CBS Sports "reporting": Sixers reportedly plan to trade either Nerlens Noel or Jahlil Okafor

[hookshot199]

Just for fun, let's have a discussion where the prokafor and negafors switch teams.

How about the obsesskafors.

Edit: I was trying to find you a 'thumbs-up'. Excellent play on words.

[spikeslovechild]

If I though Noel was close to Whiteside or Jordan I would have no problem extending him even with the logjam. He's not and he's shown no indication of getting there either.

DeAndre Jordan is a more complete player on defense and offense. First of all, he rebounds. Two, while his post game is rudimentary he is capable of posting up much smaller defenders and just bullying his way to the basket. Noel isn't he gives up 20-30 pounds on both Jordan and Whiteside. He also creates way more attempts from in close whether it be lobs, putbacks, or transition buckets. Now many of you want to credit CP for that fine but the reality is still those buckets count. The imaginary ones Noel would score if CP were on our team don't.

Oh, and If Noel basically becomes Jordan and completely abandoned his jumpshot he'd be a 6-7 PPG player on 30+ minutes. He'll be playing likely 20 minutes if that moving forward. So we pay what 18 million for 4-5 PPG. He already doesn't rebound.

[76ciology]

If I though Noel was close to Whiteside or Jordan I would have no problem extending him even with the logjam. He's not and he's shown no indication of getting there either.

DeAndre Jordan is a more complete player on defense and offense. First of all, he rebounds. Two, while his post game is rudimentary he is capable of posting up much smaller defenders and just bullying his way to the basket. Noel isn't he gives up 20-30 pounds on both Jordan and Whiteside. He also creates way more attempts from in close whether it be lobs, putbacks, or transition buckets. Now many of you want to credit CP for that fine but the reality is still those buckets count. The imaginary ones Noel would score if CP were on our team don't.

Oh, and If Noel basically becomes Jordan and completely abandoned his jumpshot he'd be a 6-7 PPG player on 30+ minutes. He'll be playing likely 20 minutes if that moving forward. So we pay what 18 million for 4-5 PPG. He already doesn't rebound.

Semi related. Won't teams just switch a Simmons/Noel PnR? I don't think Noel is big and skilled enough to score over big SFs.

[76ciology]

Just for fun, let's have a discussion where the prokafor and negafors switch teams.

How about the obsesskafors.

Edit: I was trying to find you a 'thumbs-up'. Excellent play on words.

You don't like Jah playdafor?

[76ciology]

Read on Twitter

[hookshot199]

Just for fun, let's have a discussion where the prokafor and negafors switch teams.

How about the obsesskafors.

Edit: I was trying to find you a 'thumbs-up'. Excellent play on words.

You don't like Jah playdafor?

I like it, and maybe scoreafor. Most teams would be salivating to have those two guys.
At some point, we'll learn if there's a disconnect between the fan base and management
in terms of what their value is.

[the_process]

Read on Twitter

I love that Brett answered without answering.

So... Jah at the 4, then? Taking up Simmons' and Saric's minutes?

[CoreyGallagher]

Read on Twitter

I love that Brett answered without answering.

So... Jah at the 4, then? Taking up Simmons' and Saric's minutes?

At the 5 occasionally, as well, I'm assuming. I don't believe that this is surprising - in another thread fans were posting their hypothetical line-ups and this seemed to be the assumption most had - that Noel would primarily play the 5 with Okafor splitting minutes at both positions.

[76ciology]

How about the obsesskafors.

Edit: I was trying to find you a 'thumbs-up'. Excellent play on words.

You don't like Jah playdafor?

I like it, and maybe scoreafor. Most teams would be salivating to have those two guys.
At some point, we'll learn if there's a disconnect between the fan base and management
in terms of what their value is.

Regarding value..

Actually, I've already brought up the issue of how there's just an abundance of bigs in today's game. This is before everyone was surprised with the lack of trade offers.

http://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=1426819

For me, it's in our bigs and our FO's best interest for our bigs to be able to play more like a PF than a C (better career trajectory for our bigs, easier to plug and play and more valuable asset for FO). And I think all our bigs has potential to play PF because of their mobility and some has a stronger case because of their offensive skillset.

I don't expect everyone to see eye to eye with mine, but here's what I think the C position will evolve into..

