shawngoat23 wrote:David Noel is a freak of nature in terms of raw combine numbers, so it's not ridiculous to say he's more athletic than Kobe or several other NBA stars. I haven't seen him play though, so either he has terrible IQ, no skills, or his athleticism just doesn't translate functionally. Someone will have to give me the scoop here.
To be honest though, I did a thread on why some hyper-athletic players or hyper-skilled players are scrubs, and well, the common trend was, they lacked the "elite" and "specialized" skillset if they are hyper-athletic, or they weren't NBA Caliber athletes, for example, Adam Morrison or JJ Reddick.
My estimate is, David Noel is a freak of nature, and the reason why he failed was because he lacked handles, he lacked mental toughness, he lacked the BBIQ, he lacked defensive ability, he lacked scoring ability, he did not know how to lay up well and score inside 5 feet, he lacks lay up abilities and the only thing he could do was dunk. He did not know how to slash, fake his opponents, or post them up.
His skillset is so bad that he was waived, even if he was hyper-athletic.
Shawngoat, if you were a General Manager, how would you go about unlocking David Noel's ultimate potential and put him in a position to succeed? How would you make him the "best" player David Noel can be, due to his freak of nature athleticism?
I feel that he could have been an elite finisher like James Worthy or Amar'e Stoudemire, or he could have been a Bruce Bowen type of player, but I don't think his mentality suits him for being a Bruce Bowen type.