At a certain level, you have to feel for Nerlens Noel. He was drafted three years ago, and in the two seasons he’s played, he’s been demonstrably the best player on the Sixers, an unqualified success of a pick from Sam Hinkie thanks to his elite defense. But Hinkie’s devotion to asset collection at the expense of roster construction means that for all of Noel’s work, he’s part of a three-center rotation of lottery picks with no easy solution. Noel is unhappy, and he’s now airing his grievances publicly.
“I think it’s just silly . . . this situation that we are in now with three starting centers,” Noel said on the eve of the Sixers’ media day. “With the departure of [former general manager and president] Sam Hinkie, I would have figured that management would be able to get something done this summer.”
The Sixers declined to comment on the matter.
“I think something needs to happen,” Noel said.
Noel clarified that he’s not specifically asking to be traded, nor is he singling out that fellow centers Jahlil Okafor and Joel Embiid need to go — just that somebody should probably be traded to make room for the other two. It’s hard to argue with his reasoning, but it is significant that he felt the need to go on record with the sentiment. Even before this announcement, Noel has been keeping the team at arm’s length this offseason, according sources, Liberty Ballers reports that “members of the organization have grown frustrated with his behavior.”
Though Embiid has the potential to be a two-way star, Noel’s defense is more valuable than Okafor’s offense, which means two things: One, that the Sixers would probably like to hold onto him more than Okafor, and two, other teams would probably like to have him more than Okafor. Trades have been rumored since partway through last season for both players, but the Sixers have never pulled the trigger. Noel’s public dissatisfaction may have hurt his value on the market, making matters more complicated, but we’d still be shocked if all three centers were still in Philadelphia at season’s end.
UPDATE: Here’s what Philadelphia’s new GM thinks about the positional overlap Noel mentioned:
Bryan Colangelo on #sixers logjam: "These are all young players not in a position to dictate circumstances."
— Derek Bodner (@DerekBodnerNBA) September 26, 2016
