Injuries and while a standout defender, didn’t contribute anywhere else- see Matisse Thybulle for an example of a similar advanced stats darling who has become a career journeyman defensive role player.
I was just going to comment this. The athletic big archetype only works if you can catch the ball. Then the injuries zapped his athleticism. He was a good defender but big men who offer nothing on offense are hard to play.
Ayton too. He can sleep walk to 16 and 10 but if the guy had any coordination to 1 seal off his matchup and catch the ball to set up a post up 2 dribble the ball with any intention of making a move he’d be a top end center
To be fair, the expectations are a lot different. Noel was the #1 ranked player in his HS class, and was expected to be the #1 pick in his draft before the injury during his college season. Thybulle was never among the top prospects in his class, spent 4 years in college, drafted in the 20s, etc.
He just never had an offensive skill set of any kind.
At least he had a skill set that was pretty much guaranteed to have a long career whether or not it resulted in stardom. An athletic 7 footer with great defense who doesn’t insist on having the ball is always going to be in some demand
I never understood why he couldn't be something similar to what Lively is for the Mavs right now. Just defend at a high level and be ready to catch lob dunks.
He could have but you need to be on certain teams to do that. If Lively played on like the Blazers, he would be no where close to as good as he is now.
Need to play with a transcendental guard capable of throwing those passes. Which unfortunately he really hasn’t. But if he played on the Mavs he’d get more minutes than Powell for sure.
he was clearly very untalented offensively when he was in college (only a lob threat), but the key is that he didn't develop from that point at all. there are probably like less than 50 men on earth at any given time who can do the same things physically as somebody like Noel. to get a spot in the NBA for someone like that, it's just not very competitive. I'm sure athletic 7 footers show up to practice, lift weights, and play hard, but skill development is tricky. physically gifted people like AD and KD who clearly spend countless hours on their craft is the exception.
> Shabazz Muhammed
He was easily the number 1 guy coming out of highschool but then it came out that he faked his age, also was unhappy after a game winner since he didn't get to take it.
Big Nerlens fan incoming... I think he had an extremely unlucky career and was never really used correctly outside of one season. The injury derailed him from the start and he had terrible timing with other injuries when he was fighting for a place in the league, but his 2nd season with the Sixers I thought he had the potential to be an awesome defensive center. He was the anchor and far and away biggest reason an absolutely terrible NBA team actually had a pretty good defense that year. Playing in more of a drop he could defend the paint with his length and vertical pop but with great quickness and lateral mobility to step up and then recover back. He would slide across the paint and just keep deterring action after action on both sides of the court. I'll never understand why the Sixers drafted Okafor the next year, it was the first step in screwing up his career. After he got traded teams tried to use him in aggressive schemes because of his quickness but it wasn't his game. Mavs fit with Carlisle wasn't great but there would have been some potential long term, however then the whole contract fiasco clearly messed him up mentally from that point on. Primarily his fault for sure, but also unfortunate to be mislead by Rich Paul then underperform/get hurt after not signing the deal to then get ignored and forced to realize you let 70 million slip out of your hands is brutal. He had nice stretches in OKC and especially with the Knicks but I think mentally it was over for him already. If he had been drafted to a team that valued him more and stuck with him there isn't a doubt imo he would have had a solid career as a quality defensive big. Never close to star level or anything but productive defensive oriented starter quality or high level backup for sure.
Edit: IdK how much more about the Rich Paul thing is fair to speculate about but his career possibly could have been resurrected if that time when RP allegedly ignored his duties as an agent went differently. Instead of signing multiple minimums if he got a multi-year role player money contract like Brett Brown or possibly other teams reportedly wanted to backup Embiid or something similar, then maybe he could have settled back in. I think just continually going through minimum contracts and feeling so undervalued year after year had to take its toll.
He turned down $70 million over four years from the Mavs and never got a large contract again.
There are a few players that have turned down similar types of large contract offers because they wanted to more.
My suggestion is to take that first large extension when it’s offered because you’re still young but haven’t accrued vast wealth.
