anthony Towns instead. Wolves coach/executive Flip Saunders played coy Tuesday night, not even deigning to narrow the field to those two, Zgoda notes.

“It’s not that simple,” Saunders said. “We have an idea but there are a lot of different directions we can go. … We have to rely on our ability to select the right players. This will give us great flexibility. Every spot you move up in the draft, you have more control over what’s going to happen and you have more people talking to you.”

Saunders did make it clear that the team almost certainly won’t trade the pick, as Zgoda relays. Here’s more from the Northwest:

Persistent rumors indicate that Jahlil Okafor has his heart set on becoming a Laker, according to Givony, who wonders if agent Bill Duffy, who also represents Andrew Wiggins and who is college buddies with Saunders, will let Okafor work out for the Wolves.
Thunder GM Sam Presti is pleased with the depth of the draft and said that while he’ll have exploratory talks about trading the team’s pick, at No. 14 overall, with all sorts of teams, he’d probably wait until draft night to make a move if he indeed makes one. Presti made those comments and many others to Royce Young of Daily Thunder, who provides a full transcript of their conversation.
Alonzo Gee has been on the roster of a half dozen NBA teams in the past 12 months, but Joe Freeman of The Oregonian will be surprised if he sticks in Portland with a tumultuous summer ahead for the Blazers, as Freeman writes in a roundtable piece examining Gee’s future. Gee becomes an unrestricted free agent in July.

Draft Rumors: Porzingis, Wood, Dawson

May 15th, 2015 at 10:29am CST by Chuck Myron

At least one GM is among the multiple executives who believe Latvian power forward Kristaps Porzingis has a shot to be drafted as highly as No. 2, reports Scott Howard-Cooper of NBA.com. The head of basketball ops for another team said that he’s a “lock” for the top five and that it wouldn’t be surprising to see him go within the top three, adding that he’d draft him in front of Jahlil Okafor, the Duke center who occupied the top spot in projections for most of the season. The 19-year-old is No. 5 in Chad Ford’s ESPN.com rankings and No. 8 with Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress. Here’s more as draft rumors kick into high gear:

Christian Wood, a power forward out of UNLV, is hoping to follow in Giannis Antetokounmpo‘s footsteps as a ball-handler with unusual height and length, Howard-Cooper writes in the same piece. The Bucks intend to interview Wood, Virginia small forward Justin Anderson and others today, tweets Gery Woelfel of The Journal Times.
Both the DraftExpress team and Ford go in depth on the measurements from the combine, with Ford, in his Insider-only piece, noting that most top prospects sized up well and that this year’s draft class is among the longest groups in memory in terms of both height and wingspan.
Michigan State power forward Branden Dawson has interviewed with the Wizards, Clippers and Pelicans at the draft combine, as he told Vince Ellis of the Detroit Free Press. Ellis, in the same report, adds Stanley Johnson, Frank Kaminsky and Rashad Vaughn to the list of prospects with whom the Pistons have spoken.
Terry Rozier met with the Pistons, too, as well as the Mavs, Suns, Knicks and Spurs, reports Steve Kyler of Basketball Insiders (on Twitter).
The Sixers, Lakers, Cavs and Bucks have interviewed Cameron Payne, Kyler also tweets. Payne spoke with our Zach Links recently about his draft prospects.
Keith Pompey of the Philadelphia Inquirer adds the Hornets and Warriors to the list of teams speaking with Rakeem Christmas (Twitter link).

Draft Notes: Russell, Booker, Towns, Okafor

May 12th, 2015 at 3:38pm CST by Chuck Myron

The NBA’s draft combine in Chicago is underway as of today, and an increasing volume of draft rumors will follow until the event takes place June 25th at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center. Here’s the latest draft news:

