Nerlens Noel: Worth the Risk?

[Douglar]

76ers head coach says he doubts Nerlens sees the court this season

I don't see this as tanking. Philly doesn't need to hold the kid out to be awful, and they could keep teasing fans with the possibility of him coming back to sell tickets. Hard for me to take that quote any other way than that his knee is pretty roughed up.

There were some rumors that his knee injury was worse than most suspected. Might have been more than just rumors.





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[Cashius X]

I don't see this as tanking. Philly doesn't need to hold the kid out to be awful, and they could keep teasing fans with the possibility of him coming back to sell tickets. Hard for me to take that quote any other way than that his knee is pretty roughed up.

There were some rumors that his knee injury was worse than most suspected. Might have been more than just rumors.

Probably was more than just rumors seeing as how far he dropped on draft day. He had surgery in March and recovery was supposed to be 6-8 months, but it's better to be safe than sorry with a player who hasn't even begun his NBA career.

 

[Jack Brickman]

I don't see this as tanking. Philly doesn't need to hold the kid out to be awful, and they could keep teasing fans with the possibility of him coming back to sell tickets. Hard for me to take that quote any other way than that his knee is pretty roughed up.

There were some rumors that his knee injury was worse than most suspected. Might have been more than just rumors.

After the Bynum debacle I doubt the Sixers will tease the fans with Noel's return.

 

[Rich]

It's a dream scenario for them.

 

[Stark]

Oden 2.0.

 

[Pyro]

Can't believe some people wanted this kid. The nerve.



Please don't pull any quotes where I said we should draft him. They won't exist after 11:30PM tonight.

 

[getBUCKED]

An ACL tear is not comparable to Oden's injuries (or Bynum's) and this is ideal for Philly. Wiggins & Noel could be a lethal combination in the NBA.

 

[MattyFos.]

An ACL tear is not comparable to Oden's injuries (or Bynum's) and this is ideal for Philly. Wiggins & Noel could be a lethal combination in the NBA.

Being on the bench for 20 months is very ideal for Philly.

 

[Cavatt]

I don't like the way he lands on his legs. I think there is a lot of potential for them being messed up repeatedly by the way he moves. I might be wrong, but if you watch him come down from blocks straight into a crouch, it looks like he is putting a lot of pressure on his knees laterally.

 

[mAo_mAo]

An ACL tear is not comparable to Oden's injuries (or Bynum's) and this is ideal for Philly. Wiggins & Noel could be a lethal combination in the NBA.

I think there is more than an ACL injury with Nerlens. Maybe the reports that came out that he was not able to heal properly on his previous injury that resulted to some sort of misalignment of his legs is true.

 

[Kbiz]

Was at the game last night...Noel hardly interacted with his teammates. He was firmly planted on the end of the bench. At one point, walking back to the sidelines after half-time, a fan tried to get a picture with him and he rudely brushed them aside. He also had a noticeable limp to his walk.

Say what you want about Bennett's conditioning, he will be in "game shape" well before Noel even sniffs the court. With the way Thompson continues to develop, i would say that his ceiling is probably higher than Noel's is. It would've been such a huge mistake to take him overall at #1.

 

[Binkster]

Noel's issues with his knee go far beyond his conditioning and the probability of returning to his 100% playing form...

He is missing crucial, crucial development time with coaches and teammates. For a player so limited offensively in his young career, he needs to hit the ground running from day one to amend bad habits and to develop technique among other things. Couple that with the fact that there will be zero continuity with teammates when he does return to the floor....

All indications are that he is a driven young man and a hard worker. But, the odds are stacked significantly against him right now, IMO.

 

[faughta0509]

Say what you want about Bennett's conditioning, he will be in "game shape" well before Noel even sniffs the court. With the way Thompson continues to develop, i would say that his ceiling is probably higher than Noel's is. It would've been such a huge mistake to take him overall at #1.

No. Noel's ceiling remains very high; it just looks increasingly unlikely that he approaches it. Tristan on the other hand looks like he will be making more and more of his God given abilities. I'll give you that Tristan may be the better basketball player (I'm a big TT fan by the way), but if things go right for Noel, he could be scary good on defense. The odds of those things all going right (who knows what funk exists in the knees, whether he can put on weight while maintaining his speed and quickness, and whether he can handle himself as a professional in developing his game) were low enough he didn't justify the #1 pick. I've gotten over it, and I'm excited about Bennett. Right now, I think Grant made the right call. We'll see in time.

EDIT: I just watched some of TT's jumpers from last night in the Cavs Talk forum. That was awesome.

 

[Kbiz]

Agreed, only time will tell. I hope, with Mike Brown's defensive philosophy, that this team can get up in the upper half of the defensive teams in the league. Noel could potentially be a defensive force in the league but with Brown's "team-defense" approach, he becomes less valuable to us.

I have liked what i have seen from Bennett in regards to defense. It's becoming ever apparent that he was taught no defensive fundamentals at UNLV but if you compare his first pre-season game to his last, he has definitely turned a corner. At one point last night, one of the philly guards (Wroten, maybe?) tried to drive on Bennett and ran into him, looking like he had just run into a brick wall, no foul called.

I do believe Bennett was the better pick because it's obvious Noel's offensive game is extremely limited. I truly believe it is much harder to develop an offensive game then to learn how to play stout, team-oriented defense. If Brown can turn Bennett into just an "above-average" defender, i'd say that we picked the right person in this draft.

 

[Cavatt]

Tt is more likely to guard centers at this point