Los Angeles Lakers Draft Rumors: ‘Traditional’ Front Office Favors Jahlil Okafor As Top Lakers Pick
The Los Angeles Lakers have the second overall draft pick in the 2015 NBA Draft coming up on June 25, and the latest rumors suggest that they’ll be approaching the pick with what one prognosticator calls a “traditional” mindset — looking to take the best low-post player available.
That, the rumors say, will be 19-year-old Jahlil Okafor, whose sensational freshman season helped Duke University to its fifth national championship. Unfortunately, the Minnesota Timberwolves may have the same idea, and could make Okafor the Number One pick in the nation.
According to ESPN draft expert Chad Ford, Timberwolves coach Flip Saunders also prefers to use his pick on Okafor rather than on the other leading center in the draft, Karl-Anthony Towns out of the University of Kentucky, despite the fact that scouts consider Towns — who is also 19 — the better all-around player and, in fact, the best prospect in the upcoming 2015 draft class.
“I think Flip see’s Okafor as a major post up presence on offense — a major need of the Wolves,” Ford said. But the ESPN commentator also admits that in the end, the ‘Wolves may not be able to pass on Towns who displays “fewer weaknesses” that Okafor and looks like a “nightmare match-up” in the NBA.
The Lakers feel the same way, according to Ford.
“The Lakers run a more traditional front office than most and have a tradition of dominant big men ruling the paint,” Ford wrote. “I think, at the end of the day, the size of Okafor will win out.”
Sports Illustrated draft soothsayer Chris Mannix also sees the Timberwolves opting for the superior all-around skills of New Jersey native towns.
“Towns, a polished post player who also thrives at the free-throw line, has the early edge,” wrote Mannix in a recent “mock draft” column. “The chance to send Towns to Kevin Garnett College for a year has to be appealing to the Timberwolves, too.”
But Okafor has the advantage in the low-post and looks like a throwback to the NBA era of Kevin McHale, Karl Malone and even the younger Tim Duncan, when powerful low-post players dominated the league.
“Somewhere, Kobe Bryant is smiling,” wrote Mannix, at the prospect of the Lakers picking Okafor who, the SI writer believes, would pair well with power forward Julius Randle and what is expected to be the Lakers’ signing of Rajon Rondo — and well as the returning Bryant — to put the Lakers in a position to get back to the playoffs, giving Bryant at least a dignified send-off in his final season.
But what if the Timberwolves opt for Okafor after all? Of course, the Lakers could them simply select Towns. But trade rumors out if Los Angeles also say that the team might try to preempt that possibility by packaging their second pick — Number 27 overall — with the Number Two plus guard Nick Young to move up to the top draft spot and get their choice of any prospect they want.
[Image: Grant Halverson/Getty Images]
