2014-15 NBA Season Preview: Nerlens Noel

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There was almost a chance in 2012 that Nerlens Noel would choose to play for my local Division 1A college basketball program. It was an unlikely rumor at the time that, in retrospect, would have resulted in lost scholarships or vacated wins had it all actually come together, but the very thought of Noel and his flat-top blocking shots for the Providence College Friars almost had Chris and I scrambling to split season tickets. Alas, Ryan Gomes’s place as the “Greatest Friar of the Last 50 Years” was safe, as Noel committed to the reigning-NCAA champion University of Kentucky Wildcats instead, but he could have single-handedly changed the direction of a young and rebuilding men’s basketball program at PC, had he chosen to. Although his sole season with Kentucky was cut short by an ACL tear, Nerlens Noel now has the opportunity to change the direction of a young and rebuilding professional basketball franchise when he makes his NBA debut with the Philadelphia 76ers.

Noel played 24 games at Kentucky, averaging 10.5 points on 59% shooting, with 9.5 rebounds, 1.6 assists, 2.1 steals, and 4.4 blocks in 32 minutes per game, before tearing the ACL in his left knee on February 12, 2013 in a game at the University of Florida. Considered the first overall pick for much of the season and in the weeks leading up to the NBA Draft, late rumors of growth plate damage caused him to fall to the sixth pick, where the New Orleans Hornets drafted him to trade to Philadelphia (along with a 2014 first rounder) for point guard Jrue Holliday. Noel went from a near-lock to be a Cleveland Cavalier at #1 to slipping to #6 to the rebuilding 76ers, losing $10 million over the first four years of his rookie contract in the draft night drop.

Philadelphia, under new general manager Sam Hinkie, made the Holliday trade in an effort to rebuild the roster after the Doug Collins/Tony DiLeo era collapsed, following the Andre Iguodala/Nikola Vucevic/Moe Harkless for Andrew Bynum three-way trade in the summer of 2012. Hinkie, an advanced analytics advocate who worked for the San Francisco 49ers and Houston Texans in the NFL before coming up in the NBA with the Houston Rockets and Daryl Morey, proceeded to undertake maybe the most ambitious and obvious rebuild in NBA history; trading his 22-year old All-Star point guard for Noel and a future first round pick, entering 2013-14 under the league-mandated salary cap floor ($52.8 million, or 90% of the salary cap), trading any veterans he could throughout the season (Evan Turner and Spencer Hawes), and ultimately benching Noel for the entire season as he rehabbed his knee.

The 76ers won 19 games in 2013-14, the second-worst record in the league behind the Milwaukee Bucks, and selected another injured center with a defensive reputation in Joel Embiid with the third pick in the 2014 Draft. Embiid will enter the season rehabbing from surgery on a stress fracture in the navicular bone in his foot, which was conducted in June and carries a four to six-month rehab. He also battled a back injury in March that kept him out of the Big 12 and NCAA Tournaments and, based on Hinkie’s conservative track record with Noel’s recovery from the ACL tear in February of that year, Embiid sitting out the entire season is a real possibility.

With the tenth pick, from New Orleans in the Holliday trade, Hinkie traded down two spots and picked up a 2017 first round pick from the Orlando Magic (which they originally owned and traded away in the Iguodala/Bynum trade). He selected forward Dario Saric, a Croatian prospect who signed a three-year contract this summer with Anadolu Efes in the Euroleague, with an NBA-opt out after the second year. I wrote him up in our Mock Draft Project but the TL;DR version is that Saric is a skilled and agile power forward who can handle the ball and stretch the floor pretty well for a big but is still raw and skinny. He’ll help the 76ers in three years, as Nerlens Noel and Michael Carter-Williams enter their extension-eligible seasons in Year Four.