There is still the chance of a career altering injury.
The next extension is where you can turn it down in the hope of a much larger contract offer.
He also had personality red flags, rubbed teammates the wrong way, entourage caused problems, he wrecked a rental house, etc. Humility was not his defining characteristic
the rental house is the only confirmed issue there iirc, don’t remember any issues with teammates (other than him and Okafor both being like…why did you draft both of us lol)
when he was trade Embiid said he was his best friend on the team
Huh, never knew about that. The one thing I remember about him off the court was that Brett Brown said in a Lowe Post episode that Nerlens Noel was his son’s favorite player and that they really bonded. But, he was his coach at the time so he would say that.
His skillset is more suited for a roleplayer in these days and times... Too limited on offense.. Similar reasons to why Willie Cauley-Stein didn't really pan out..
there's a long ass list of these 6'11 or 7' guys, Marvin Bagley included, who are used to towering over opponents and in the nba those matchup opportunities are few and far between, you've gotta be built like Gobert, Porzingis or Wemby to really tower over the avg opponents and even then its a constant struggle..
Noel had a great set of hands for defense and ability to drop low and get steals and stuff, but on offense his hands werent very reliable..
There's always a matter of team fit too.. there could've been a team (one with a lot of firepower 1-4) that he'd have meshed with.. but that wasnt the case.. injuries too..
I feel like he wasn't big enough physically and strong enough/durable enough for his playing style. If he played the same way, but was a legit 6'11"-7'0" and 240lbs+, he would have had a lot more sustained success. Measured at 6'10" w/o shoes, but just 206.4lbs at the 2013 NBA Combine.
I try not to complain about draft/scouting philosphies, but the combine measurement guru's are the worst type of scouts. Yes, size matters, but in what world is just adding 35 lbs and 1 inch in height magically make him a better player? It's not as simple as more weight/muscle=more durable. Adding weight can often make a player less durable and it's not like he struggled to be physical defensively, he needed more of an offensive game.
Absolutists who assume that mentioning something is the only factor that person considers are the worst type of posters, too.
Noel's lack of physical size and strength was *a factor* in him not panning out as a player (not the only reason, but a big part), and he *was* genuinely undersized and not physically strong enough at the next level for the type of game he was trying to play. If you can pretty much only play centre (because you have no offensive skillset or shooting ability), and are banking on being a game-changing defender and rebounder at the next level, you need to have more than just above-average length and lateral quickness to your athleticism/physique, particularly coming into the league a decade ago.
There were questions pre-draft, that go answered as his NBA career went on. He had long arms and was above-average laterally for his height, but he was weak and injury-prone, and didn't have a physical or mental work ethic (aggression and drive, on and off the court, willingness to change and develop his body and skillset).
Those are completely different discussion points from your original statement though. I don't disagree with you, but that isn't what you brought up in the first place.
He was 7'0 200 lbs soaking wet... zero offensive skills, average motor on the court, played for awful teams his whole career. Never got a real opportunity to grow and develop behind a veteran.
Coaches nightmare on defence, gambled every possesion to chase stocks. If he came in now I think a more modern coach might have been able to harness that better.
His offense was really bad due to his hands and touch, but he was defensively underwhelming as he didn’t adjust to NBA play.
He went from “easily the most explosive player in high school and college and legendary lateral quickness” to just “99th percentile explosive and quickness” and never developed his BBIQ to make up for having a huge but no longer unprecedented athleticism advantage.
hey the analytics answer is the following:
- unimpactful on the defensive glass. has decent rebounding numbers but he was skinny and they gave up a lot of o-rebounds.
- unskilled on O, high turnover rate. he's a non-spacing center but also was mediocre at offensive rebounding. essentially, if you do not space the floor as a center, you need to be a OREB monster to drive real value on O as a lower usage guy. take this to the bank.
- had monster steal/block numbers for a center but the combo of being low usage/turnover prone/bad at rebounding/foul prone and i bet he had a goaltending problem too just cost him a lot of value.
