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harden was more hyped up last year than curry is this year
2015-2016 NBA Regular Season - MDA to HOU - All-NBA - Harden snubbed - Anthony Davis is broke
- Thread in 'Sports & Training' Thread starter Started by big j 33,
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The degree of difficulty to get that shot off and actually make it is ridiculous.
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Kirby Buckets. 
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harden was more hyped up last year than curry is this year
Naa man
. I'll say that Curry is a lot more deserving of the hype though
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How'd the Bucks go from beating the Dubs to getting blown out by the Lakers though? 
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Kirby Buckets.
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yall didnt see it coming?How'd the Bucks go from beating the Dubs to getting blown out by the Lakers though?
losing to garbage after a big win is a staple of average teams
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yall didnt see it coming?How'd the Bucks go from beating the Dubs to getting blown out by the Lakers though?
losing to garbage after a big win is a staple of average teams
My bad,I got caught up in the hype
. Folks were saying they'd be a top 3 seed before the season
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Those close to Jahlil Okafor know he's more than his mistakes
Jahlil Okafor has been a basketball success his entire career, from high school prodigy to college champ to high NBA draft pick. Now a rookie, he is facing major challenges, both on and off the court.
Mike Irvin still remembers when he got the call. His father Mac, founder of the legendary Chicago AAU club the Mac Irvin Fire, had just finished meeting with Chucky Okafor. Chucky played at Chicago State in the '90s, but as a 6'5 big man, his career was undercut when he stopped growing. His son Jahlil was different. The Okafors had come to the Irvin's home to be introduced to the most influential man in the city's youth basketball scene. As Jahlil took shots on the court in his backyard, Mac rushed to the phone.
"As soon as my dad laid eyes on him, he knew he was going to be special," Mike Irvin said.
Ty Slaughter has a similar memory. The head coach of Whitney Young High School was working an AAU event in 2010 when he first met Jahlil, who had grown to be 6'8 by the eighth grade. The young Okafor had yet to make a decision on where he would attend high school, but already had a college scholarship offer from DePaul. Slaughter had heard rumors about this precocious big man talent from suburban Rosemont, but he still couldn't believe his eyes.
"You never tell a kid at 13 years old you're gonna be a pro," Slaughter said. "But the reality was we were looking at a pro player."
It didn't take long for Okafor to deliver on his potential. Under Slaughter's tutelage, he won the city championship as a junior and a state championship as a senior. With Irvin, he tore through the national AAU scene and established himself as the consensus No. 1 player in his high school class. His short stay at Duke only added to his local mythology. Okafor was an All-American, the first freshman to ever win ACC Player of the Year and ultimately led the Blue Devils on a storied run through the NCAA Tournament to become national champions.
On Monday, Okafor was back in his hometown for his first game as a pro. He had made good on the every bit of promise he showed at a young age, but the return trip to Chicago also came with the sudden realization that this wasn't high school anymore.
It was only two years ago when Okafor met Joakim Noah as a high school senior at a viewing for a documentary about Lenny Cooke, a former New York City prep prodigy who flamed out of the basketball spotlight spectacularly at the turn of the millennium. Noah warned Okafor and others about the pitfalls of stardom at such a young age. Now they were matched up against one another on an NBA court.
Okafor palmed the ball with his right hand and squared up one of the league's toughest defenders. He exploded to the basket for a one-handed flush, going around Noah like he wasn't even there for two of the 16 points he scored in the first half. The daydreams that danced through the heads of Irvin and Slaughter all those years ago had finally come true.
For Okafor, this should have felt like a personal victory lap in his hometown on the day before his 20th birthday. He spent his teenage years in this city accomplishing everything an amateur player possibly could. Now he was with the Philadelphia 76ers, taken with the No. 3 pick in the 2015 NBA Draft. That's when things started to change.
Okafor isn't used to losing, but the NBA has a way of forcing young players to grow up fast. The Sixers came to Chicago with a 1-24 record, on pace to become the worst team in league history. Monday night offered a brief reprieve, as Okafor's huge first half gave Philadelphia a four-point lead at the break. Alas, this would not be his second NBA win. The Bulls went on a 26-1 run in the second half and turned a feel-good effort into another blowout. It was a perfect parable for Okafor's rookie season.
"I'm living my dream," Okafor said. "It's been a lot of fun. I don't look at it like starting my career off with a lot of losses. It's my rookie campaign. I'm working on improving and having a lot of good days. Coach always talks about good days adding up, and that's what I've been doing."
After finishing with 22 points against the Bulls, Okafor has now scored 20 or more in each of his last four games. He leads all rookies in scoring at 17.8 points per game. His defense, like most rookies, remains far from pro-caliber. The good days are building, but there have been well-documented bad ones, as well.
