Get ready, Philadelphia 76ers media day might be very entertaining on Monday. The team has a trio of talented young big men in Jahlil Okafor, Nerlens Noel and the newly healthy Joel Embiid. Noel, the most senior of the group, is no pleased with the current state of the big man rotation.
He was supposed to be the first building block towards the Sixers return to contention but instead he’s the one who looks like the odd man out.
It’s a situation that’s very muddled and it appears that Noel knows something must happen, immediately.
Following from Keith Pompey of the Philadelphia Inquirer.
“I think it’s just silly . . . this situation that we are in now with three starting centers,” Noel said on the eve of the Sixers’ media day. “With the departure of [former general manager and president] Sam Hinkie, I would have figured that management would be able to get something done this summer.”
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“I feel like it definitely needs to be figured out,” he said. “I think at the end of the day, again, you have three starting-caliber centers. And it’s just not going to work to anybody’s advantage having that on the same team. That’s how I’m looking at it. I’m not opposed to anything, but things need to be situated.”Noel said he wasn’t speaking negatively about the team’s other starting-caliber centers, Embiid and Jahlil Okafor. Nor was he speaking for them.
“Don’t get me wrong. We all get along great on the court and off the court,” Noel said. “But at the end of the day, it’s like having three starting quarterbacks. It doesn’t make any sense.”
Noel went on to tell Pompey, “I know I was being shopped”. It’s quite contradictory to what 76ers general manager said to The Vertical’s Adrian Wojnarowski on a recent edition of “The Vertical Podcast with Woj”. Colangelo said those discussions never happened.
Either way, it now appears that Noel is looking for a resolution to his current problem. There’s no room for him to grow, or develop. As a contract extension looms for the big man it could be time for him to try and see if there would be greener pastures elsewhere.