Sam Hinkie sat free agency out for the second straight summer, adding talent through the draft, with two first round picks and five seconds (only Embiid and second-rounders Jerami Grant and K.J. McDaniels will be in training camp), and trading Thaddeus Young for Luc Richard Mbah a Moute and Alexey Shved in the three-way Kevin Love deal. Considering the Developmental League-quality of talent that ended the 2013-14 season with the team (players like Lorenzo Brown, Dewayne Dedmon, and James Nunally all played nine or more games with the ‘6ers last season) any talent influx was needed, but it’s never a good sign when Pierre Jackson’s gruesome Summer League injury is a major loss.

Outside of a couple of veterans like Shved, Mbah a Moute, and Jason Richardson, who sat out last season after knee surgery, the roster is basically free for Noel and reigning-Rookie of the Year Michael Carter-Williams to play as many minutes and get up as many shots as they are physically able. Carter-Williams, the #11 pick in last year’s draft, played 70 games and averaged 16.7 PPG, 6.2 RPG, 6.3 APG, 1.9 steals and 3.5 turnovers per game on 40.5% from the field and 26.4% on 3-pointers. He had moments, especially early in the season, where he was adept at running head coach Brett Brown’s wide-open, fast-break offense, dropping a 22/7/12/9 steals in his first game of the season, a victory at home against the champion-Miami Heat. His best months were over the six games he played in December, where he averaged 19.3 points with 8.2 assists per game on 44.9%, and in the eight games to end the season in April, with 17.6 points on 52.5% and 42.8% from 3.

MCW shot chart, courtesy of www.nyloncalculus.com

Over the other four months of his NBA season, however, he shot under 40% from the field and under 31% from 3. His DraftExpress profile mentions his mediocre shooting numbers and turnover issues going back to his two seasons at Syracuse, which have followed him to the pro level. Also addressed are his skills at pushing the tempo and finishing in transition, where he uses his athleticism and size (6’6”, 184 lbs.) to get to the rim or find teammates.

Perhaps the one thing the 76ers did well, and did often, under Brett Brown in his first season as a head coach was run, finishing first in pace as a team and yet last in offensive rating. Thaddeus Young said last year that the 76ers “run the completely same offense” as the San Antonio Spurs, which may be true but the 76ers definitely ran it faster, as the Spurs finished 12^th in pace on their way to the championship. Playing quicker is a tenet of Brown’s philosophy but it could also be a coaching tactic to maximize the limited talent on the roster, by instituting a run-and-gun strategy over a more complex offensive system, that requires discipline (and disciplined players) to run.

With Nerlens Noel healthy and ready to start the 2014-15 season, defense will be more of an emphasis in training camp for the young Philadelphia team. He profiles as a strong defender at the NBA level, with quick hands and innate instincts in challenging shots and playing the passing lanes. Standing nearly seven foot (plus high-top) with a 7’3.75” wingspan and 9’2” standing reach, he has explosive athleticism and runs like a guard. His comparisons, athletically and stylistically, are to his predecessor at Kentucky, Anthony Davis, which isn’t completely asinine. He’s nowhere near as polished, especially given the amount of time he’s missed on the court, but offers Unibrow-ian leaping ability and defensive versatility. Both players are in the Tyson Chandler-mold of agile, athletic bigs who can protect the rim, contest on the perimeter, or blitz on pick-and-rolls.

There will be plenty of weak-side shot blocking opportunities available, considering the roster and pace of play. Playing so up-tempo on offense invariably leads to quicker shots or long rebounds that turn into fast breaks on the other end, and Noel can expect to be on the wrong side of a few 2- or 3-on-1 fast breaks this season. Outside of Mbah a Moute, who’s a bit slow guarding the perimeter but is a physical and willing defender, and possibly MCW, the roster lacks decent options at that end and Brown will be integrating the “funnel drives into Nerlens” concept into any defensive sets he institutes this season. Noel will be challenged early and often at the rim, especially given his reputation as a shot blocker, and avoiding early fouls and staying on the court will be the biggest key to his development.

