Who is more likely to be wearing a Philadelphia 76ers uniform next season, Jahlil Okafor or Nerlens Noel?
If the Sixers get their way, it’ll be Noel who sticks with the team.
From Keith Pompey of philly.com:
It’s unclear whether he’ll be a Sixer next season. The Sixers are shopping Okafor and center Nerlens Noel to other NBA teams. The franchise is expected to trade the player who brings them a better deal.
Sources have said that the team would prefer to trade Okafor. The Sixers expect to get equal value in return, but it could be hard to do that when every team knows they are looking to unload the big man.
Well, duh.
Okafor, the No. 3 overall pick in last year’s draft, champions a complicated, if extinct, offensive style. He is incredibly polished in the post, but his moves take too much time off the clock. And he doesn’t have much of a jumper, nor does he play a lick of defense.
Noel, on the other hand, is a tried and true defender. He protects the rim, jumps passing lanes and stays in front of ball-handlers extremely well for someone his size. His offensive game is more limited than Okafor’s, but he can function as a high-end pick-and-roll rim-runner.
To be honest, though, neither big will likely yield the Sixers much in return.
Noel is slated to hit restricted free agency next summer, so his next team must almost immediately reinvest in his services. And Okafor’s play style is tough to fit anywhere; he needs to play behind a ton of effective perimeter defenders to be of serious worth.
Oh! And then there’s the fact that everyone and their cousin’s friend’s sisters’ boyfriend’s stepsister’s pet poodle knows that the Sixers are looking to clear up their frontcourt logjam in advance of the draft. That excess inherently drives down the value of Okafor and Noel.
Either way, though, Noel will fetch the Sixers more on the trade market. So unless they’re prepared to sell low, they may need to aggressively shop him. That, or they must to get used to the idea of an overly crammed frontcourt depth chart until they find a workable deal.
