National Basketball Association

Nerlens Noel has a future

Published Jun. 30, 2017 6:28 p.m. ET

foxsports

This summer has been a hamster wheel of absurd trade rumors for Nerlens Noel. A quick Google News search for “Nerlens Noel trade” yesterday had him headed to the Cleveland Cavaliers, Houston Rockets, Boston Celtics, Sacramento Kings, and the Los Angeles Lakers. With a little patience, you could probably dig up a rumor that sends him to any of the other 24 NBA franchises. The point being, if we are to believe the internet then Nerlens Noel is very available.

Noel is available for two reasons — he appeared to struggle mightily next to Jahlil Okafor last season and the Philadelphia 76ers frontcourt has suddenly become absurdly crowded. Okafor will be lumbering back to sop up center minutes behind the finally healthy Joel Embiid. This year’s No. 1 overall pick, Ben Simmons, may be a point guard in style but he’s likely going to be doing his point-guarding from the power forward position. Dario Saric will be vying for those minutes as well and we haven’t even gotten to Philadelphia’s wings — Robert Covington and Jerami Grant — who may be at their best as small-ball fours.

All of those frontcourt players (except maybe Simmons) are theoretically available. The reason Noel’s name surfaces most often in the relentless churn of the rumor mill is that he is, in the sense of concrete accomplishment, the most appealing of the bunch.

Noel is one of just five players to post a steal percentage greater than 2.0 and a block percentage greater than 4.0 across the first 4,000 minutes of his NBA career. The other four players on that list are David Robinson, Hakeem Olajuwon, Andrei Kirilenko, and Anthony Davis. This kind of analysis — cherry-picking statistical benchmarks to build an eye-popping list of comparables — can be lazily done. But here it is not to say that Noel is headed for the Hall of Fame, just that he now has a demonstrated 4,000 minute track record of being an exceptionally unique defender.

By the rim protection metrics at Nylon Calculus, Noel also rated out as one of the better interior defenders in the league last season — about the same as Karl-Anthony Towns. Not to put too fine a point on it, but Noel would appear to be the ideal defensive prospect. He is long and strong enough to hold his own in the paint, nimble enough to defend in space. He has shown that he can be incredibly disruptive in ending opponents’ possessions with steals or blocks.