Spoiler:

I expect teams to switch more on screen plays that would further lower the value of "goalie" centers (contrary to Jonathan Tjarks' belief), specially the immobile ones who can't switch like Hibbert and Mozgov. Eventually, Cs would play more of a positional defense similar to Pachulia and 2016 version of KG/TD, 2016 play-off version of Love/Tristan/kanter on defense. While offensively, they'd be ask to space the floor, sometimes create+draw and most times crash O rebs. LeBron and Poppovic know this.

[76ciology]

Read on Twitter

I love that Brett answered without answering.

So... Jah at the 4, then? Taking up Simmons' and Saric's minutes?

He seems to really be a cool guy.. Really hard not to root for him, despite the fact that I thought his coaching went downhill after the 2013-2014 season.

[hookshot199]

You don't like Jah playdafor?

I like it, and maybe scoreafor. Most teams would be salivating to have those two guys.
At some point, we'll learn if there's a disconnect between the fan base and management
in terms of what their value is.

Regarding value..

Actually, I've already brought up the issue of how there's just an abundance of bigs in today's game. This is before everyone was surprised with the lack of trade offers.

http://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=1426819

For me, it's in our bigs and our FO's best interest for our bigs to be able to play more like a PF than a C (better career trajectory for our bigs, easier to plug and play and more valuable asset for FO). And I think all our bigs has potential to play PF because of their mobility and some has a stronger case because of their offensive skillset.

I don't expect everyone to see eye to eye with mine, but here's what I think the C position will evolve into..

Spoiler:

I expect teams to switch more on screen plays that would further lower the value of "goalie" centers (contrary to Jonathan Tjarks' belief), specially the immobile ones who can't switch like Hibbert and Mozgov. Eventually, Cs would play more of a positional defense similar to Pachulia and 2016 version of KG/TD, 2016 play-off version of Love/Tristan/kanter on defense. While offensively, they'd be ask to space the floor, sometimes create+draw and most times crash O rebs. LeBron and Poppovic know this.

Give me some time to digest this. But in the interim, how do defend a front line that would include Embiid, Okafor and Saric with 6'10" Simmons at point? Okay, you pack in the defense and make Simmons make a shot like you do with Rondo. Still, you potentially have three athletic bigs - average 7 feet - there to rebound or receive a pass.

Is there a team in the league that has the size to defend Okafor, Saric and Embiid? And if they do, what do they sacrifice on offense?

Again, this is all hypothetical until we can see what Embiid can do.

[76ciology]

I like it, and maybe scoreafor. Most teams would be salivating to have those two guys.
At some point, we'll learn if there's a disconnect between the fan base and management
in terms of what their value is.

Regarding value..

Actually, I've already brought up the issue of how there's just an abundance of bigs in today's game. This is before everyone was surprised with the lack of trade offers.

http://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=1426819

For me, it's in our bigs and our FO's best interest for our bigs to be able to play more like a PF than a C (better career trajectory for our bigs, easier to plug and play and more valuable asset for FO). And I think all our bigs has potential to play PF because of their mobility and some has a stronger case because of their offensive skillset.

I don't expect everyone to see eye to eye with mine, but here's what I think the C position will evolve into..

Spoiler:

I expect teams to switch more on screen plays that would further lower the value of "goalie" centers (contrary to Jonathan Tjarks' belief), specially the immobile ones who can't switch like Hibbert and Mozgov. Eventually, Cs would play more of a positional defense similar to Pachulia and 2016 version of KG/TD, 2016 play-off version of Love/Tristan/kanter on defense. While offensively, they'd be ask to space the floor, sometimes create+draw and most times crash O rebs. LeBron and Poppovic know this.

Give me some time to digest this. But in the interim, how do defend a front line that would include Embiid, Okafor and Saric with 6'10" Simmons at point? Okay, you pack in the defense and make Simmons make a shot like you do with Rondo. Still, you potentially have three athletic bigs - average 7 feet - there to rebound or receive a pass.

Is there a team in the league that has the size to defend Okafor, Saric and Embiid? And if they do, what do they sacrifice on offense?

Again, this is all hypothetical until we can see what Embiid can do.

I expect Saric and Embiid to be good shooters. I think Jah also shows some promise. And eventually, i'd expect the player development should focus on their shooting.

I do think Jah/Biid frontcourt is promising and should be one of the hardest things to stop in the league.

On the interim.. All four guys are mobile and long that they can switch screens/rotate and challenge shots (even Jah's DFGA is promising). It's similar to how Cavs/OKC defend the warriors in the playoffs, and how Spurs did in regular season.

