Willie Cauley-Stein, Jahlil Okafor, and the benefit of opportunity
By Jared Dubin
When the NBA’s annual trade deadline rolls around, most of the attention is centered on the players that get dealt. What role will the player fill on his new team? Who got the better end of the trade? How does it reshape the race for the playoffs or the championship? What are the salary cap and luxury tax effects?
But there’s another question that dovetails from those, and it’s about the players that get left behind. When a player changes teams, his absence opens up playing time for somebody else. This year, there are plenty of former teammates of players that got traded who are now in line for major upticks in minutes. Here are a few to look out for.
Jahlil Okafor and Richaun Holmes –- Philadelphia 76ers
Nerlens Noel was shipped off to the Dallas Mavericks for Justin Anderson, the bought-out Andrew Bogut, and two second-round picks (the Mavs aren’t finishing outside the top-18 in the draft so let’s call it what it is here). Joel Embiid is out indefinitely after experiencing increased swelling in his knee. All of a sudden, nearly all the center minutes in Philly are up for grabs.
Okafor has gotten the post-break starts, but he’s only been varyingly effective. The pluses and minuses are still the same: when Okafor gets the ball in the post and gets to go to work, there are occasional bursts of time where he looks unstoppable. If he’s asked to do nearly anything else, he struggles. He still can’t move defensively and his ability to score outside the immediate area of the rim is limited. But there are worse things the Sixers can do down the stretch of the season than to give him a long audition for other teams while losing games in the process.
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Holmes is the bouncier player of the pair, and he’s filled up the box score when he’s gotten on the floor after the break. Putting up 12-10-1-5-2 against the Wizards, 8-2-0-2-1 against the Knicks, 13-4-2-1-3 against the Warriors. There’s an interesting player in there, one that combines pogo-stick athleticism with a bit of floor-stretchiness. There wasn’t room for him in the rotation before Noel got dealt and Embiid got injured, but he should do well in extended minutes as the season winds down.
T.J. Warren, Alan Williams, and Derrick Jones Jr. -– Phoenix Suns
Warren has been starting when available for most of the season, but if the Suns’ first two post-deadline games are any indication, he is going to play a ton of minutes now that Tucker is bodying-up bigger wings as a member of the Raptors. Warren played 38 minutes against the Bulls and39 against the Bucks. The final pick of the lottery back in 2014, Warren struggled to stay healthy during his first couple years with the Suns but has nonetheless his minutes per game average rise with each passing season. He’s not a great shooter but he’s an incredible athlete and the man can create a look off the bounce. You wish his athleticism would translate into better defense, rebounding, and more trips to the line, but there should be a place in the league for a guy that can find a way to get off a shot and knock down 47 percent of them like Warren has.
Williams has played only sparingly this season but on the few occasions where he’s been given a chance to really run, he’s put up some monster stat lines. In a three-game November stretch, he combined for 32 points, 33 rebounds, six blocks, and four steals in 65 minutes. He also committed 14 fouls. He didn’t get a chance to play 15-plus minutes again until mid-February. He put up 30 points, 14 boards, and 4 blocks in 39 combined minutes across two games against the Bulls. And on Sunday, 17 points, 15 rebounds, 3 assists, a block and 3steals against the Bucks. It’s worth seeing if there’s something there.
Most people didn’t know who Jones was until he took place in the dunk contest. Many probably still don’t. He’d appeared in only seven games before doing the dunk-off. He’s hit double-digit minutes in both post-break games, though, and Earl Watson seems like he’s going to let the kids get some run to close out the year.
Willie Cauley-Stein –- Sacramento Kings
Trill!
Cauley-Stein wasted zero time taking advantage of the fact that DeMarcus Cousins now calls New Orleans home, slapping up a 29-point, 10-rebound line in a win over the Nuggets in the first game after the break… and then went for two points and two boards against the Hornets a couple nights later. So, it’s gonna be a process.
But Cauley-Stein has an intriguing, modern-center skill set. His per-36 minute numbers look terrific again this year. He’s not going to stretch the floor but he is going to cover a ton of ground on both sides of the court. He’s one of the fastest big men in the league already and he loves getting up and down. He’s bouncy, he’ll go up for lobs, he’ll challenge guys at the rim, and he showed in college he can hang with guards and wings off switches. He should get plenty of run the rest of the year as he attempts to showcase his bona fides as a starting(-caliber, if not actually starting) center.
Bobby Portis -– Chicago Bulls
Another 2015 draft big man, Portis still doesn’t really look like he knows what he’s doing on the floor at times, but Fred Hoiberg has given him the start at power forward in both games since the Bulls traded Taj Gibson. At Arkansas, and at times as a rookie, Portis flashed range nearly to the 3-point line, a key skill for a shooting-starved team like the Bulls. It’d be nice to see him play any semblance of defense.
Rondae Hollis-Jefferson and Spencer Dinwiddie — Brooklyn Nets
RHJ is so much fun. He can’t shoot, but he moves as well as any wing in the league and can effectively guard three positions. He’s all over the place defensively, knows how to leverage the fact that defenders don’t pay much attention to him in order to slice through the paint for cuts, and when he gets out in transition, he has pretty good instincts. He’s the kind of player that will seem much more valuable when he winds up on a good time. With Bojan Bogdanovic in Washington now and Hollis-Jefferson locked in as a starter, he should get plenty of time to show his stuff.
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Dinwiddie has bounced around to a few different teams and spent time in the D-League, but he’s been with the Nets for this entire season and has been balling since the calendar flipped to 2017. In 24.4 minutes a night, he’s averaging 8.1 points, 3.3 rebounds, and 3.6 assists, while shooting 44 percent from the field and 45 percent on 3-pointers. He’s got good enough size to see over the defense when he runs the point, and that extra bit of length helps when he’s tasked with defender off-guards as well. Still just 23, he’s on a non-guaranteed deal for next year, and the Nets can give him an audition to see if he’s someone they’d like to keep going forward.