NBA draft chat with John Mitchell

NEW YORK - The 76ers took the best available player, who just happens to be another towering post player.

The team selected Duke center Jahlil Okafor with the third pick in the NBA draft Thursday night at the Barclays Center at Brooklyn.

The Sixers were expected to take Ohio State guard D'Angelo Russell in that spot. But they settled on Okafor after Russell went second overall to the Los Angeles Lakers.

Okafor is a 7-foot, 275-pound man-child with an imposing presence on the blocks.

The consensus all-American helped lead Duke to its fifth NCAA title last season. The 19-year-old averaged 17.3 points and 8.5 rebounds and made 66 percent of his shots. He's the first freshman in Atlantic Coast Conference history to be named the league's player of the year.

He joins a Sixers roster that includes 7-foot center Joel Embiid and 6-11 power forward/center Nerlens Noel. At the least, Okafor is an insurance policy for Embiid.

Embiid has had a setback in the healing his right foot. The 2014 first-round draft pick from Kansas missed what would have been his rookie season after undergoing surgery last June to repair a stress fracture in the navicular bone.

--Keith Pompey, Inquirer Staff Writer