Offensively, you'll have to run a lot of high post action whether triangle (something I've also state before; see bballbreakdown's coverage on this topic), double horn (Spurs 2016 offense) or Clips type offense where Simmons's two man game with one of our bigs will turn into a 2 vs 3 situation where the roll man can either opt to score or throw a lob to the other big around the rim.

The entire gist is to slow down the pace and make it a game of opposing perimeter scorers shooting over the outstretch arms of your bigs while our bigs scoring over smaller defenders in the paint.

[MatthewGeigerII]

i think brown wants to put simmons at the PG so badly, but is afraid it'll be a bad way to "start" his career (if it doesn't work out). he wants to start the simmons-philly relationship on a high note obviously.

If i can try to get in brown's head from his quotes and hand gestures:

Off:

PG: Simmons
SG: Bayless
SF: Covington/Saric
PF: Okafor
C: Noel/Embiid

Def:
Guarding 1: Bayless
Guarding 2: Simmons
Guarding 3: Cov/Saric
Guarding 4: Okafor (with help D from Cov/Saric & and Noel/Embiid)
Guarding 5: Noel/Embiid

[sixerswillrule]

i think brown wants to put simmons at the PG so badly, but is afraid it'll be a bad way to "start" his career (if it doesn't work out). he wants to start the simmons-philly relationship on a high note obviously.

If i can try to get in brown's head from his quotes and hand gestures:

Off:

PG: Simmons
SG: Bayless
SF: Covington/Saric
PF: Okafor
C: Noel/Embiid

Def:
Guarding 1: Bayless
Guarding 2: Simmons
Guarding 3: Cov/Saric
Guarding 4: Okafor (with help D from Cov/Saric & and Noel/Embiid)
Guarding 5: Noel/Embiid

He will play PG offensively but will almost never defend guards. Same thing if Magic Johnson played today.

A Bayless/Simmons/Saric/Okafor/Noel lineup would be awful.

[hookshot199]

Regarding value..

Actually, I've already brought up the issue of how there's just an abundance of bigs in today's game. This is before everyone was surprised with the lack of trade offers.

http://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=1426819

For me, it's in our bigs and our FO's best interest for our bigs to be able to play more like a PF than a C (better career trajectory for our bigs, easier to plug and play and more valuable asset for FO). And I think all our bigs has potential to play PF because of their mobility and some has a stronger case because of their offensive skillset.

I don't expect everyone to see eye to eye with mine, but here's what I think the C position will evolve into..

Spoiler:

I expect teams to switch more on screen plays that would further lower the value of "goalie" centers (contrary to Jonathan Tjarks' belief), specially the immobile ones who can't switch like Hibbert and Mozgov. Eventually, Cs would play more of a positional defense similar to Pachulia and 2016 version of KG/TD, 2016 play-off version of Love/Tristan/kanter on defense. While offensively, they'd be ask to space the floor, sometimes create+draw and most times crash O rebs. LeBron and Poppovic know this.

Give me some time to digest this. But in the interim, how do defend a front line that would include Embiid, Okafor and Saric with 6'10" Simmons at point? Okay, you pack in the defense and make Simmons make a shot like you do with Rondo. Still, you potentially have three athletic bigs - average 7 feet - there to rebound or receive a pass.

Is there a team in the league that has the size to defend Okafor, Saric and Embiid? And if they do, what do they sacrifice on offense?

Again, this is all hypothetical until we can see what Embiid can do.

I expect Saric and Embiid to be good shooters. I think Jah also shows some promise. And eventually, i'd expect the player development should focus on their shooting.

I do think Jah/Biid frontcourt is promising and should be one of the hardest things to stop in the league.

On the interim.. All four guys are mobile and long that they can switch screens/rotate and challenge shots (even Jah's DFGA is promising). It's similar to how Cavs/OKC defend the warriors in the playoffs, and how Spurs did in regular season.

Offensively, you'll have to run a lot of high post action whether triangle (something I've also state before; see bballbreakdown's coverage on this topic), double horn (Spurs 2016 offense) or Clips type offense where Simmons's two man game with one of our bigs will turn into a 2 vs 3 situation where the roll man can either opt to score or throw a lob to the other big around the rim.

The entire gist is to slow down the pace and make it a game of opposing perimeter scorers shooting over the outstretch arms of your bigs while our bigs scoring over smaller defenders in the paint.

