Tag: Nerlens Noel

Nerlens Noel returns to practice scrimmages as ankle seems to improve

As the Thunder prepare for their first exhibition game in Orlando, Nerlens Noel’s condition is improving.

Nerlens Noel has been limited by what head coach Billy Donovan referred to as an ankle tweak, but on Tuesday, the big man was able to return to contact activities in practice, as he participated in intrasquad scrimmages for the first time since last week.

Noel addressed reporters after practice and didn’t sound overly concerned about whether missing the time would amount to a setback.

“I think I’ve been off to the side getting my work, getting my rehab, I’ve been getting one-on-one individual workouts so that’s been great for my conditioning, as well,” Noel said when asked his conditioning.

“I scrimmaged today and it felt good, slight wind, but that gets back quickly. Guys still have the same chemistry guys have had all season and it makes it that much easier for guys to fall back into things.”

According to Donovan, the team was being “overly cautious” with the big man, and them doing so makes plenty of sense.

At this point, the Thunder’s long-term priority should be having their team as close to healthy as possible for the playoffs, so a cautious approach is advisable. The club will play their first exhibition game on July 24 against the Boston Celtics. That gives Noel plenty of time to ramp up his activity to play some minutes.

Although Billy Donovan would naturally want his team to head into the playoffs on a high note, the Thunder have already clinched a playoff spot. Since there isn’t any homecourt advantage at stake, many teams will treat the seeding games with less urgency than they would normally treat the final eight games of the regular season. What that could amount to is additional run for a reserve player like Noel. So there will be plenty of opportunities to get him back into tip-top shape before the playoffs begin.

Oklahoma City will enter play on July 30 — the day that play will resume — with a 40-24 record and ownership of the fifth seed in the Western Conference.

Nerlens Noel continues to be limited after tweaking ankle in practice

The young big man continues to be limited after tweaking his ankle in practice earlier this week.

On Saturday, Thunder head coach Billy Donovan revealed that reserve big man Nerlens Noel tweaked his ankle in practice earlier this week and that he would be limited in practice until further notice.

The hope for Noel is that he continues to progress and that he’s able to get back to full contact in practice, but Donovan himself admitted that the team is going to be overly protective and cautious with the big man. At this point of the season, there’s simply no need to rush him back from injury.

The trend continued on Sunday, as Donovan provided another update on Noel. For at least the second consecutive day, he did not participate in contact portions of practice.

Darius Bazley has filled in for Noel, and although Donovan himself said he sees Bazley as more of a power forward type player, he would continue to get the repetitions that are available in Noel’s stead.

At this point, there is no reason to believe that Noel won’t be ready to go by the time the Thunder are ready to square off against the Celtics in their first exhibition game in Orlando on July 24.

Right now, though, the team is obviously taking it one day at a time.

Billy Donovan reveals that Nerlens Noel suffered minor ankle injury

Although not serious, the Thunder have suffered at least one injury casualty in Orlando.

The Thunder practiced in Orlando on Saturday morning and rookie Darius Bazley got some additional unexpected minutes. According to head coach Billy Donovan, his presence was necessary as key reserve Nerlens Noel suffered a minor ankle injury earlier this week.

As a result, Noel has been limited to non-contact activity in practice.

The coach referred to the team holding Noel back as them being “overly precautious,” but at this point in time, it would behoove the team to err on the side of caution.

In Orlando, the team has just less than a week before its first exhibition game against the Boston Celtics on July 24 and an additional week before its first seeding game on Aug. 1. The exhibition games obviously don’t count, and there has been some debate as to the importance of the seeding games.

Although the seeding games count toward when it comes to playoff positioning, the prevailing sentiment is that many teams may hold back a bit during those contests.

In other words, it stands to reason that the Thunder will prioritize having Noel fully healthy when the playoffs begin in mid-August.

For that reason, it makes perfect sense to approach his ankle tweak with extreme caution. Donovan expects him to be back to full capacity early next week.

Where Nerlens Noel alley-oops with Paul, Schroder rank among all NBA players

They alley-oops between Nerlens Noel and Chris Paul or Dennis Schroder were some of the most-oft seen in the league this season.

Nerlens Noel has found a niche as a rim runner for the Oklahoma City Thunder offense.

Of Noel’s 174 made field goals this season, 106 were dunks. Of those dunks, 61 were alley-oop finishes, and he had two other alley-oop finishes that were layups.