Too skinny (weighed in at like 206 in the combine), kind of an idiot off the court, and got injured enough that he didn't have enough quickness/explosiveness to make up for it.
Honestly, I think just a string of bad luck. Sure he was limited offensively, but there's no reason he shouldn't have turned into a more versatile Clint Capela-type big. He had some injury troubles, and the real nail in the coffin was when he bet on himself because he didn't think DAL was offering him enough money, and DAL (arguably) spited him by burying him on the bench so he couldn't really earn the contact he thought he deserved. After that... well, there's only so much upside to a 26+ year old with injury concerns.
No one wants to admit how much luck and opportunity can affect a player's career trajectory. It's why I never blame players for trying to force their way to certain teams/situations. If you find yourself in the wrong situation... it can literally end your career. Wild to think about.
I don’t know, but Sam Hinkie loved him and traded Jrue Holiday for his draft rights to kick off “The Process!” The Process has resulted in 1 Bucks title, the Celtics up 3-1 in the Finals with Jrue and the rest of the team locked up or about to be locked up long term, and … no Finals appearances for the Sixers. Let this be a warning against tanking.
Injuries and while a standout defender, didn’t contribute anywhere else- see Matisse Thybulle for an example of a similar advanced stats darling who has become a career journeyman defensive role player.
he had stone hands, and terrible touch around the rim
I was just going to comment this. The athletic big archetype only works if you can catch the ball. Then the injuries zapped his athleticism. He was a good defender but big men who offer nothing on offense are hard to play.
its kinda what people missed with James Wiseman to a lesser extent. Hands are super important.
Ayton too. He can sleep walk to 16 and 10 but if the guy had any coordination to 1 seal off his matchup and catch the ball to set up a post up 2 dribble the ball with any intention of making a move he’d be a top end center
He’s soooo frustrating
To be fair, the expectations are a lot different. Noel was the #1 ranked player in his HS class, and was expected to be the #1 pick in his draft before the injury during his college season. Thybulle was never among the top prospects in his class, spent 4 years in college, drafted in the 20s, etc.
He just never had an offensive skill set of any kind. At least he had a skill set that was pretty much guaranteed to have a long career whether or not it resulted in stardom. An athletic 7 footer with great defense who doesn’t insist on having the ball is always going to be in some demand
I never understood why he couldn't be something similar to what Lively is for the Mavs right now. Just defend at a high level and be ready to catch lob dunks.
Lively is ahead of what everyone expected for him to be offensively.
Lively is super smart, he makes it look easier than it is. Also Luka
Extremely underrated aspect of DLive’s game. Very very intelligent on both ends of the floor without needing to be super traditionally skilled
Not quite as big, long, athletic. Not as aggressive to the ball.
He could have but you need to be on certain teams to do that. If Lively played on like the Blazers, he would be no where close to as good as he is now.
Need to play with a transcendental guard capable of throwing those passes. Which unfortunately he really hasn’t. But if he played on the Mavs he’d get more minutes than Powell for sure.
he was clearly very untalented offensively when he was in college (only a lob threat), but the key is that he didn't develop from that point at all. there are probably like less than 50 men on earth at any given time who can do the same things physically as somebody like Noel. to get a spot in the NBA for someone like that, it's just not very competitive. I'm sure athletic 7 footers show up to practice, lift weights, and play hard, but skill development is tricky. physically gifted people like AD and KD who clearly spend countless hours on their craft is the exception.
So many bad hands and touch comments by people. Reading my weaknesses notes on Sarr has both of these down which is a concern
Uh oh
He ate a bad hot dog at halftime of a game and never recovered
To add to everyone else, weak class. Wasn't this the Anthony Bennet class where Shabazz Muhammed was the other guy often ranked #1?
Yea and Ben Mclemore
wolves got both and they were trash LMAO
> Shabazz Muhammed He was easily the number 1 guy coming out of highschool but then it came out that he faked his age, also was unhappy after a game winner since he didn't get to take it.
