Jahlil Okafor (pronounced ; born December 15, 1995) is an American professional basketball player for the Brooklyn Nets of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played his freshman season of college for the 2014-15 Duke national championship team. Okafor was heavily recruited since before high school and had been at the top of the recruiting rankings for several years. He played high school basketball in Chicago, Illinois for Whitney M. Young Magnet High School, where he earned high school national player of the year awards from McDonald's, USA Today and Parade.
Early career
Okafor's father, Chukwudi, known as Chuck, is of Nigerian Igbo and African-American descent, and his mother, Dacresha Lanett Benton, was African-American and White. As a youth, Okafor split time between his mother's home in the town of Moffett, Oklahoma and his father's home in Chicago. When he was 9 years old, his mother contracted bronchitis and died two weeks later from a collapsed lung. Okafor permanently moved in with his father to the South Side of Chicago and then to Rosemont. Okafor attended Rosemont Elementary. The adjustment was difficult because he was shy and so tall that other students thought he was put in the class for having failed. In November 2008, during seventh grade he matched his father's height of 6 feet 5 inches (1.96 m). Later the family moved to Chicago's North Side so that Okafor could attend Whitney Young High School.  As a 6-foot-7-inch (2.01 m) eighth-grader, Okafor was recruited by DePaul Blue Demons men's basketball in violation of National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) recruiting rules when DePaul Athletic Director Jean Lenti Ponsetto made public comments about an offer. Initially, interim coach Tracy Webster, made an oral offer on January 30 outside the DePaul locker room at Allstate Arena. The offer was noted online by ESPNChicago.com and picked up by the press, leading to the problematic statements by Ponsetto. In February 2010, Ponsetto confirmed a statement:  This is a young guy we've been talking with for a long time, and who has been to games and we have a relationship with because his uncle works for the Rosemont Police Department...I think it's a prospect who has grown up around DePaul basketball. I think he's probably a fan and someone who has been a fan for some time, since we have played in Rosemont for the last 30 years.

Q: What was Okafor's early career?
A: unknown

Q: When did his career start?
A: As a 6-foot-7-inch (2.01 m) eighth-grader, Okafor was recruited

Q: What was he recruited to?
A: Okafor was recruited by DePaul Blue Demons men's basketball
What else was he recruited to in his early career?
Later the family moved to Chicago's North Side so that Okafor could attend Whitney Young High School.
Later the family moved to Chicago's North Side so that Okafor could attend Whitney Young High School.