Despite playing less than 20 minutes per game, he was part of two of the top 13 alley-oop duos in the league this season.

Chris Paul brought a piece of Lob City with him to Oklahoma City, completing 33 alley-oop passes to Noel, which was the sixth-most for a duo in the NBA.

Dennis Schroder connected for an alley-oop 19 times with Noel, the 13th-most in the league, according to data compiled by NBA Wire’s Bryan Kalbrosky.

Per-36 minutes, the Paul-Noel combination looks even brighter.

With 2.18 alley-oop completions per 36, the duo ranks second in the league, behind the Brooklyn Nets’ Spencer Dinwiddie and DeAndre Jordan.

Schroder-Noel had 0.93 alley-oops per 36 minutes, which was tied for 13th in the league.

With 7.7 points per game on 68.5% shooting and 4.9 rebounds, 1.0 steal and 1.5 blocks in 18.4 minutes per game, Noel proved to be a solid rotation player for the Thunder.

With his $2 million contract expiring this offseason, he can point to several stats to indicate his importance to the team as the Thunder consider re-signing him.

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Where do Rudy Gobert, Donovan Mitchell rank among most prolific lob duos?

As the Utah Jazz now resume basketball activities, there are major issues they need to fix regarding stars Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell.

As the Utah Jazz now resume basketball activities, there are major issues they need to fix regarding stars Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell.

After so much time off due to the coronavirus pandemic, there will be a lot to iron out for all rosters. But the recent gap also exposed some harsh truths about the two best players on the Jazz.

In a recent story, Tim MacMahon reported that Gobert feels he should receive more lobs from Mitchell (via ESPN):

“Gobert rarely hesitates to let teammates know if they miss him when he is open around the rim. He’ll occasionally point up during play in animated fashion, sometimes as he is running back on defense, to note that a lob should have been thrown …  Gobert knows his lobbying for lobs wears on teammates to the point of being counterproductive, like the wide receiver who gripes at the quarterback after every play when a pass isn’t thrown his way, regardless of the pass rush.”

Gobert led all NBA players with 306 dunks recorded last season, according to Basketball-Reference. But even when including alley-oops layups, the big man paired with Mitchell for only 28 lob connections during their 2018-19 campaign.

Considering that Gobert attempted 125 alley-oops in 2018-19 (17.6 percent of his total attempts from the field), this is certainly a major offensive focal point for the two-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year.

As such, McMahon continued, the two players have specifically worked on their “lob chemistry” in individualized practice sessions to further avoid the blunders like the one seen above during their game against Denver back in January:

“Utah coach Quin Snyder and his staff have attempted to help facilitate that trust, especially between Mitchell and Gobert. That duo have had dozens of two-man workouts under the watch of coaches, with a focus on ironing out intricacies of their pick-and-roll partnership and lob chemistry. They also occasionally join coaches – usually some combination of Snyder, Jensen and Johnnie Bryant, the assistant who works most with Mitchell – for small-group film sessions at the team’s facility.”

Gobert made 16 alley-oops following passes from Mitchell, per NBA.com. This accounted for 4.5 percent of his total field goal count, down from 5.9 percent last season. This would average out to approximately 0.36 connections per 36 minutes when looking at their total time spent (1607 minutes) on the court together, down from 0.48 last season.

For a better understanding of how that compares to other lob threats around the league, we looked at the top combinations on this play type. Brooklyn’s Spencer Dinwiddie assisted DeAndre Jordan on 46 alley-oop opportunities this season. This means they averaged 2.76 alley-oops per 36 minutes shared (599 minutes) on the floor.

(Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)

While these two players are no longer on the same roster, Houston’s James Harden and former teammate Clint Capela were also successful on 46 of their alley-oop possessions. Capela, now on the Atlanta Hawks, was able to catch 1.53 alley-oops per 36 minutes that he played alongside Harden (1,082) in 2019-20.

Other prolific pairings in the NBA this season include Dinwiddie-to-Jarrett Allen (40), Trae Young-to-John Collins (36), LeBron James-to-Anthony Davis (34), Chris Paul-to-Nerlens Noel (33) and Elfrid Payton-to-Mitchell Robinson (33).

The data makes it clear that there is certainly room for more lob connections between the two players. However, considering how rare these opportunities are even for the most prolific duo, perhaps there are other aspects of offense to worry about in Utah.

