PRAGUE– Jahlil Okafor may be only 18-years-old and playing up for the U.S. U19 team here in the World Championships. But his extraordinary talent and potential have not escaped the NBA scouts who have flooded the 02 Arena to watch the competition the past two weeks.
In a poll of scouts, many with considerable international experience, taken by Nike global executive George Raveling, Okafor was ranked as the No. 1 prospect among all of the players here. And get this. “Guys felt if he would have been allowed to declare, he would have been the first player taken in this year’s draft,” Raveling said.
That is blockbuster stuff, but Okafor, the best low post scoring threat in recent history on a U.S. youth national team, have left scouts at both the college and NBA level salivating. “When you look at his body and you look at his body of work, they contradict each other,” Raveling said. ‘He’s got light, quick feet,soft hands and he’s got a soft touch. And when he starts playing, he does things that don’t define his physique. You can’t stop him. When you get him the ball in the low post, he’s either going to get fouled or score 90 percent of the time.
“And for a high school player, he’s unusually patient. When he gets the ball in the post, he doesn’t rush into his offensive decisions, which shows an unusual sign of maturity for a kid going into his senior year in high school.”
Okafor, who plays for Whitney Young High in Chicago, was arguably the best prep player in that city last year, ahead of power forward Jabari Parker, the second ranked player in the class of ’13 who signed with Duke. Both players were consensus first team All Americas.
We received a copy of Raveling’s list and would like to share it with you:
1. Jahlil Okafor, 6-10 c, USA.
2. Dante Exum, 6-6 g, Australia
3. Dario Saric, 6-9 f, Croatia
4. Aaron Gordon, 6-8 f, USA.
5. Nikola Miulutinov, 6-11 c, Serbia.
6. Tyler Ennis-McIntyre, 6-2 pg, Canada.
7. Trey Lyles, 6-9 pf, Canada.
8. Justin Winslow, 6-7 f, USA.
9. Vasilje Micic, 6-4 g, Serbia.
10. Sangjae Kang, 6-7 pf, South Korea.
11. Martin Peterka, 6-7 g,f, Czech Republic.
12. Marcus Smart, 6-3 pg, USA.
13. Rasheed Sulaimon, 6-2 g, USA.
14. Shang Gao, 6-6 f, China.
15. Daniel Barbieri, 6-8 f, Brazil.
The only player we might have added was 7-1 17-year-old Zhou Qi of China, who scored 28 points against Russia in the preliminary round, had nine blocks in another game and finished with 21 points and 14 rebounds and 9 blocked shots in a 110-110 triple overtime loss to Canada in a consolation elimination game Saturday. But Zhou Qi, who has a thin body, missed two games, presumably for illness, and was ineffective in a third so scouts could not see the full range of his talents. “He could have had 32 against Canada if their guards had been able to get him the ball in the right spots,” Raveling pointed out.
Interestingly, there are five USA players– Okafor, Gordon, Winslow, Smart and Sulaimon on this list, which speaks to the athletic depth and balance on this dominant US U19 team. There is actually a sixth, if you include Lyles, another highly recruited high school player in the Class of ’14. Lyles, who was born in Saskatchewan, has dual citizenship, plays high school basketball in Indiana and opted to play for Canada after he was cut by a U.S. U16 team early in his international career.
In our mind, the versatile Gordon, while not as talented as Okafor, is the strongest candidate for MVP if the U.S. defeats Serbia for a second time and wins the gold because he epitomizes the strengths of Billy Donovan’s up tempo, full court system.
Raveling is one of the great talent evaluators in our country and he can see why so many Americans grabbed spots on this coveted list. Here’s his personal take on the best prospects from the U.S. U19s.
On Gordon and Winslow:
“Gordon and Winslow are guys who can play multiple positions and guard multiple positions,” Raveling said. “For Winslow to make this list, that tells you a lot about where he is. He’s got to be one of the youngest guys in the tournament, if not the youngest.
“Gordon is such a multi-purpose player. I think what he did– he exposed some parts of his team that were hidden in the past– his ability to play full court defense, his ability to bring the ball up the court, the energy he brings to the team. He’s a far more versatile player that he’s really never gotten credit for. In the past the big criticism of his game is that he’s not a good jump shooter, but he’s shown in this tournament he can score from the perimeter.”
On Smart:
“Marcus Smart is a great leader, has a good temperment for the game, very unselfish, far better defensive player than he gets credit for,” Raveling said. ‘In the era of scoring points, I think the question scouts and GMs are going to have about him because he pulled his name out of the draft is: Can he score from that position. He can guard that position.”
On Sulaimon:
“Sulaimon probably helped himself a lot on this tournament,” Raveling said. “In my mind, he was clearly the best U.S. jump shooter. I thought he played a real good balanced game and he made his jump shot over here. I think the jury is still out on how good he can be, but he’s been a very valuable member of the team. He’s played with unbelievable confidence.”
The fact the Americans were ranked so high in this poll is a credit for coach Billy Donovan and his staff of Shake Smart and Tony Bennett, who fostered chemistry with a style based on a full court defensive pressure that allowed all 12 players to contribute. It featured all of them in key roles at various times instead of relying on a limited rotation or one or two players to score out of a half court set. This has been an exceptionally well coached team that was put together in just three weeks and is succeeding against more experienced international teams that have played together, in the case of Serbia, for the past three years.
It should be interestingly to see how many first round NBA picks this tournament produces in the future, but it would not be surprising to see four possibly five lottery picks.