In November, Okafor made national headlines when TMZ posted a video of him involved in street fight outside of a Boston club. The video allegedly shows Okafor taking a swing and knocking out a heckler cold. In the wake of that incident, it was revealed that he allegedly had a gun pointed at his head after an altercation with hecklers outside a Philadelphia club a month earlier. As the revelations came to light, the Sixers suspended him for one game. His coach, Brett Brown, is trying to keep everything in perspective.
"The obvious pitfalls that we all would fall into at 19 years old," Brown said. "The situation that happened was unfortunate. He was ashamed. He was embarrassed. I'm sure there were scars. But raising anybody in the NBA let alone someone who has the profile he has at 19 years old, there's challenges all over the place. So in a twisted way, I hope all of us look back at that, and it toughens it up, it hardens him and teaches him a real hard life lesson."
To those who surrounded Okafor as he grew up, the young man shown in the grainy TMZ video wasn't the person they know. Okafor developed a reputation for being kind and polite during his school days, a teenager who always seemed mature beyond his years.
"In Chicago, Jahlil was known as a gentle giant," Irvin said. "This is a new experience for him. He got to understand these other cities take their basketball seriously. If you don't play for the home team, they don't like you. Even when you're just going out to dinner, you need to be careful."
The hope is that Okafor will learn from these missteps. He has spent years in the gym perfecting the post moves that made him a millionaire at such a young age, but nothing he could do would have prepared him for the perils of life as a pro. As each of his coaches said, sometimes you just need to live through things.
From a basketball perspective, Brown has already seen enough. Even as the losses mount at a record pace, Brown sees what his youth coach did, too: the rough outline of a franchise player. Okafor's advanced skill level on the block is apparent to everyone, but Brown is more concerned with the small things, like the way he responds to losing, his improved positioning defensively and his desire to get better every day.
"Jahlil Okafor is special," Brown said emphatically after the loss. "Just look at his face during the second half. He's not happy. We want to help grow him to be a voice. To be somebody who can put his hand up and say, this just isn't good enough. This isn't acceptable. I think that part of being a leader is in him. And he showed his talent tonight."
This type of spotlight is nothing new to Okafor. He made it back to his hometown with his dream in hand, the realization of the talent everyone saw him at such a young age. For a player who has already accomplished so much, he still has so far to go.
Jahlil Okafor has been a basketball success his entire career, from high school prodigy to college champ to high NBA draft pick. Now a rookie, he is facing major challenges, both on and off the court.
Mike Irvin still remembers when he got the call. His father Mac, founder of the legendary Chicago AAU club the Mac Irvin Fire, had just finished meeting with Chucky Okafor. Chucky played at Chicago State in the '90s, but as a 6'5 big man, his career was undercut when he stopped growing. His son Jahlil was different. The Okafors had come to the Irvin's home to be introduced to the most influential man in the city's youth basketball scene. As Jahlil took shots on the court in his backyard, Mac rushed to the phone.
"As soon as my dad laid eyes on him, he knew he was going to be special," Mike Irvin said.
Ty Slaughter has a similar memory. The head coach of Whitney Young High School was working an AAU event in 2010 when he first met Jahlil, who had grown to be 6'8 by the eighth grade. The young Okafor had yet to make a decision on where he would attend high school, but already had a college scholarship offer from DePaul. Slaughter had heard rumors about this precocious big man talent from suburban Rosemont, but he still couldn't believe his eyes.
"You never tell a kid at 13 years old you're gonna be a pro," Slaughter said. "But the reality was we were looking at a pro player."
It didn't take long for Okafor to deliver on his potential. Under Slaughter's tutelage, he won the city championship as a junior and a state championship as a senior. With Irvin, he tore through the national AAU scene and established himself as the consensus No. 1 player in his high school class. His short stay at Duke only added to his local mythology. Okafor was an All-American, the first freshman to ever win ACC Player of the Year and ultimately led the Blue Devils on a storied run through the NCAA Tournament to become national champions.
On Monday, Okafor was back in his hometown for his first game as a pro. He had made good on the every bit of promise he showed at a young age, but the return trip to Chicago also came with the sudden realization that this wasn't high school anymore.
It was only two years ago when Okafor met Joakim Noah as a high school senior at a viewing for a documentary about Lenny Cooke, a former New York City prep prodigy who flamed out of the basketball spotlight spectacularly at the turn of the millennium. Noah warned Okafor and others about the pitfalls of stardom at such a young age. Now they were matched up against one another on an NBA court.
