Passionate on court, potential Wolves top pick Okafor compassionate off it
MINNEAPOLIS -- Rushing home for his son Elijah's second birthday party after a Sept. 26 team preseason workout, Duke assistant Jeff Capel sprinted past a Schwartz-Butters Athletic Training Center room but stopped at the vocal behest of Jahlil Okafor. "Little man turning 2 today?" the behemoth big man asked from a training bench. Upon learning the associate head coach was on his way out the door to a giant bash by toddler standards, complete with a bouncy house, Okafor invited himself, best bud Tyus Jones and a handful of other players over. But more than 20 minutes had passed by the time Okafor joined them in the Capels' basement.
The reason for Okafor and teammate Amile Jefferson's delinquency: they'd stopped at the mall to get Elijah a remote control pickup truck.
"As a parent, when someone does something really nice or cool for your kid, you'll love that person forever," said Capel, Mike Krzyzewski's right-hand man the past two seasons and a Duke aide since 2011. "It's not like (Okafor) comes from a lot of wealth, but that was just an example of his thoughtfulness and the big heart he has. He's always thinking about someone or something else, not just himself."
Because there's nothing bigger than family to the throwback, 6-foot-11, 272-pound, back-to-the-basket, pure-power center the Timberwolves might draft first overall Thursday.
Okafor couldn't hold back the tears when recounting the worst day of his life to FOX Sports back in February. Ten years ago, nine-year-old Jahlil watched his mother Dacresha "Dee" Benton die from a collapsed lung.
Until that point, he'd bounced back and forth between his mom's place near the Arkansas-Oklahoma border and his father, Chukwudi Okafor, in Chicago. Jahlil afterward moved in with his dad full-time, and "Chucky" said Jahlil's presence helped him turn from a less-than-exemplary role model -- street fights, getting kicked out of school, car and credit card theft, to be specific -- to a loving, involved, successful father of a future NBA superstar.
"I couldn't play (around) any longer," Chucky told FOX Sports' Reid Forgrave. "From that point my life was never, ever about me again. And that's to this day. It has never been about me at all. It's always been about my children at that point."
A load on the hardwood in his own right, it was basketball that brought Chucky to a junior college in Fort Smith, Ark., where he met Dee. It was also a common bond between father and son as Jahlil grew from a 23-inch, 9-pound, 7-ounce baby to an unstoppable force at Chicago's Whitney Young High School and on the AAU circuit.
Jahlil adopted his dad's uncanny sense of humor and the ability to light up a room. Chucky saw Jahlil as a constant reminder to remain on the straight and narrow, for the benefit of "Jah" and the rest of his brothers and sisters.
Dee helped raise her son for less than a decade. But she'll always be a part of it.
He prayed to her before every game during Duke's national championship jaunt. His Twitter profile begins "R.I.P. I love you mom."
"It has shaped him and just really made him appreciate life and take nothing for granted specific to family and the opportunities he's been given," said Dr. Chinyere Okafor-Conley, Jahlil's aunt and Chucky's older sister who had a hand in raising both of them. "There's not a day, not even an hour where she doesn't cross his mind.
"It's a forever scar that will never probably heal, but he's always with her, and he gets it."
When Jahil Okafor was 13, his AAU and later Whitney Young coach Tyrone Slaughter found him crying under the bleachers and "killing his teammates" after an early national tournament exit, Slaughter said.
"He just kept telling them, 'I did not come here to lose,'" Slaughter said. "Here's this 13-year-old kid that was so passionate and just wanted to win more than anything else."
Strip away the thrilling footwork, the hands that can hold 13 tennis balls each, the court vision and IQ that make him an adept screener and passer, and the highly advanced post moves and counters Okafor learned from watching film of Hakeem Olajuwon, Shaquille O'Neal and Tim Duncan growing up, and you'll find a 19-year-old who those in his inner circle say is as passionate on the court as he is compassionate off it. A proven winner, from the Final Four all the way back to youth hoops when he began his ascent to the land's top-ranked collegiate prospect and a possible No. 1 NBA Draft pick. FIBA gold medals and an Illinois state title came in between.
His weaknesses are as easily recognizable as his strengths. Lackadaisical defense. Poor free-throw shooting. A 1980s-type game in a 21st century NBA where small ball is in and guards tend to dominate games the way O'Neal and Olajuwon used to.
The Wolves reportedly worked out Okafor on Wednesday and fellow frontrunner Karl-Anthony Towns on Friday. They've also taken a strong interest in guards D'Angelo Russell and Emmanuel Mudiay, though the consensus is Minnesota will pick Towns first overall and leave Okafor at No. 2 for the Lakers.
But whoever gets Okafor will glean a generational low-post scorer with a reputation for having his personal priorities in line, starting with the people around him.
That's what a decade of memory and using it as fuel can accomplish.
"I would call him gregarious and the kind of guy that other teammates want to be around," said DeLaSalle High School coach Dave Thorson, who coached Towns and Okafor at the 2014 Jordan Brand Classic high school all-star game in Brooklyn, N.Y. "Rarely would you ever see Jahlil alone. He's a people person."
Follow Phil Ervin on Twitter
