Watch this man: There are no words for Josh Okogie

Josh Okogie’s game is hard to describe and even harder to categorize. But he’s made himself essential to the up-and-coming Timberwolves.

Pull out a thesaurus before you watch Josh Okogie.

The Minnesota Timberwolves wing demands a better vocabulary. Few basketball players are more fascinating than those that teeter on the edge of chaos and brilliance. Okogie’s game is a nightly experiment in what is too much.

Energy is one of the first few words out of a coach’s mouth each time we hear them speak, but at some point, it becomes a problem. Some players want to turn everything into a dunk, want to get every loose ball, and just generally wreck stuff. Intuitively, those things seem good. Taken to an extreme, they can also hurt a team.

As a bystander, someone like Okogie navigating when and how to lose his mind is some of the most interesting stuff that happens on a basketball court.

Minnesota doesn’t seem to mind the mistakes. They drafted Okogie 20th in 2018 and he’s started 58 of 95 games in his short career. Finding long, athletic wings to place around centerpiece Karl-Anthony Towns is the focus of the Timberwolves’ team-building strategy, but in Okogie they may have more.

Words already have been created on sites like this one to contextualize what players like Okogie do. Waxing poetic about this crazy sport is sort of what we do, but even we struggle when we come across someone like this.

You may have heard of “functional athleticism,” a very complicated phrase that actually describes something super simple. Basically, not only is Okogie physically imposing, but he knows what to do with the hops and speed he was blessed with from birth.

More universal is the idea of “grit,” which combines the perception that someone plays the game the right way but specifically puts their body into it. A little bit of elbow grease added to the game plan.

JZ Mazlish of The Stepien wrote stuff like “draws fouls like a maniac” and “drives into the lane with no fear” to describe Okogie’s game heading into the 2018 draft. And that was all in the positive section. Okogie’s combination of natural ability to bend physics and play smart basketball is why he got drafted.

As a pro, Okogie still moves at a different tempo than the rest of the players on the court around him. It can be almost hard to tell what he’s good and bad at over the course of the game because each end of that spectrum is blurred by hyperactivity. The guys who are everywhere always seem like they’re doing something good even when they’re not.

Every so often, the rest of a game will be stripped away until the Timberwolves are left with Okogie doing something just flat out ridiculous.

Intense love for his style aside, year two for Okogie has been much more efficient, and it’s promising that he’s starting on a competitive team. Minnesota’s 19th-ranked defense is heaps better when he’s on the floor. The blueprint for building around Towns is clear and Okogie looks to be a part of the future in the Twin Cities.

Despite all the ups and downs, the Timberwolves are a better team with Okogie on the floor and they need that trend to continue into the future.

There’s another word people use for guys like that, who are solid and impactful but also quiet. That word is “it.” These players, some will tell you, have “it.” Or, in other uses, an “it” factor. But in reality, that’s just another way for someone to tell you they have no idea what to say about Okogie and his it-factor counterparts.

Saying that something has “it” is actually the least descriptive phrase I can think of. It does a terrible job of getting at what makes Okogie special. Because there are a lot of times he doesn’t have it. He’s only shooting 44 percent from the field, fouls too much, and has struggled with turnovers.

The mix of good and bad is precisely what’s so fun about Okogie. To watch him is to see a freak figuring it out. The man can create a shot out of thin air, suffocate the best scorers in the NBA, and then get benched moments later for silly mistakes.

To me, there’s nothing more interesting. Okogie is on his way to being a good two-way wing for a team that badly needs those. But as a viewer, these in-between steps are the best part.

The Timberwolves social team might as well just save that caption. They’re going to be using it a lot. Or maybe they could just pull out a thesaurus.