D’Angelo Russell and Devin Booker have chosen the Creative Artists Agency for their representation, as Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress passes along on Twitter. CAA’s Leon Rose, who’ll represent Booker as well as Karl-Anthony Towns, also signed with Dakari Johnson earlier this spring, Givony notes in another tweet. Russell’s agent will be Aaron Mintz, according to Givony (on Twitter). Charlie Adams of Hoops Rumors looked at Booker’s draft stock up close this week.
Jerry Zgoda of the Star Tribune doesn’t get the sense that the Wolves will draft Karl-Anthony Towns first overall if they win the lottery, likely implying the team has its eyes set on Jahlil Okafor instead (Twitter link). Minnesota has a 25% chance of landing the top pick, as the lottery odds show.
Arizona point guard T.J. McConnell received a last-minute invitation to the Chicago combine, Givony tweets. McConnell is Givony‘s 61st-ranked prospect while Chad Ford of ESPN.com has him 91st.
Ford excoriates Nets GM Billy King for his willingness to trade so many of Brooklyn’s future draft picks, giving the team the worst chances of any to build through the draft for the next few years, Ford opines as he writes with fellow ESPN.com scribe Kevin Pelton in an Insider-only piece. Ford and Pelton also examine the needs for the Suns, Thunder and Celtics, believing that if Robert Upshaw improves his stock dramatically, he’d be the most logical rim-protector for the Celtics to grab at pick No. 16. However, Upshaw says he won’t take part in five-on-five scrimmaging at the combine, Givony reports (Twitter link).

Charlie Adams contributed to this post.

Draft Notes: Turner, Okafor, Jones

May 6th, 2015 at 8:01pm CST by Eddie Scarito

One of the issues that is holding back Texas big man Myles Turner from being a potential top five pick are concerns about his awkward running style, and the potential for injury that his unusual gait could bring. In his weekly chat, ESPN’s Chad Ford (Insider subscription required) notes that Turner has been working with a running coach and has shown remarkable improvement in this regard. The 19-year-old is the No. 10 overall prospect according to Ford, while Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress ranks him No. 11. You can view our full prospect profile for Turner here.

Here’s more notes from the upcoming draft:

Ford also hears that Jahlil Okafor, who was the No. 1 ranked prospect for much of the season before being overtaken by Karl-Anthony Towns, is falling on a number of teams’ draft boards. Okafor, who is No. 2 according to both ESPN.com and DraftExpress, could drop as far as the fifth overall pick in June, Ford opines.
The Rockets are growing increasingly enamored with Duke freshman point guard Tyus Jones, Ford also notes. Houston currently owns the 18th overall pick, while Jones is ranked as the No. 22 overall prospect by Ford, and Givony slots him at No. 19. Jones’ full prospect profile can be found here.
Ford released his latest mock draft (Insider subscription required), and he predicts the top three picks as Towns going No. 1 overall, followed by Emmanuel Mudiay and D’Angelo Russell.
Southeast Missouri State senior guard Jarekious Bradley has signed with agent Brian Bass of RBA Sports, Bass announced via Twitter. The 24-year-old is not currently projected to be taken in June’s draft.

Draft Notes: Okafor, Harrison, Tokoto

April 29th, 2015 at 4:15pm CST by Eddie Scarito

Duke freshman center Jahlil Okafor has signed with agent Bill Duffy of BDA Sports Management, Darren Heitner of the Sports Agent Blog reports (Twitter link). Okafor, 19, is a projected top three pick in June’s draft. Both Chad Ford of ESPN.com (Insider subscription required) and Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress rank the big man as the No. 2 overall prospect behind Kentucky freshman Karl-Anthony Towns.

Here’s more news regarding June’s NBA Draft:

Duffy has also signed on to represent Kansas freshman Kelly Oubre, Cameron Chung of the Sports Agent Blog reports. Oubre is the No. 12 overall prospect according to both Ford and Givony. You can check out our full prospect profile for Oubre here.
Senior shooting guard D’Angelo Harrison has signed with agent Bernie Lee of Lee Basketball Services, Lee announced via Twitter. The 21-year-old out of St. John’s University isn’t projected to be taken in June, with ESPN.com (Insider subscription required) ranking him as the No. 104 overall prospect.
Projected second-rounder J.P. Tokoto has signed with agent Steve McCaskill of Relativity Sports, Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports reports (Twitter link). DraftExpress ranks the junior out of North Carolina as the No. 42 overall prospect, while ESPN.com slots him at No. 47.
In a chat with readers, Ford shares his thoughts on whom the Wolves, Knicks, Lakers and Magic rank as their top five draft prospects.