Grainy cell phone footage turned prized rookie Jahlil Okafor into a Twitter trending topic for the wrong reasons on Thanksgiving, but it should also encourage the Philadelphia 76ers to revise at least one aspect of their controversial, build-from-the-bottom and hope-for-lottery-luck strategy.

View photos Jahlil Okafor hasn't won since April 5 when he was with Duke. (Getty Images) More

Whether you believe the 76ers have been making a mockery of the NBA with their blatant quest for losses, or you trust the process, there is no denying the downside of the plan for the experiment's guinea pigs – leaving youngsters to fend for themselves with little guidance or direction could stunt any perceived progress.

On Thursday, TMZ Sports released footage of Okafor in an apparent altercation Wednesday night with a heckler outside of a club in Boston, where his team lost its 16th straight game to start the season. Okafor, the third pick of last June's draft, is apparently spotted shouting an obscenity ("We got money, you broke [expletives]"), shoving the man into a car and eventually punching him to the ground while holding back another man.

The reason Okafor lost his cool? According to TMZ Sports, the unidentified man yelled, "The 76ers suck!"

Okafor hasn't won a game since helping Duke win a national championship April 5. That was back when winning was a formality for Okafor and the weight of being the best, most highly scrutinized player in his class was met with a nonchalance that suggested maturity beyond his teenage years. But Okafor needed only one month of losing with an organization participating in a questionable rebuilding plan to make a mistake that he won't be able to easily escape in a social media era in which errors caught on cell phone cameras get played out in endless loops.

The 76ers' last win occured before Okafor's – March 25 – as they dropped their final 10 games last season and are attempting to avoid an NBA record for consecutive defeats with 27 Friday in Houston. If Philadelphia keeps losing through Saturday in Memphis, it will then have a chance to set a new mark with 19 consecutive losses to start a season Tuesday at home against the Los Angeles Lakers. Okafor is having an otherwise fine rookie campaign, leading all first-year players with 18.4 points per game while grabbing a respectable 8.1 rebounds. But the failures of the mess surrounding Okafor prompted a Duke fan to create a #SaveJahlil video that went viral this week. The video showed several black-and-white lowlights of the 76ers' ineptitude with depressing Sarah McLachlan music playing in the background. In the last scene, a frustrated Okafor waddled down a hallway and leaned against a wall, seemingly unable to handle all of the losing.

While the #SaveJahlil video could elicit laughter or sadness, depending on your vantage point, the episode captured on TMZ is much more troubling – and not just for Okafor, still three weeks shy of his 20th birthday.

View photos Okafor likely now has more problems than the 76ers' losing streak. (Getty Images) More

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