76ers take Noel dilemma into Nets game (Dec 18, 2016)
The Philadelphia 76ers have too many young, highly drafted big men, and not enough minutes to go around.
That has led one of them, Nerlens Noel, to speak out, and put the 76ers in a quandary as they head into Sunday's game against the Brooklyn Nets in Philadelphia.
The Sixers' other promising bigs, Joel Embiid and Jahlil Okafor, started Friday night against the Los Angeles Lakers and played 28 and 23 minutes, respectively.
Noel, making his second appearance of the season because of knee and ankle issues, played eight minutes off the bench and finished with two points, five rebounds and a blocked shot.
"I just want to be on the court playing basketball," Noel said after the 100-89 loss. "I don't really care who I'm playing with. I'm not an eight-minute player, so I don't know what that's about.
"So I don't care where. ... I think I'm too good to be playing eight minutes. ... That's crazy. Need to figure this (crap) out."
Noel, drafted sixth overall and acquired by Philadelphia in a draft-night trade in 2013, told the Philadelphia Inquirer before the start of training camp that it is "just silly" to have three starting-quality centers on the same team, and thought management would have swung an offseason deal involving one of them.
Noel underwent minor knee surgery late in October and missed the first 23 games.
In the meantime, Embiid, the third overall pick in 2014, established himself after missing two seasons following two foot surgeries. He leads the 76ers, and NBA rookies, in scoring (17.5), rebounding (7.3) and blocked shots (2.5).
Okafor, the third overall pick in 2015, is scoring at an 11.7 point-per-game clip in 22 games.
Noel made his first appearance of the season last Sunday in Detroit, but sprained his left ankle and missed Wednesday's loss to Toronto.
While he has made it clear he would welcome a trade, Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports said on a recent podcast that other teams "don't get good reports" on "how he's carried himself there, of his habits."
"There are teams willing to do a deal for him and bring him in but they don't want to give up much," Wojnarowski said. "And so at some point there, Philly has got to make a decision, 'What's the best we can get for him?' I think at some point he probably moves, too."
The Sixers, who along with Dallas have the NBA's worst record (6-20), have lost their last eight at home, and 10 of 12 overall.
Brooklyn is 7-18, which equals the league's second-worst mark. The Nets have dropped three of four, as well as their last eight on the road.
The Nets fell in Orlando on Friday night, 118-111, despite 22 points from Brook Lopez and 17 from Jeremy Lin.
Lin was playing in only his seventh game of the season, and his second since Nov. 2, after missing 17 games because of a strained hamstring and another with back tightness.
Lin is averaging 14.6 points a game, fourth on the team behind Lopez (20.2), Sean Kilpatrick (16.2) and Bojan Bogdanovic (15.2).
Justin Hamilton of Brooklyn has missed the last three games with a migraine. His status for Sunday's game is unknown.