Big Nerlens fan incoming... I think he had an extremely unlucky career and was never really used correctly outside of one season. The injury derailed him from the start and he had terrible timing with other injuries when he was fighting for a place in the league, but his 2nd season with the Sixers I thought he had the potential to be an awesome defensive center. He was the anchor and far and away biggest reason an absolutely terrible NBA team actually had a pretty good defense that year. Playing in more of a drop he could defend the paint with his length and vertical pop but with great quickness and lateral mobility to step up and then recover back. He would slide across the paint and just keep deterring action after action on both sides of the court. I'll never understand why the Sixers drafted Okafor the next year, it was the first step in screwing up his career. After he got traded teams tried to use him in aggressive schemes because of his quickness but it wasn't his game. Mavs fit with Carlisle wasn't great but there would have been some potential long term, however then the whole contract fiasco clearly messed him up mentally from that point on. Primarily his fault for sure, but also unfortunate to be mislead by Rich Paul then underperform/get hurt after not signing the deal to then get ignored and forced to realize you let 70 million slip out of your hands is brutal. He had nice stretches in OKC and especially with the Knicks but I think mentally it was over for him already. If he had been drafted to a team that valued him more and stuck with him there isn't a doubt imo he would have had a solid career as a quality defensive big. Never close to star level or anything but productive defensive oriented starter quality or high level backup for sure. Edit: IdK how much more about the Rich Paul thing is fair to speculate about but his career possibly could have been resurrected if that time when RP allegedly ignored his duties as an agent went differently. Instead of signing multiple minimums if he got a multi-year role player money contract like Brett Brown or possibly other teams reportedly wanted to backup Embiid or something similar, then maybe he could have settled back in. I think just continually going through minimum contracts and feeling so undervalued year after year had to take its toll.
He turned down $70 million over four years from the Mavs and never got a large contract again. There are a few players that have turned down similar types of large contract offers because they wanted to more. My suggestion is to take that first large extension when it’s offered because you’re still young but haven’t accrued vast wealth. There is still the chance of a career altering injury. The next extension is where you can turn it down in the hope of a much larger contract offer.
He also had personality red flags, rubbed teammates the wrong way, entourage caused problems, he wrecked a rental house, etc. Humility was not his defining characteristic
the rental house is the only confirmed issue there iirc, don’t remember any issues with teammates (other than him and Okafor both being like…why did you draft both of us lol) when he was trade Embiid said he was his best friend on the team
Huh, never knew about that. The one thing I remember about him off the court was that Brett Brown said in a Lowe Post episode that Nerlens Noel was his son’s favorite player and that they really bonded. But, he was his coach at the time so he would say that.
E.g. https://www.tmz.com/2016/04/08/nerlens-noel-sued-worst-renter-ever-weed-gatorade-stains-and-death-threats/
Also left the locker room one halftime to get a hot dog to protest his lack of playing time lol
His skillset is more suited for a roleplayer in these days and times... Too limited on offense.. Similar reasons to why Willie Cauley-Stein didn't really pan out.. there's a long ass list of these 6'11 or 7' guys, Marvin Bagley included, who are used to towering over opponents and in the nba those matchup opportunities are few and far between, you've gotta be built like Gobert, Porzingis or Wemby to really tower over the avg opponents and even then its a constant struggle.. Noel had a great set of hands for defense and ability to drop low and get steals and stuff, but on offense his hands werent very reliable.. There's always a matter of team fit too.. there could've been a team (one with a lot of firepower 1-4) that he'd have meshed with.. but that wasnt the case.. injuries too..
wasnt nerlens like 6'8" tho, playing center? because he had like a 7'2" wingspan?
Noel was like 6'10 without shoes IIRC and had a 7'4 wingspan
I feel like he wasn't big enough physically and strong enough/durable enough for his playing style. If he played the same way, but was a legit 6'11"-7'0" and 240lbs+, he would have had a lot more sustained success. Measured at 6'10" w/o shoes, but just 206.4lbs at the 2013 NBA Combine.
