Nerlens Noel has a future

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.

Noel’s defensive abilities aren’t quite as eye-catching as his offensive deficiencies and the degree to which Philadelphia’s team defense has been consistently terrible helps undersell just how good Noel could be at that end. This not just a case of “in the right system, he could be good.” It’s more of a “he’s 21-years old and surrounded by inexperienced and terrible defenders.” It shouldn’t take some hypothetical magic formula to turn his individual defensive abilities into the backbone of a very good team defense. Again, this is why his name keeps getting mentioned in trade rumors.

On many fronts, last season appeared to be a step backwards for Noel, particularly when playing with Okafor. Noel struggled alongside the low-post bruiser, forced to occupy offensive space that his perimeter skills weren’t quite ready for. After essentially playing center exclusively as a rookie, Noel was forced to share that position with Okafor and ended up playing about a third of his minutes at power forward. The 76ers were bad when Noel played center, they were catastrophically bad when he played power forward next to Okafor.

Noel seemed to regress, he and Okafor grated on each stylistically, and there are still plenty of questions about what, exactly he can do capably on offense. Noel was not particularly effective as a scorer in the pick-and-roll, ranking in just the 34th percentile in points per possession with a very high turnover rate. At a bare minimum he needs to improve significantly in both areas.

However, even amid the appearance of significant regression last season, Noel finished better around the basket and increased his true shooting percentage, free throw rate, total rebound rate, and assist rate, along with a slightly higher usage rate. In a variety of individual statistical benchmarks, Noel was much improved, despite the visual of him and Okafor constantly stepping on each other’s feet.

The most interesting piece of Noel’s statistical improvement is his potential as a passer. Noel averaged 3.7 potential assists per game last season, about the same as Greg Monroe and Karl-Anthony Towns. Expecting him to become a consistent mid-range jump shooter may be a pipe dream. However, if he can get more comfortable making plays off the catch when rolling to the basket, finding teammates in the corner, taking one dribble to get himself a better shot, and just generally cutting down on his turnovers, Noel could be an offensive threat without ever developing range. Think Tyson Chandler, or DeAndre Jordan with a little less bulk.

FiveThirtyEight’s CARMELO player projections for this season and last, actually increased Noel’s future projections after this difficult season with Okafor. Before the 2015-16 season, CARMELO projected Noel would produce 13.0 Wins Above Replacement (WAR) from 2017-2019. This summer, that projection has climbed to 15.0 WAR. To put that in context, they project Okafor to produce about 1.2 WAR and Andre Drummond to produce about 12.2 WAR over the same time span.

Nerlens Noel may not fit with Ben Simmons, or Jahlil Okafor, or Joel Embiid. He may be a young big men with limited offensive upside and one that the Philadelphia 76ers just can’t use. But he’s going to be good…somewhere.