Life in the G League: Elton Brand and Emeka Okafor see their paths cross again with the Sevens
Philadelphia 76ers
Special to The Athletic
By Gordie Jones
NEWARK, Del. – The area designated as the Delaware 87ers’ staff room within the University of Delaware’s Bob Carpenter Center is a cramped conference room. A whiteboard at one end, clutter everywhere else – all manner of jackets and backpacks and half-opened cases of water...
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The Athletic
By Gordie Jones

NEWARK, Del. – The area designated as the Delaware 87ers’ staff room within the University of Delaware’s Bob Carpenter Center is a cramped conference room. A whiteboard at one end, clutter everywhere else – all manner of jackets and backpacks and half-opened cases of water and half-finished lattes just scattered about.

On days when the Sevens play, it becomes the de facto office of first-year general manager Elton Brand, begging the question: What’s he doing here, amid all this mess?

Which, of course, applies in a larger sense as well. The 38-year-old Brand played 17 NBA seasons, five of those with the Sixers (including the last one, 2015-16). He made over $169 million in his NBA career, according to basketball-reference.com.

So why this? Why now? Why subject yourself to the oddities of minor-league hoops, where winning often takes a backseat to player development, the crowds are sparse and the promotions endless? Why agree to go on road trips to places like Fort Wayne, Ind., and Sioux Falls, S.D.? (“No disrespect,” Brand said of the latter stop, “but I didn’t know where it was.”)

His best answer is that he did some consulting last season for the Sixers, the Sevens’ parent club, and was privy to all the behind-the-scenes machinations.

“And,” he said, “that really piqued my interest.”

So he’s here, doing everything from arranging parking passes to fielding agents’ calls to making arrangements for rookie guard Furkan Korkmaz every time the Sixers send him down (which, before his foot injury, was often).

Brand doesn’t seem to dislike his job. At the same time, he said, “I don’t know if I want to do this long-term. But I do want to test it out, to see if I love it enough to want to put the time in.”

That’s the other thing about The Circuit Formerly Known as the Development League: Nobody really wants to be there. Not executives, and certainly not players. It’s just a way station, a place to go until something better comes along.

Perhaps the best description of the minor-league mentality came courtesy of Larry Drew II, a guard who passed through Philadelphia on a 10-day contract two years ago. Those playing in the D-League/G-League, he said, are “like crabs in a bucket … trying to crawl over each other just to get to the top.”

Emeka Okafor, the Sevens’ 35-year-old starting center, can now relate. He and Brand are kindred spirits of sorts — Brand was selected No. 1 overall in the 1999 NBA draft, while Okafor was picked No. 2 in 2004. The NBA careers of the two big men overlapped for nine years, with their first meeting, on Dec. 6, 2004, the most memorable.

That’s when Brand, playing for the Clippers, responded to some physical play by Okafor, then a rookie with the Charlotte Bobcats, by shoving him in the face. Brand was assessed a Category-2 flagrant foul and ejected for the first time in his career. He was also suspended one game.

No hard feelings, though. The two of them shared a laugh about the incident when Okafor landed with the Sevens this season, after he spent training camp and the preseason with the Sixers.

“Oh yeah,” Brand told Okafor, “I was on fire, lighting you up, and you were fouling me.”

(For the record, Brand had 19 points on 8-for-13 shooting before his ejection. Okafor, the Rookie of the Year that season, finished with 12 points and 15 rebounds. The Clippers won, 99-93, in double overtime.)

Okafor, whose distant cousin Jahlil was recently traded by the Sixers, has missed the last four seasons, after a herniated disk in his neck interrupted his nine-year NBA career in 2012-13. He let the injury heal on its own as opposed to undergoing surgery, and began attracting interest from teams last season.

His wife Ilana (daughter of former NBA referee Ronnie Nunn) was, however, pregnant with the couple’s second child – she delivered a son, Nnamdi, in February – so Emeka elected to sit out one more year.

But in all that time, he never once considered giving up the game.

“I’m an athlete,” he said. “During the time off I was like, ‘What else can I do with the same passion?’ I feel like I can still do this. I want to do this as long as possible before I figure out the next step.”

He is averaging 7.8 points and 8.1 rebounds in 21.1 minutes a night for the Sevens. But his eight-point, nine-rebound output in a recent 121-118 victory over the Maine Red Claws was more impressive on closer examination. During a decisive 13-0 run late in the game, Okafor barged to the basket on a pick-and-roll and took a pass from Jacob Pullen for a dunk, then backtapped a teammate’s miss to Pullen, who knocked down a three-pointer.

“Play of the game,” Brand said of the latter maneuver.

Sevens coach Eugene Burroughs said Okafor is the team’s best defender, and an invaluable veteran presence. Pullen praised him for his consistency, saying Okafor “never gets out of character, never gets out of body.” An NBA scout who watched the game, who spoke under the condition of anonymity, was impressed by Okafor’s conditioning and commitment.

“I think he’s proven he doesn’t want anything given to him,” the scout said. “He’s in the G League. He’s not just sitting out, hoping somebody calls.”

At the same time, the scout added, “I don’t think he’ll ever get back to the level he was before. He was a very good player. If he gets back some percentage of that, he can help a team.”

So he’s saying there’s a chance – a chance that an NBA club will reach out to him, should a need arise. All anybody could ask for, when they’re wallowing in the minor-league mess.

Gordie Jones is a long-time freelance writer based in Lititz, Pa. At various times in his career he has covered the Eagles, 76ers and Phillies, as well as Penn State football.

Top photo: Streeter Lecka/Getty Images/2008