That's sort of what I was thinking, although you put it into coaches' parlance. The other thing is this: Can your run-of-the-mill teams afford to play small ball? Unless they've got two truly excellent three-point shooters who can trade threes for two (Golden State, for instance), where is the cutoff point for where tall ball beats small ball. Rondo, Rose, Smart, even DeRozen are all career .300 shooters from three. Do you give them the shot?

[Ericb5]

i think brown wants to put simmons at the PG so badly, but is afraid it'll be a bad way to "start" his career (if it doesn't work out). he wants to start the simmons-philly relationship on a high note obviously.

If i can try to get in brown's head from his quotes and hand gestures:

Off:

PG: Simmons
SG: Bayless
SF: Covington/Saric
PF: Okafor
C: Noel/Embiid

Def:
Guarding 1: Bayless
Guarding 2: Simmons
Guarding 3: Cov/Saric
Guarding 4: Okafor (with help D from Cov/Saric & and Noel/Embiid)
Guarding 5: Noel/Embiid

He will play PG offensively but will almost never defend guards. Same thing if Magic Johnson played today.

A Bayless/Simmons/Saric/Okafor/Noel lineup would be awful.

Agreed. Simmons should guard the 3 or the 4, but never the guards. If he proves that he CAN guard guards then watch out, but I don't think that he should be doing that.

It would be interesting if we got Jackson next year though who could clearly guard the 2 or 3, and maybe in some lineups the 1. If that were the case and Simmons can handle the 2 then we would have a ridiculously big death lineup that we could throw out there from time to time.

[spikeslovechild]

Actually I would play Simmons at the three and have the play the one on offense. One of the main advantages that brings is it allows us to bring in two SG's on offense and defense. A guy like Beal with some PG skills and can defend the 1 shoot and threes would be the perfect fit.

Have to see what happens with Washington though. They have the potential to completely implode.

[76ciology]

Give me some time to digest this. But in the interim, how do defend a front line that would include Embiid, Okafor and Saric with 6'10" Simmons at point? Okay, you pack in the defense and make Simmons make a shot like you do with Rondo. Still, you potentially have three athletic bigs - average 7 feet - there to rebound or receive a pass.

Is there a team in the league that has the size to defend Okafor, Saric and Embiid? And if they do, what do they sacrifice on offense?

Again, this is all hypothetical until we can see what Embiid can do.

I expect Saric and Embiid to be good shooters. I think Jah also shows some promise. And eventually, i'd expect the player development should focus on their shooting.

I do think Jah/Biid frontcourt is promising and should be one of the hardest things to stop in the league.

On the interim.. All four guys are mobile and long that they can switch screens/rotate and challenge shots (even Jah's DFGA is promising). It's similar to how Cavs/OKC defend the warriors in the playoffs, and how Spurs did in regular season.

Offensively, you'll have to run a lot of high post action whether triangle (something I've also state before; see bballbreakdown's coverage on this topic), double horn (Spurs 2016 offense) or Clips type offense where Simmons's two man game with one of our bigs will turn into a 2 vs 3 situation where the roll man can either opt to score or throw a lob to the other big around the rim.

The entire gist is to slow down the pace and make it a game of opposing perimeter scorers shooting over the outstretch arms of your bigs while our bigs scoring over smaller defenders in the paint.

That's sort of what I was thinking, although you put it into coaches' parlance. The other thing is this: Can your run-of-the-mill teams afford to play small ball? Unless they've got two truly excellent three-point shooters who can trade threes for two (Golden State, for instance), where is the cutoff point for where tall ball beats small ball. Rondo, Rose, Smart, even DeRozen are all career .300 shooters from three. Do you give them the shot?

In a 7 game series, you're going to play physical enough to wear your small ball opponent. In a similar fashion of how OKC almost beat GSW and how Cavs beat GSW. Switch every screens and turn it into a 1on1 contest, pound the ball inside, attack O-rebs and live with Curry shooting over IBaka, Adams, Kanter, Tristan and Love. Curry is probably the only player that can shoot over these guys with decent %. I find regular season games more of being theatrical with players exerting less effort/pressure on D until the final minutes (nature of 82 games) that small ball basketball thrives with. But then you've got to remember that the Bucks gave GSW fits in the regular season with Greg Monroe. And quite frankly, I don't see any small ball teams that makes me question of an Okafor/Embiid frontcourt.

