The NBA announced today that they’ve suspended Mavericks forward Nerlens Noel for five games, reportedly following a third positive test for marijuana, a drug that is legal or decriminalized in much of the country. That alone is not a big deal, but Noel’s suspension—which will see him out for the conclusion of the…
ESPN’s Chris Haynes is reporting today that Nerlens Noel will sign the qualifying offer to stay with the Dallas Mavericks, choosing to become an unrestricted free agent in the summer of 2018 instead of signing what he apparently believed was a below-market long-term deal in restricted free agency this summer. Someday…
The Dallas Mavericks have acquired 76ers big man Nerlens Noel, reports Adrian Wojnarowski. In return, Dallas will send Philadelphia Andrew Bogut, Justin Anderson, and a top 1-18 protected 2017 first-round draft pick.
Before the Sixers’ season even started, Nerlens Noel understood that there were too many large dudes in Philly and too few good ideas about what to do with them. But because Noel has been recovering from knee surgery, it was only last Friday that the Sixers had to confront this nauseating truth head-on, as they…
Three months ago, Nerlens Noel said that he had no idea how the Philadelphia 76ers were going to handle having three true centers on the roster. Now, he knows how they’re handling it—by playing him a whole lot less. And he’s pissed, as he told reporters after last night’s loss to the Los Angeles Lakers:
Nerlens Noel is a center. Though he played some power forward last year in an attempt to accommodate Jahlil Okafor, center is the position he played his rookie year, and when Okafor was off the court, and it’s really the only position he fits because of his size and his lack of offensive game.
The Philadelphia 76ers, now in year three of their shameless rebuild, are 0-15. Playing for an 0-15 team that ranks dead last in points per game and leads the league in turnovers can’t be much fun, so it’s no surprise that 76ers Players Looking Really Sad has started to become an internet genre of sorts.
James Harden went for a buzzer-beating dunk to end the third quarter tonight in Philadelphia. Nerlens Noel had something to say about that. Specifically: "Fuuuuuuck no."
It's doubtful that Nerlens Noel—Philly's first round pick from this year's draft and the one-time presumed #1 overall pick—will play at all this year, according to Philadelphia head coach Brett Brown.
If we assume that a healthy Nerlens Noel goes first or second in an historically thin NBA draft, he lost somewhere between $4 million and $5 million over the next three years—all because he vaporized his knee in February while playing amateur basketball as a nominally unpaid intern at Kentucky.
The Cavaliers beat the odds—a 15.6 percent chance, third-best in the lottery—to land the 2013 first overall pick. But the consensus top pick has questions, and he's not particularly what Cleveland needs. It would make all the sense in the world for the Cavs to trade down from No. 1, something that hasn't been done in…
With their win today over No. 11 Florida, the Kentucky Wildcats will probably make the NCAA Tournament. Normally UK achieves that designation by late November or so. Kentucky missed the Big Dance in 2009, but it'd been 1991 since the Cats last weren't invited to March Madness. They hold the NCAA record with 53…
I'd like to draw your attention to this passage from ESPN draft insider Chad Ford's analysis of how University of Kentucky big man Nerlens Noel's torn ACL might affect his draft stock (emphasis mine):
This is tough to watch (and to listen to, since it might be the sound of a promising NBA career being tossed into the spinning wheel of injury fate). Midway through the second half of Kentucky's bout in Gainesville—one the Wildcats would lose by a 69-52 score—freshman phenom Nerlens Noel crashed into a basket…
Superstar freshman Nerlens Noel swatted away 12 shots during last night's Kentucky-Ole Miss game while scoring just two points on 0-2 shooting from the field and 2-8 from the free-throw line. Noel's stat line suggests he had a classic impacted-the-game-with-his-defense performance, which he did, but it also fails to…
Basketball players don't typically play the Signing Day shell game by picking hats off a table, so it's nice to see Nerlens Noel be a bit more creative.
