Miami Heat: He Has Value And If Anyone Can See It… It Should Be Spo
KZ Okpala still has the potential to become a consistent lockdown defender in the NBA. He has shown flashes of such and just needs to find the offense to stay on the floor in order to continue to display it.
That doesn’t mean that he hasn’t had chances to do so already though. Although it’s been beaten in the head as an example, his performance in Team Nigeria’s win over Team USA in preparation for this past Olympics was stellar, regardless.
Pacing his team in minutes, he was tasked with being the defensive anchor of the team from wherever he was on the floor, as he was in the Summer League situations for the Miami Heat (but his poor shooting drew the most attention and rightfully so… perhaps).
Guarding almost everyone on Team USA, it seems, he would find himself having to plaster to guys like Kevin Durant, Bradley Beal, and most impressively, Damian Lillard, for the amount of time he spent on him and the situations in which they occurred.
He also showed it in the regular season last year, guarding guys like DeMar DeRozan, John Wall, and James Harden successfully, for as successful as one can be at it. He can help them defensively and from positions 1-5, as shown by his guarding of Bol Bol in the Summer League at times.
He has to fix the offense to stay on the floor though. That’s why KZ Okpala’s role should be a defensive skeleton key, capable of guarding anyone and manning any role on defense, while the enigma of his offensive misfires will be something to hope that he figures out.