{"id":318960,"date":"2026-06-25T03:25:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T03:25:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/318960\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T03:25:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T03:25:14","slug":"tennessee-center-felix-okpara-selected-in-second-round-of-nba-draft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/318960\/","title":{"rendered":"Tennessee Center Felix Okpara Selected In Second Round Of NBA Draft"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Felix-Okpara-\u2014-Tennessee-Basketball-1.png\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-186797\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns=\" http:=\"\" alt=\"\" width=\"745\" height=\"483\" data-lazy- data-lazy- data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Felix-Okpara-\u2014-Tennessee-Basketball-1.png\"\/><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-186797\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Felix-Okpara-\u2014-Tennessee-Basketball-1.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"745\" height=\"483\"  \/><\/a>Photo By Andrew Ferguson\/Tennessee Athletics<\/p>\n<p>The Orlando Magic selected Tennessee center Felix Okpara with the 18th pick in the second round (48 overall) of the 2026 NBA Draft on Wednesday night. The Magic traded Okpara\u2019s draft rights to the Washington Wizards according to ESPN\u2019s Shams Charania.<\/p>\n<p>Okpara spent the first two seasons of his college career at Ohio State before transferring to Tennessee where he started in 72 games and anchored the Vols\u2019 stout defense on consecutive trips to the Elite Eight.<\/p>\n<p>The 6-foot-11 center is coming off a senior season where he averaged 8 points, 6.3 rebounds and 1.3 blocks per game. Okpara\u2019s block numbers were lower during his senior season but that was largely because the Vols asked him to guard on the perimeter.<\/p>\n<p>Playing two bigs last season, Okpara was the only Tennessee big man who excelled guarding smaller and quicker guards and wings. With the Vols\u2019 aggressive \u2014often switching\u2014 ball screen defense, Okpara gave them the versatility they craved.<\/p>\n<p>More From RTI:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rockytopinsider.com\/2026\/06\/24\/how-much-will-nate-ament-make-in-his-rookie-deal-a-look-at-the-scale\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">How Much Will Nate Ament Make In His Rookie Deal? A Look At The Range Of Options<\/a><\/p>\n<p>But don\u2019t let the lighter block numbers make take away from Okpara\u2019s ability to defend the rim. When allowed to play in the paint and protect the basket, Okpara was elite. That was evident in the NCAA Tournament when Okpara blocked four shots against Virginia and three shots against Iowa State.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you watch his last seven or eight games this season, he\u2019s an all-conference player,\u201d Tennessee assistant Lucas Campbell told RTI following the Iowa State game. \u201cToday, his chase down block was unreal.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Okpara played the best basketball of his Tennessee career down the stretch of his senior season, helping the Vols get back to the Elite Eight. The Lagos, Nigeria native averaged 9.8 points, 7.5 rebounds and 2 blocks in four NCAA Tournament games.<\/p>\n<p>Okpara is the third Vol off the board in the 2026 NBA Draft joining wing Nate Ament and point guard Ja\u2019Kobi Gillespie. The Milwaukee Bucks selected Ament with the 13th overall pick on Tuesday before the San Antonio Spurts selected Gillespie with the 42 pick on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s the first time that three Vols have been selected in the NBA Draft since 2019 when Grant Williams, Admiral Schofield and Jordan Bone were all drafted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo By Andrew Ferguson\/Tennessee Athletics The Orlando Magic selected Tennessee center Felix Okpara with the 18th pick in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":318961,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132529,139,141,140,90003],"class_list":["post-318960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-felix-okpara","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-tennessee-basketball"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=318960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318960\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/318961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=318960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=318960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=318960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}