Jahlil Okafor -- CBSSports.com's Preseason Player of the Year
The Duke freshman has all the tools to be the nation's most dominant player. Simply put, we believe he ultimately will prove to be exactly that.
By
Gary Parrish
•
4 min read
DURHAM, N.C. -- I've sat with enough elite talents over the years to know not all of them embrace or even desire big expectations in the weeks leading up to their freshmen seasons. Some do, absolutely. But for every Kevin Durant -- who told me, matter-of-factly, a month before his one year at Texas began that he planned to be the nation's best college basketball player -- there are 10 other still-trying-to-get-comfortable prospects less willing to acknowledge internal and external pressures, which is why I was pleased when Jahlil Okafor showed himself to be more of the exception than the rule.
"My expectations for myself are higher than the expectations anybody else could put on me," Okafor told me during a long conversation in an office positioned just off the court here inside Cameron Indoor Stadium. "So however good people say I'm going to be this year, my plan is to be even better. And I definitely feel like I'm ready to do it."
Duke's Jahlil Okafor is the CBSSports.com Preseason National Player of the Year.
He was appreciative when I told him this would be the case.
He and I both knew how lots of you would probably react.
"But Okafor hasn't even played a college game yet! You have no idea how he'll be! Why don't you give it to somebody who has already proven themselves at this level!"
Those are all common counter-arguments to highlighting a freshman in October, silly as they might be. And it never seems to matter that this is meant to be interpreted as little more than a prediction for the season to come; there are always some who are simply unwilling to acknowledge that Kevin Love or Julius Randle or Michael Beasley or Derrick Rose or Andrew Wiggins or any number of heralded freshmen will be great in college until they actually see them be great in college, which has never made sense to me because pretty much every freshman who has ever been considered for an accolade like this has eventually proved to be an awesome and overwhelming college basketball player.
That said, I have no interest in fighting that fight again.
So I asked Okafor to do it for me.
Which he did well.
"When I step on the court, it really doesn't matter if I'm a freshman or a senior," Okafor said. "It's basketball, and I've been playing basketball my entire life. So I feel extremely confident about going out there and playing against anybody and feeling unstoppable and being just as dominant as I have been in my previous years of playing basketball. So somebody saying I can't [be National Player of the Year] because I'm a freshman is kinda ludicrous to me."
Preach on, young man.
Preach on.
One word Okafor used in that quote to describe his game is "dominant," and, I'm compelled to point out, that's a word countless others used to describe him during my day on campus.
"Jahlil is dominant," said Duke senior Quinn Cook.
"He really is dominant," added Duke assistant Jeff Capel.
So on and so forth, literally nobody connected to the program tried to lower the expectations surrounding Okafor because they've all seen the dominance up close. He's 6-foot-11, 260 pounds, the prize of Mike Krzyzewski's recruiting class and widely regarded as the best true center to enter college since Greg Oden. Basically every reputable mock draft has the Chicago native going No. 1 overall in the 2015 NBA Draft, and his coaches have already told him he has all the tools to be, and thus he should be, the nation's best player.
"Sitting down with Coach K and Coach Capel, they say I don't necessarily have to win the awards, but they told me this team will be most successful if I'm the most dominant player in college this year, and that's something they've emphasized since I've stepped on campus," Okafor said. "They want me to be the most dominant player in college basketball."
Really, Coach K?
"With Jah, you'll see," Krzyzewski said. "He's good. And he's been accepted pretty much right away [by his teammates] ... because there's nobody like him. There's no comp."
Again, literally nobody at Duke is trying to lower expectations.
Capel went on to explain that, in all his years, he's only ever sat two players down and told them, face-to-face, that they have a chance to be an NBA great. One is Blake Griffin, whom Capel coached at Oklahoma. The other is Okafor, whom Capel helped recruit to Duke.
Simply put, the Duke staff considers Okafor -- who decided in junior high he wanted to be a part of the Duke-North Carolina rivalry, one way or another, after watching a documentary -- to be an even better prospect than the one-and-done star they had last season, namely fellow Chicagoan Jabari Parker. And, it should be noted, Parker went on to become a consensus First Team All-American and the No. 2 overall pick in the 2014 NBA Draft.
That's the type of talent we're talking about here.
And, for what it's worth, Parker views Okafor similarly.
"Jabari told me he wants me to break all his records," Okafor said. "And I can't wait to try."