HoopsHype’s Alberto de Roa contributed research to this report.

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Ranking the top 5 games of The Process era for the Philadelphia 76ers

We are ranking the top five games during the Process era for the Philadelphia 76ers.

The current version of the Philadelphia 76ers is a legitimate title-contending team in the Eastern Conference. However, it was not too long ago when the team was in the depths of a very long “process” where they would intentionally lose games in order to get high draft picks.

In a way, it worked as they were able to grab All-Star talents like Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid as the foundation for which they build their team. They then unearthed some gems like Robert Covington and Dario Saric which netted them talent like Jimmy Butler and, later, Tobias Harris to put around Embiid and Simmons. Still, the Process years were a very painful time.

We are here to rank the top five games of the Process era. We are categorizing the Process as anything from the 2013-14 season and the 2016-17 season. Anything before and after that was not a part of those painful years. Let’s get into it!

Pages: Page 1, Page 2, Page 3, Page 4, Page 5, Page 6

Ranking top five players to wear number 4 in Philadelphia 76ers history

We are now moving on to the next uniform number as we rank the top five guys to wear number 4 in Philadelphia 76ers history.

The number 4 jersey is retired in Philadelphia 76ers lore for a man by the name of Dolph Schayes who played for the Syracuse Nationals the ’50s. However, the number did not officially become retired until 2016 and that means that 17 players in the franchise’s history donned the number 4.

Just as we did with previous uniform numbers, we are going to rank the top five players to throw on the number while representing the Sixers on the floor. If you have missed any previous installments, check out number 1 and number 3 from the past.

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As stated in other lists, this one will be based on longevity, individual numbers, and team success. With that said, let’s get into it!

Pages: Page 1, Page 2, Page 3, Page 4, Page 5, Page 6

Yaron Weitzman on new 76ers’ book “Tanking to the Top”

Yaron Weitzman shares stories from his new book “Tanking to the Top,” which gives a behind-the-scenes look at the Philadelphia 76ers’ tank.

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On this episode of The HoopsHype Podcast, Alex Kennedy is joined by Bleacher Report’s Yaron Weitzman, who wrote the book, “Tanking to the Top: The Philadelphia 76ers and The Most Audacious Process in the History of Professional Sports.” Alex and Yaron discuss the 76ers’ tanking, behind-the-scenes stories from “The Process” and more. Time-stamps are below!

1:50: This is Yaron’s first book. He discusses how it came together and why he chose to write about the 76ers’ tanking.

3:50: Yaron writes that he initially thought he was writing the NBA version of “Moneyball,” but he quickly realized that wasn’t the case when Sam Hinkie chose not to participate. He talks about that challenge and how the book he wrote differs from the one he initially envisioned.

6:35: The Sixers didn’t participate either, which Yaron discusses.

9:40: Yaron discusses the process of writing this book and how it differed from writing articles for Bleacher Report.

12:10: In the book, Yaron writes about Allen Iverson’s departure from Philly, Doug Collins refusing to use analytics and the awful Andrew Bynum trade – all of which helped Hinkie initially get hired.

15:10: Yaron discusses Hinkie’s background. Hinkie actually got his start in the NFL, working for the San Francisco 49ers and Houston Texas before moving over the NBA.

18:00: Yaron talks about some of his favorite behind-the-stories that he learned while doing the interviews and research for this book.

21:05: Many NBA agents were adamantly opposed to “The Process,” which Yaron details in the book. He discusses why agents were so unhappy and shares a story about Excel refusing to do business with Hinkie.

23:35: What was the mood like around those tanking 76ers teams? On one hand, there were no expectations. On the other hand, Yaron says that Michael Carter-Williams and Nerlens Noel butted heads behind-the-scenes.

25:25: Would those young 76ers teams have benefited from more veteran leadership at times?

29:30: In addition to finding Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons, “The Process” also allowed the 76ers to find diamonds in the rough like Robert Covington, TJ McConnell and Jerami Grant among others.

31:30: Not only did Hinkie load up on draft picks, he improved Philadelphia’s technology, facility and player-development staff (which often gets overlooked).

33:30: Yaron discusses Embiid’s background. When he moved to the United States, he was shy, didn’t speak much English and had no friends. Yaron discusses his upbringing and how he was able to come out of his shell.

