National Basketball Association

Why Nerlens Noel should be Rookie of the Year

Published Apr. 8, 2015 1:51 p.m. ET

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Defense wins championships. It just isn't going to get you Rookie of the Year.

Andrew Wiggins will almost certainly win the award handed out to the best first-year player. But that doesn't make him the most deserving candidate. No, that title belongs to Nerlens Noel.

First off, let's get the Wiggins praise out of the way. The first overall pick in last year's draft has been wonderful. He doesn't just have star power written all over him. He has it graffiti'd in spray paint. It's obvious for all of us to see.

His spin-move is already one of the best hold-your-breath basketball moments, especially when he does it while going right. He'll dunk on Rudy Gobert or anyone else willing to contest one of his slams. His shooting is better than most realized. He's maintained efficiency even with guys like Nikola Pekovic, Ricky Rubio, Kevin Martin and Thaddeus Young either getting hurt or traded.

The intro does actually mislead a bit, since Wiggins has already proved to be an above-average wing defender with star potential on that side of the ball. But what Noel has provided for Philadelphia is far more valuable.

There are plenty of wing-oriented stars in the NBA. Maybe few of them will end up having the careers Wiggins is bound for, but any basketball fan can rattle loads of them off the top of his head. A middle-of-the-floor, at-the-rim big man who can anchor a defense, though, brings a totally different quality to a team, one that's harder to find. And that's what the 76ers have in Noel.

With all the jokes about tanking thrown at Philadelphia general manager Sam Hinkie, the public often fails to realize how effective the Sixers' defense has been this year. Philly has 60 losses because its offense is atrocious. We're talking all-time bad, averaging a full 4.5 fewer points per 100 possessions than the 29th-ranked Knicks. Actually, they're averaging fewer points per possession than any team since the 2011-12 Bobcats, who had the worst winning percentage of all time.

But guess where Philly sits in points allowed per 100 possessions: 11th. That's right, the 76ers have an above-average defense, and only coach Brett Brown wants to acknowledge it.

There's some quality defensive personnel in the City of Brotherly Love. Robert Covington is sneakily becoming one of the best young "3-and-D" players in the league. Jerami Grant is another long, intimidating rookie on the wings. K.J. McDaniels provided loads of help until Hinkie traded him right before mid-February's deadline. But in the end, it all comes down to Noel.

The Sixers defense is 3.8 points per 100 possessions better with its rookie center on the floor. It's not just about the blocked shots, either.

NBA players usually respond to reputation before they do to quality. If someone has a rep of being a shooter, defenders will usually close out hard on him, even if he no longer sinks jumpers at a high percentage. The same goes for defense. If offensive players believe a center is a shot blocker, they'll be more wary of challenging him at the rim. But it usually takes a little while to build up that reputation. It's not often we see a rookie impact a game on that sort of level. Yet, it's happening with Noel.

Opposing offenses aren't actually driving at him as much, and when they do, they're not as effective. Rim attackers are shooting almost three percentage points worse in the restricted area with the rookie on the floor.

His impact becomes even more important when you consider that Philly, as an organization, is more obsessed with forcing offenses into midrange shots than is your average team, which should come as no surprise considering Hinkie was once an assistant for Rockets general manager Daryl Morey, a man whose name is so synonymous with the NBA's statistical wave that people have commonly started to refer to taking tons of threes and shots at the rim as "Moreyball."

Noel is prepared to take away most of what a modern NBA offense wants to do, including the pick-and-roll. He's quickly understood the concept of staying back on ball-handlers and trying to goad them into impotent, midrange attempts. Meanwhile, he's athletic enough that he can man a guard coming around a ball screen while still maintaining the quickness to recover onto a baseline cutter.

The perfect example came in last week's game against the Wizards. John Wall thought he had one of the fanciest assists of the NBA season. Noel didn't agree.

The lateral quickness to recover onto Otto Porter paired with the awareness to find the cutter, the leaping ability to contest the shot and the timing to make the block is unique to only a few NBA players. Noel is one of them.

Actually, opposing scorers are shooting nine percentage points worse when Noel contests their shots within six feet of the hoop. If that's not a rim-protector, then rim-protectors don't exist.

Noel is forcing turnovers, too. If he keeps up his averages for the final four games of the year, his 2014-15 will be only the 20th season in history to boast 1.9 blocks and 1.8 steals a night. Hilariously -- and unsurprisingly -- 10 of those seasons belong to Hakeem Olajuwon. Is this the path he's heading down?

It does seem realistic that Noel can up those numbers as his career continues. He's still a couple of days away from his 21st birthday, so nowhere near his prime. Plus, he's picked up his play during the second half of the season. He's actually averaging 2.4 blocks and 2.2 pickpockets since the All-Star break. In early March, he had a four-game stretch over which he tallied 19 (!!) steals.

With the rate Noel is causing live-ball turnovers, these aren't actually pickpockets. They're bank robberies. This sort of thievery coming from a big man is unprecedented in today's NBA.

There is still loads of work to do on the offensive end. He hasn't developed his shot, his post moves are raw enough that you can see the salmonella infest them, and his left hand goes about as unused as Buster Bluth's. Wiggins owns an edge if we're talking about pure balance on both sides of the floor. But the race is close, the tightest one in years, and Noel is already dominant at the part of the game he's going to make a career of; you have to reward that.

Follow Fred Katz on Twitter at @FredKatz.