Yesterday saw a clash of two of the league’s premiere offensive bigmen, Nikola Vucevic and Jahlil Okafor. Coincidentally, neither of them play very much defense, thus we were treated to a scoring exhibition with a final score of 130-116, quite impressive considering that neither the Magic nor the 76ers are considered powerhouse scoring teams.
It’s become clear over the past several seasons that teams don’t see success when their center doesn’t play D, even if that same center can put up 20/10 on good efficiency. Al Jefferson, Greg Monroe, Nikola Vucevic, none of these guys have won much of anything. But there’s a rule in the NBA that for every good team there has to be a bad team. Not every team can be good all the time. Why not let the bad teams have a center who has post moves? That’s way more entertaining than being a bad team whose offensive centerpiece is a wing player who shoots twenty shots a game.