Jahlil Okafor spent the weeks leading up to the NBA trade deadline hearing his name linked to a handful of teams. It got to the point where the Sixers even held him out of two games to ensure he wouldn't be injured before a deal was completed.
But when the deadline passed on Thursday, Nerlens Noel was on his way to the Dallas Mavericks, while Okafor stayed put.
And that's just fine with Okafor, who will be on the court Friday when the Sixers host the Washington Wizards.
"I never looked at me being shopped as a negative thing," Okafor told reporters in Philadelphia on Friday. "It's just part of the business."
Okafor said there are no hard feelings and that when he didn't travel for a game at Charlotte, he was still working out at the team's facility.
"I was never just at home alone or anything like that," Okafor said. "I was still with the team. Some of the coaches would stay back, so I always felt connected with the Sixers."
Bryan Colangelo, the team's president of basketball operations, was the one trying to broker a deal for Okafor.
"The market for [Okafor] was much more broad, but the right deal did not present itself," Colangelo told reporters.
While a trade didn't come to fruition this week, Okafor knows the offseason could be a different story, and he's fine with that.
"Whatever happens in a few months, we'll see what happens then," Okafor said. "Right now I'm just worried about playing these last 26 games and playing well for the city and playing well for the team."