Nerlens Noel simply needs NBA minutes. Thanks to the team’s decision to keep him out of the entire first season, his only exposure to the speed of the league has thus far consisted of two summer league games (in the Orlando league, ugh) and any practices he was allowed into last year (which would still be against that D-League-level roster they fielded down the stretch…) Those two games provided some encouraging signs, despite the insanely small sample size and the level of competition among bigs in the league. Athletically, he looked similar to his pre-injury form, showing familiar burst off of his first step and quick hops around the rim. He didn’t seem at all hampered while running the floor or moving laterally in Orlando, and his athleticism stood out relative to his peers in the two games.

His offensive game remains raw and especially dependent upon getting NBA minutes to develop. He’ll probably never be a low post big man with advanced moves and a face-up game but he has shown some soft touch on drives and lefty jump hooks around the basket. Ideally, Noel could be a DeAndre Jordan or Tyson Chandler-type of big, with a low usage rate who can score by filling the lane as the roll-man on P&R’s and hanging around the rim for lobs and offensive rebound put-backs.

Pick-and-rolls featuring MCW and Noel should be the catalyst for almost every 76er set this season, which plays to Noel’s strengths but could also put him at risk for cheap fouls and result in early foul trouble. A legitimate dive-man off the P&R that defenses have to rotate to cover can only open up the floor for shooters and give Carter-Williams more options. The alley-oops at the rim will be there if MCW can turn the corner and draw the help defender, but without shooting or playmaking from the wing the offense will still be a bottom-five unit, albeit one with another year in Brett Brown’s system and another piece added to the foundation.

As with Michael Carter-Williams, Noel should excel in the fast-break tempo. He runs hard and is already one of the quickest centers in the league, and could get a bucket or two per game purely on rim-runs. His lack of development time has limited his moves in the post but beating his man up the court could get him cross-switches on smaller defenders and make it a little easier on post-looks. Look for Brown to get him involved with quick post-ups or flashes across the paint, where he can turn over his shoulder and drop-step or jump-hook. A couple of buckets in summer league came off of catch-and-drives from the high post, where he was able to finish some and-ones with the soft touch. He’ll be able to use his quickness to take other bigs off the dribble at the pro level and possibly get to the free throw line, where he needs to improve on the 52.9% he shot at Kentucky. A serviceable jump shot is at least a few years away.

The lack of help on the roster could impede some of that development process. Noel is still a raw prospect, with definite strengths and weaknesses as a basketball player, but even his strengths will be tested in his rookie season. He’ll have to adapt to the speed of the league and of his own offense, while acting as the primary rim-protector and defensive presence on a young team that ranked 26^th in defensive rating (points surrendered per 100 possessions) last year. His offensive game will be a steady work in progress until he’s able to focus on refining specific skills like post footwork or adding aspects, like a face-up jumper, to his arsenal.

Much like Anthony Davis’s early NBA career, look for his defensive impact to register more in the moment than with sustained team success, as the learning curve for big men defenders is quite high and avoiding foul trouble sometimes takes years. What separates Nerlens Noel and his defensive abilities from former athletic shot-blockers like Stromile Swift and Tyrus Thomas are truly his instincts, intelligence, and huge hands, which he uses to anticipate to block shots but also to disrupt passing lanes and force opponents into difficult angles.

He’ll have every opportunity in Philadelphia, much as Michael Carter-Williams was given last season, to soak up minutes and work on his game at the pro level. Another 76er Rookie of the Year award is a possibility, if Noel comes right in and picks up the speed and defensive assignments of the pro game and the team again wins a couple of unlikely games early in the season. More likely, though, is that he starts off the year on a limited-minutes rotation due to foul issues and struggles initially to adapt to the NBA speed, but shakes off the rust and gains confidence as the season advances. He’ll show up in the highlight packages and will wrack up some gaudy blocked shots and steals numbers once he gets his timing, but Noel will get dunked on a bunch this season, especially without another serviceable big man on the roster to help on defense.

It will be a learning experience on the fly for Nerlens Noel but all he needs to showcase and develop his basketball abilities are consistent, foul-free minutes and to avoid further injury. His opportunity to lead and impact this young Philadelphia franchise finally begins this season.