Brooklyn Nets: Assessing the Jahlil Okafor trade so far

It’s time to take a look at the early returns of Jahlil Okafor and Nik Stauskas for the Brooklyn Nets.

About a month ago, the Brooklyn Nets shipped out big man Trevor Booker to the Philadelphia 76ers for a 2019 second round pick (via the New York Knicks) and two unwanted prospects, Nik Stauskas and Jahlil Okafor.

This was a smart business move for the Nets, because Booker is scheduled to become a free agent after the season.

Getting two young players and another pick was a borderline steal, and since the Knicks haven’t shown much progress in their rebuild, that could be a high second-rounder. Booker was not moving any needles or helping the bottom line, so getting value before he departed was a must.

The part that must be assessed now is the value gained from the players. Have they progressed? Have they shown signs of promise as future NBA players? Any sort of long-term success from either prospect must be considered a win for Nets brass.

Nik Stauskas

A fourth-year wing from Michigan, “Sauce Castillo” has yet to find a true home in the association.

Despite being the former eighth overall pick by the Sacramento Kings in the 2014 NBA Draft, Sac-town gave him very little playing time in his rookie year. Dubbed as a shooting specialist out of college, Sauce was forced to make the most of minimal touches on a horrid Kings roster, while also competing for minutes with another lottery wing prospect, Ben McLemore.

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To say the least, Stauskas did not catch on very easily. As a result, he was attached to the salaries of Jason Thompson and Carl Landry as compensation for taking on said contracts, and shipped to Philly to help the Kings get salary cap space. If that sounds familiar to Nets fans, that’s because general manager Sean Marks has made similar moves by using cap space to import extra assets attached to bad salaries.

Sauce’s Philly tenure was pretty much a dragged out version of his time in Sacramento. He initially got playing time in the 2015-16 season, but only as a catch-and-shoot wing. His other attributes, such as his sneaky-good athleticism and savvy passing instincts, were seldom utilized by the 76ers.

Eventually, more wings were drafted and traded for, and his minutes diminished as a result. So after logging a grand total of 36 minutes this season in just six games for the 76ers, he was excommunicated via another trade.

Since joining the Nets, Stauskas has been a fine bench piece. He has three outings of 15 or more points in 16 appearances, along with a 47.1 percent clip (24-of-51) from downtown. He’s averaging 5.8 points in 14.0 minutes per game overall. Head coach Kenny Atkinson’s uptempo ball-sharing system seems to be working for Sauce so far.

Jahlil Okafor

After leading Duke to a national championship in his freshman year, many thought Jahlil Okafor’s excellent footwork and bevy of post moves would flawlessly translate to the NBA.

Then a funny thing called small-ball happened. The style of the game shifted from inside-out to outside-in, all but eliminating the need for a low-post scorer.

The emphasis on the pick-and-roll made Okafor’s transition even more difficult. In low-block isolation, Big Jah is a palpable defender. But on a switch, he’s way too slow to cover smaller, quicker players.

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His gaudy scoring numbers in his rookie season were only useful in casual fan banter. As his first-year campaign progressed, scouts and executives around the NBA began to realize that he was just as responsible for the 76ers’ historically bad 10-72 record as the D-League scrubs surrounding him.

Jah’s sophomore season was even less promising. Franchise cornerstone Joel Embiid was finally healthy, and he ate away at Okafor’s minutes as he ascended to superstardom. Jah became an afterthought because Embiid was so good. And thanks to the small-ball revolution, he became less valuable than a bag of basketballs.

In nine appearances since being exiled from the City of (ironically) Brotherly Love, Okafor has had mixed results at best. He has three double-digit scoring nights as a Net, but a collective plus-minus of -45. He’s averaging 5.4 points and 2.2 rebounds in 12.6 minutes per game overall, shooting 45.7 percent from the floor.

The easy way to describe him would be as a “good stats, bad team” player, but he really hasn’t added much value to any lineup he’s been in, even with shooters in Brooklyn to space out the post for him. It would be fair to consider Okafor a sunk cost so far. But considering what it took to acquire him, the loss isn’t nearly as severe as it was for the team who took him third overall in 2015.

Overall

Considering that Stauskas has turned into a useful spark plug off the bench, this trade has to be considered a win for Brooklyn. Getting any kind of long-term value for an expiring contract is an easy dub for a team not getting actual wins, and Okafor — though unimpressive — has only played nine games.

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If the Nets decide to make another move like this, be prepared for a Joe Harris trade. For now, enjoy the myriad of young players already on the roster.