Nerlens Noel is out of the rotation for the foreseeable future
— Bob Cooney (@BobCooney76) December 18, 2016
It seems this decision is not caused by injury, didn't play even a minute against Nets tonight. Does his value plummets to the level they just keep him to spite him even more and let go in off-season or more ridiculously - match any offer as he is RFA? Embiid with yet another dominant performance (as dominant as it can be against lowly BKN). They might want to keep Okafor (minus defensively, but at least his character is in check and projects as nice score-first big from the bench - Vucevic looks similar).
Still even if we trade for him (Delon/Bebe swap + 2nd rounder if needed to convince Philly, btw Fred VanVleet was nice tonight in backup role!) what can we expect?:
1) Trade doesn't pan out, he is outraged yet again by his low minutes and not starting, bolts in FA or we match his offer and have disgruntled player with serious character problem in the locker room. But before that he poisons our chemistry, Lowry and DeMar stop being bros after 1st round exit.
2) He accepts backup role, thrives in it similarly to Bismack, sometimes even closes game due to match-ups defensively, but hey FA incoming - no way if he shows same potential on that end he stays with us for less than $18M a year... And we have Lowry/PPat to reup this summer. Do we want to have $35M tied up to C position, while not having clear-cut star there?
3) He is DefGod reincarnate and improves our defense to match our historical offense (and doesn't mess with it, as do well know C's only finish lobs in our sets). Quickly replaces JV in starting lineup alongside Patterson who is finally starting - this way both DanH and Chr1s1anL wet dreams come to reality. Without even shade of the doubt we give him contract in the summer, because you bring winning team back!
Sure this is generalization, but this trade is buy low, but now low risk instead being highly volatile situation, it can elevate us or break us. Due to it's risk it's highly unlikely Masai will do it. He either plays it safe (Vasquez, Lue, DeColo were all safe moves) or is in situation he have to trade, because team is bad (Gay trade) or player will bolt in FA (Carmelo).
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