Jahlil Okafor had only made two three-pointers before this game, one of them during his rookie year in Philly, and the other while he was in Brooklyn. Considering that his jumpshot range pretty much has a hard stop at around sixteen feet, this shouldn’t be a surprise. He’s never been, and probably never will be, a guy who scares teams with his jumper. If he’s scaring anybody with those borked jumpshot mechanics, it’s his coaches, who have probably reminded him many times that he shouldn’t take three-pointers even if he happens to be wide open.
Okafor’s three-pointer in this game was very wide open, wide open enough where even he couldn’t resist letting it fly. If you were an optimist, you would think that this is the beginning of something new, the start of a fantastic new era in the NBA where Okafor combines his deft inside scoring moves with barrages of swished three-pointers. Good for you if your heart is pure enough to contain such pure emotions unsullied by cynicism, but I’m not that optimistic. What I see happening is that Okafor maybe tries another three-pointer next game, misses it, and then that’s the end of that.
If Okafor does turn out to have a mid-career revamp of his skillset like Brook Lopez did, feel free to come back to this video and make fun of me in the comments. I can take it.