Protecting the paint is crucial for any NBA team aspiring to be a champion. Here are five big men that could be available for rim protection through trade.
To contend for an NBA Championship, a team needs to be stout defensively, especially at the rim. We may live in a small ball era of the NBA, but once it becomes playoff time, the game slows down to rampant, half-court isolation sets. This amplifies the amount of well-designed plays set up to attack the basket with authority.
To counterbalance this on the defensive end, it is important for teams to have solid defensive rebounding and perhaps above all, stellar rim protection. Some years, it is more difficult than others to find satisfactory low-post defenders at the NBA Trade Deadline. 2017 does not seem to be one of those years.
With potentially so many rim protectors available on the trade block, here are five players that could be moved at the deadline to help out in protecting the basket.
The Philadelphia 76ers have a logjam in their frontcourt. Their budding superstar in rookie center Joel Embiid may have a slight meniscus tear in his knee, but that didn’t stop him from dancing on stage shirtless at a Meek Mill concert.
Even if that potential injury scare sidelines Embiid for much of the second half, expect 76ers Bryan Colangelo to aggressively try to move one of his two other frontcourt players in power forward Nerlens Noel and center Jahlil Okafor.
Noel is the better of the two players potentially on the trade market for the 76ers defensively. Whenever he has been on the court, Noel can certainly hold his now in rim protection. He also runs better up and down the floor than Okafor and could have a more well-rounded offensive game over Okafor in the long run.
Noel is averaging 0.9 blocks per game in only 19.0 minutes per contest. He just isn’t getting enough playing time for a rim protector of his caliber. Some NBA front office executive could make better use of him in a more defined rotational role that what Philadelphia is currently using him in.
Advanced metrics like having 1.0 Defensive Win Shares and a Defensive Box Plus/Minus of 3.8 illustrate that when Noel is on the court, he is an above average rim protector. He still leaves a lot to be desired offensively, but Noel is a malleable piece that playoff caliber teams could use in their defensive strategies.