37:00: What are some things that Hinkie should have done differently?

40:05: One of the most interesting chapters in the book is about Markelle Fultz and his struggles after being drafted No. 1 overall. Yaron talks about what he learned while researching that chapter.

42:45: Yaron also writes about Bryan Colangelo losing his job because of burner accounts, with details about what was tweeted from the burner accounts, how those tweets came to light and much more.

46:00: Will we ever see a tank like “The Process” again?

Click here to order “Tanking to the Top: The Philadelphia 76ers and The Most Audacious Process in the History of Professional Sports.”

Three takeaways from OKC’s 131-103 win over the Spurs

Oklahoma City set a franchise record with a 28-point victory over San Antonio Sunday, with eight Thunder players scoring in double-digits.

Oklahoma City had a historic beat down of San Antonio on Sunday night, notching the largest margin of victory in franchise history with their 131-103 win over the Spurs.

Here are three takeaways from the game:

Double-double trouble

 Oklahoma City had three different players that posted a double-double against the Spurs. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 24 points and grabbed 13 rebounds while Steven Adams had 21 points and a game-high 14 rebounds.

Chris Paul also had a quieter double-double, with 10 points and 11 assists. He finished the game with nine rebounds, unaware he was a single rebound shy of a triple-double.

He likely would’ve gotten it had it not been for the lopsided score midway through the third quarter.

When asked about it after the game, he joked that it was Billy Donovan keeping him from the triple-double, saying “he won’t let me be great”.

The game plan worked

On Saturday, Nerlens Noel said that he strategy for defending LaMarcus Aldridge was “just to bother him”, and the game plan appeared to work.

In the three previews games between the Thunder and Spurs this season, Aldridge had been averaging 28.7 points and 10.7 rebounds per game. On Sunday, he finished with just eight points and 3-of-10 shooting.

Oklahoma City also did a good job of defending without fouling, spending Aldridge to the line for just two free-throw attempts.

Lu Dort was perfect

Dort continues to play his way towards a full-time contract. The two-way player was one of eight Thunder players in double figures on Sunday, scoring 15 points while going a perfect 6-of-6 from the field.

The rookie padded his stat line with two rebounds, two assists, and two steals.

Two nights after Chris Paul said people “don’t understand” the importance of Dort and the things he does on the court, Dennis Schroder said that the first-year player is “changing the game”.

Preview: Thunder seeks to split regular-season series with San Antonio

Oklahoma City is 1-2 against the Spurs after falling 114-106 on Feb. 11. Sunday is the final regular-season meeting between the two teams.

DeMar DeRozan wasn’t in the lineup the last time that the Oklahoma City Thunder faced the San Antonio Spurs.

He will be on Sunday.

DeRozan is the Spurs’ top scorer, averaging 22.9 points per game and shooting 53.2% from the field.

Even without DeRozan, San Antonio dispatched the Thunder 114-106 on Feb. 11 thanks in part to a 25-point, 14-rebound double-double from LaMarcus Aldridge and 25 points from Dejounte Murray.

Aldridge is only averaging 19.0 points and 7.6 rebounds on the season, but his stats are way up against OKC, averaging 28.7 points and 10.7 rebounds in three games this year.

Nerlens Noel said that his defensive gameplan against Aldridge on Sunday is “just to bother him”.

Meanwhile, the Thunder come into Sunday having won 11 of their last 14. One of their three losses, however, was to the Spurs.

In that game, Chris Paul scored a game-high 31 points, while Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (17), Danilo Gallinari (15), and Dennis Schroder (14) were all in double-figures.

Billy Donovan talked after Oklahoma City’s win over the Denver Nuggets on Friday about his three guards being able to coexist and thrive within the offense, saying “it wouldn’t have worked if those guys didn’t have the attitude, mentality they had towards it.”

“I talked to them before the season ever started. I told them there was going to have to be a level of sacrifice. That they all couldn’t have the ball in their hands, that they were going to have to play off each other. I think they were all really on board trying it, and they knew they weren’t going to have their hands on it the whole time.”

It may be only two of the guards that are able to go Sunday against the Spurs.

Dennis Schroder tweaked his ankle in the third quarter of Friday night’s win, although he did return and logged 29 minutes of game time.

Donovan said on Saturday that Schroder was able to participate in a light practice, but that he would know more about Schroder’s status on Sunday.