Adrian Fedkiw
After starting four games with Jahlil Okafor, Joel Embiid wants to experiment a twin-towers tandem with his “best friend” Nerlens Noel.
Embiid made his case for Noel following the Philadelphia 76ers’ 108-93 loss to the New Orleans Pelicans on Tuesday night.
Sixers head coach Brett Brown, who “benched” Noel after he voiced his displeasures about his playing time following an eight-minute outing against the Los Angeles Lakers on Friday night, seems to have had a change of heart on Thursday, according to CSN Philly.
I think he’s (Embiid) right. I get confused sometimes how stuff takes a left turn. We’ve been saying we’ll give Nerlens a chance once he gains his fitness and gets back into this. The other night (vs. New Orleans), we got into foul trouble and we put him into the game and we saw some good things.
“I feel like the bottom line is we have these three bigs and we need to experiment, we need to try different things. It’s on Nerlens to get himself back in shape and learn what we’re actually running. It will be on our bigs to find ways to coexist and for me to manage it. And I think they’re great. The conversations we’ve all had have been very transparent and candid and we look forward to seeing those two (Noel and Embiid) amongst other combinations as well.
At some point I’d be all for seeing this experiment between Embiid and Noel play itself out. Despite the limited sample size, I haven’t been enthralled with Embiid living out on the perimeter more. He should be banging on the block, going to his face-up game more and shooting his patented mid-range jumper. Unfortunately, like Okafor, Noel’s range is limited offensively, but he wouldn’t need the ball in his hands as much as Okafor would.
Defensively, Embiid’s been on the perimeter as well, but when he gets beaten off the dribble, Okafor isn’t there to offer protection at the rim. With Noel, that’s not the case and Embiid would be able to take more chances for steals because he knows he has a force behind him. They’d also be able to switch on pick-and-rolls seamlessly because Noel has no problems defending the perimeter as well.
Noel isn’t an eight-minute player, let’s experiment. That’s what this season should’ve been about, trot different combinations out on the court and see what works and what doesn’t.