{"id":320323,"date":"2026-06-26T05:19:31","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T05:19:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/320323\/"},"modified":"2026-06-26T05:19:31","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T05:19:31","slug":"felix-okpara-drafted-by-the-orlando-magic-in-the-second-round-of-the-nba-draft-then-traded","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/320323\/","title":{"rendered":"Felix Okpara drafted by the Orlando Magic in the second round of the NBA draft, then traded"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">The Tennessee Volunteers saw their third expected player to go off the board in the NBA Draft, and the second in the second round in center Felix Okpara.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Tennessee\u2019s rim protector last season was picked by the Orlando Magic with pick No. 46 overall.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">It seemed like Okpara was heading to central Florida to join a young Magic team on the rise. However, as very often is the case in the NBA Draft, a curveball landed a few minutes later.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Okpara was quickly traded to the Washington Wizards.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">I find Okpara\u2019s prospects to be very interesting. While he doesn\u2019t possess the offensive game to make too much of an impact in the NBA, there\u2019s no denying his abilities on the defensive end and on the glass at both ends. That ability brings a lot of value in at least a rotational role on the Wizards\u2019 bench. You never know for sure if a second-round pick will stick, but I\u2019m willing to bank on a big body in the lane who can guard the rim like he does.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Okpara will be joining a Wizards team that\u2019s undergone quite the facelift. They have some interesting pieces in guard Trae Young and big man Anthony Davis. The Wizards also took BYU forward AJ Dybantsa with the first overall pick, so there\u2019s star potential there.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Like Gillespie, we\u2019ll see how summer ball goes for Okpara, and what kind of impact he can make with his new team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Tennessee Volunteers saw their third expected player to go off the board in the NBA Draft, and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":320324,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[139,141,140,57697],"class_list":["post-320323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-tennessee-volunteer-basketball"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320323","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=320323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/320324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}