Jahlil Okafor is a third-year center out of Duke who plays for the Philadelphia 76ers. I’m just stating the obvious in case Okafor is reading this, because over the summer he said it was tough to remember he was still a part of The Process for the team.
Okafor opened up in an SB Nation piece entitled “How Jahlil Okafor Failed The Process.” In the piece, Okafor discussed a tough summer in which he dropped 20 pounds after starting a vegan diet that’s helped him get healthy and try to shake off a disappointing start to his NBA career.
That doesn’t mean the last two years have not impacted him, though. Okafor said a summer of excitement about the FEDS — Markelle Fultz, Joel Embiid, Dario Saric and Ben Simmons — has understandably left him feeling like he’s on the outside of the Sixers young core.
“I’m unsure if I’m still on the team,” Okafor said. “Am I really a part of this process? Am I really a part of this culture? That’s why the guys have been out there on social media, but I’ve just kind of been in the dark. I’ll go to a Sixers event, smile, take pictures with the kids and stuff like that, but I’m still thinking, ‘am I a part of this team?’”
You have to feel for Okafor, who has only been in the league two seasons and already isn’t sure where his place is on the Sixers or elsewhere in the league. Trade rumors have swirled about Okafor for a while now, and they’ve clearly impacted his feelings about Philadelphia and the Sixers. The piece is very sad at times, chronicling the death of his mother at an early age and how he used basketball to cope with the loss.
“Each time I would go into the house where my mother used to be, I would start crying,” Okafor said in the piece. “I would just always go right back outside and start shooting and forget everything.”
It also discussed how “embarrassed” he was after his nightclub altercations and the reports about his speeding. Okafor does seem to be on the right track, though. And if the changes in his diet put him back on track on the court, he could still be a very productive NBA player. That doesn’t mean it will happen in Philadelphia, of course, but The Process simply isn’t for everyone. It doesn’t mean that there’s not another way.