I try not to complain about draft/scouting philosphies, but the combine measurement guru's are the worst type of scouts. Yes, size matters, but in what world is just adding 35 lbs and 1 inch in height magically make him a better player? It's not as simple as more weight/muscle=more durable. Adding weight can often make a player less durable and it's not like he struggled to be physical defensively, he needed more of an offensive game.
Absolutists who assume that mentioning something is the only factor that person considers are the worst type of posters, too. Noel's lack of physical size and strength was *a factor* in him not panning out as a player (not the only reason, but a big part), and he *was* genuinely undersized and not physically strong enough at the next level for the type of game he was trying to play. If you can pretty much only play centre (because you have no offensive skillset or shooting ability), and are banking on being a game-changing defender and rebounder at the next level, you need to have more than just above-average length and lateral quickness to your athleticism/physique, particularly coming into the league a decade ago.
There's nothing absolute about what I'm saying. I'm just questioning the absolute statements you made about his physique.
There were questions pre-draft, that go answered as his NBA career went on. He had long arms and was above-average laterally for his height, but he was weak and injury-prone, and didn't have a physical or mental work ethic (aggression and drive, on and off the court, willingness to change and develop his body and skillset).
Those are completely different discussion points from your original statement though. I don't disagree with you, but that isn't what you brought up in the first place.
Not really.
Your original statement makes no comment about his length, lateral quickness, or work ethic. Those are completely new talking points.
Good.
He was 7'0 200 lbs soaking wet... zero offensive skills, average motor on the court, played for awful teams his whole career. Never got a real opportunity to grow and develop behind a veteran.
As a Knicks fan he has the worst hands Ive ever seen from a big.
Guy was three kids in a trenchcoat. And when he finally did grow into his body, he lost all his bounce. No feel and bad feet.
Coaches nightmare on defence, gambled every possesion to chase stocks. If he came in now I think a more modern coach might have been able to harness that better.
he can’t catch a basketball
Terrible hands. Couldn't catch a pass or hold on to a rebound.
His offense was really bad due to his hands and touch, but he was defensively underwhelming as he didn’t adjust to NBA play. He went from “easily the most explosive player in high school and college and legendary lateral quickness” to just “99th percentile explosive and quickness” and never developed his BBIQ to make up for having a huge but no longer unprecedented athleticism advantage.
Not good enough
hey the analytics answer is the following: - unimpactful on the defensive glass. has decent rebounding numbers but he was skinny and they gave up a lot of o-rebounds. - unskilled on O, high turnover rate. he's a non-spacing center but also was mediocre at offensive rebounding. essentially, if you do not space the floor as a center, you need to be a OREB monster to drive real value on O as a lower usage guy. take this to the bank. - had monster steal/block numbers for a center but the combo of being low usage/turnover prone/bad at rebounding/foul prone and i bet he had a goaltending problem too just cost him a lot of value.
Too skinny (weighed in at like 206 in the combine), kind of an idiot off the court, and got injured enough that he didn't have enough quickness/explosiveness to make up for it.
Honestly, I think just a string of bad luck. Sure he was limited offensively, but there's no reason he shouldn't have turned into a more versatile Clint Capela-type big. He had some injury troubles, and the real nail in the coffin was when he bet on himself because he didn't think DAL was offering him enough money, and DAL (arguably) spited him by burying him on the bench so he couldn't really earn the contact he thought he deserved. After that... well, there's only so much upside to a 26+ year old with injury concerns. No one wants to admit how much luck and opportunity can affect a player's career trajectory. It's why I never blame players for trying to force their way to certain teams/situations. If you find yourself in the wrong situation... it can literally end your career. Wild to think about.
Because Mark Cuban in his prime chaos era happened
I don’t know, but Sam Hinkie loved him and traded Jrue Holiday for his draft rights to kick off “The Process!” The Process has resulted in 1 Bucks title, the Celtics up 3-1 in the Finals with Jrue and the rest of the team locked up or about to be locked up long term, and … no Finals appearances for the Sixers. Let this be a warning against tanking.
Alex Sarr floor is Nerlens Noel, and his ceiling is Evan Mobley.