Okafor palmed the ball with his right hand and squared up one of the league's toughest defenders. He exploded to the basket for a one-handed flush, going around Noah like he wasn't even there for two of the 16 points he scored in the first half. The daydreams that danced through the heads of Irvin and Slaughter all those years ago had finally come true.
For Okafor, this should have felt like a personal victory lap in his hometown on the day before his 20th birthday. He spent his teenage years in this city accomplishing everything an amateur player possibly could. Now he was with the Philadelphia 76ers, taken with the No. 3 pick in the 2015 NBA Draft. That's when things started to change.
Okafor isn't used to losing, but the NBA has a way of forcing young players to grow up fast. The Sixers came to Chicago with a 1-24 record, on pace to become the worst team in league history. Monday night offered a brief reprieve, as Okafor's huge first half gave Philadelphia a four-point lead at the break. Alas, this would not be his second NBA win. The Bulls went on a 26-1 run in the second half and turned a feel-good effort into another blowout. It was a perfect parable for Okafor's rookie season.
"I'm living my dream," Okafor said. "It's been a lot of fun. I don't look at it like starting my career off with a lot of losses. It's my rookie campaign. I'm working on improving and having a lot of good days. Coach always talks about good days adding up, and that's what I've been doing."
After finishing with 22 points against the Bulls, Okafor has now scored 20 or more in each of his last four games. He leads all rookies in scoring at 17.8 points per game. His defense, like most rookies, remains far from pro-caliber. The good days are building, but there have been well-documented bad ones, as well.
In November, Okafor made national headlines when TMZ posted a video of him involved in street fight outside of a Boston club. The video allegedly shows Okafor taking a swing and knocking out a heckler cold. In the wake of that incident, it was revealed that he allegedly had a gun pointed at his head after an altercation with hecklers outside a Philadelphia club a month earlier. As the revelations came to light, the Sixers suspended him for one game. His coach, Brett Brown, is trying to keep everything in perspective.
"The obvious pitfalls that we all would fall into at 19 years old," Brown said. "The situation that happened was unfortunate. He was ashamed. He was embarrassed. I'm sure there were scars. But raising anybody in the NBA let alone someone who has the profile he has at 19 years old, there's challenges all over the place. So in a twisted way, I hope all of us look back at that, and it toughens it up, it hardens him and teaches him a real hard life lesson."
To those who surrounded Okafor as he grew up, the young man shown in the grainy TMZ video wasn't the person they know. Okafor developed a reputation for being kind and polite during his school days, a teenager who always seemed mature beyond his years.
"In Chicago, Jahlil was known as a gentle giant," Irvin said. "This is a new experience for him. He got to understand these other cities take their basketball seriously. If you don't play for the home team, they don't like you. Even when you're just going out to dinner, you need to be careful."
The hope is that Okafor will learn from these missteps. He has spent years in the gym perfecting the post moves that made him a millionaire at such a young age, but nothing he could do would have prepared him for the perils of life as a pro. As each of his coaches said, sometimes you just need to live through things.
From a basketball perspective, Brown has already seen enough. Even as the losses mount at a record pace, Brown sees what his youth coach did, too: the rough outline of a franchise player. Okafor's advanced skill level on the block is apparent to everyone, but Brown is more concerned with the small things, like the way he responds to losing, his improved positioning defensively and his desire to get better every day.
"Jahlil Okafor is special," Brown said emphatically after the loss. "Just look at his face during the second half. He's not happy. We want to help grow him to be a voice. To be somebody who can put his hand up and say, this just isn't good enough. This isn't acceptable. I think that part of being a leader is in him. And he showed his talent tonight."
This type of spotlight is nothing new to Okafor. He made it back to his hometown with his dream in hand, the realization of the talent everyone saw him at such a young age. For a player who has already accomplished so much, he still has so far to go.
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KD byke 
jpzx
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It's moments like this and expressions like the one he gave that make me want to stay another year, it looks like these past few games he has found a groove. But, I am a realist and I know he is on borrowed time.
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You should call me Jaaaaaaaaaaaaames cuz I'm goin Harden this *****
(this lead to a Kings 3 pointer)
(this lead to a Kings 3 pointer)
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what happens when your fingers dont bend anymore lol
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He thought he was cool lol
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i agree 100%. my guy has finally been getting his legs back. as a fan, it definitely is a joy to see my dude struggling less
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kobe doesnt care about being able to bend his fingers at his daughters graduationwhat happens when your fingers dont bend anymore lol
going all out
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I wish I could touch Kobe
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Kobe doesn't have to bend anymore, his wife does all that.
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if kobe highfived me I would never wash my hand ever again
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