Regarding Simmons.. You can't have the mentality that just because he's a bad shooter in the upcoming season you'd then want to clear the bigs and turn this into a small ball team. What are you concern at? Him not winning ROY or not being able to brag against fans of other teams? Like me, the FO drafted Simmons in the hopes of him becoming a good shooter(and also a good defensive player). If Simmons doesn't turn into a good shooter, you'd probably hold unto your horses and stop considering these dollar for 50cents type deals, because you'd need more talent on your team to compensate for a poor shooting Simmons which is more of a borderline star like Iguodala than the next LeBron.

[Sixerscan]

I'm having a hard time deciding which point on this page to disprove, but beyond the silliness of citing a one game sample size to build your entire roster around, Monroe is one guy, their starting power forward was Jabari who is smaller than Simmons.

Which leads me to the point that people have to get over this idea that a Simmons/Embiid front court is small ball. Stop acting like a lineup with a 6'10" guy and a 7'3" guy is some sort of gimmick. A lineup with two centers in it would be the gimmick and it will take some very inventive solutions by Brett to figure it out.

[hookshot199]

I expect Saric and Embiid to be good shooters. I think Jah also shows some promise. And eventually, i'd expect the player development should focus on their shooting.

I do think Jah/Biid frontcourt is promising and should be one of the hardest things to stop in the league.

On the interim.. All four guys are mobile and long that they can switch screens/rotate and challenge shots (even Jah's DFGA is promising). It's similar to how Cavs/OKC defend the warriors in the playoffs, and how Spurs did in regular season.

Offensively, you'll have to run a lot of high post action whether triangle (something I've also state before; see bballbreakdown's coverage on this topic), double horn (Spurs 2016 offense) or Clips type offense where Simmons's two man game with one of our bigs will turn into a 2 vs 3 situation where the roll man can either opt to score or throw a lob to the other big around the rim.

The entire gist is to slow down the pace and make it a game of opposing perimeter scorers shooting over the outstretch arms of your bigs while our bigs scoring over smaller defenders in the paint.

That's sort of what I was thinking, although you put it into coaches' parlance. The other thing is this: Can your run-of-the-mill teams afford to play small ball? Unless they've got two truly excellent three-point shooters who can trade threes for two (Golden State, for instance), where is the cutoff point for where tall ball beats small ball. Rondo, Rose, Smart, even DeRozen are all career .300 shooters from three. Do you give them the shot?

In a 7 game series, you're going to play physical enough to wear your small ball opponent. In a similar fashion of how OKC almost beat GSW and how Cavs beat GSW. Switch every screens and turn it into a 1on1 contest, pound the ball inside, attack O-rebs and live with Curry shooting over IBaka, Adams, Kanter, Tristan and Love. Curry is probably the only player that can shoot over these guys with decent %. I find regular season games more of being theatrical with players exerting less effort/pressure on D until the final minutes (nature of 82 games) that small ball basketball thrives with. But then you've got to remember that the Bucks gave GSW fits in the regular season with Greg Monroe. And quite frankly, I don't see any small ball teams that makes me question of an Okafor/Embiid frontcourt.

Regarding Simmons.. You can't have the mentality that just because he's a bad shooter in the upcoming season you'd then want to clear the bigs and turn this into a small ball team. What are you concern at? Him not winning ROY or not being able to brag against fans of other teams? Like me, the FO drafted Simmons in the hopes of him becoming a good shooter(and also a good defensive player). If Simmons doesn't turn into a good shooter, you'd probably hold unto your horses and stop considering these dollar for 50cents type deals, because you'd need more talent on your team to compensate for a poor shooting Simmons which is more of a borderline star like Iguodala than the next LeBron.

What I saw in the summer league - and it's way, way too soon to suggest that my opinion is more than wishful thinking - is that Simmons has potential to do some of the things Magic Johnson did offensively. Without going into deep analytics (assuming they even exist), Magic, who could look over the defense, averaged 11 assists over his career, brought down 7 rebounds, and scored 19 points while shooting only 30% from three; .520 overall. If you recall, he had an unorthodox jump shot and made a lot of running one-handers including his little hooks, both left and right handed. None of it was pretty.

Granted, the game's changed, but if you have a Kyle Korver type shooter playing the two (Stauskas had better show something soon) and whatever we hope/expect from Saric (who could be under contract through 2023) or whoever we draft next June, there's no reason he couldn't become a very effective point guard. I am reluctant to compare him to Magic (that's raising the bar too high), but do take a look at the sort of short shots that contributed to Magic's 50% overall shooting.

Watch on YouTube

A year ago, everyone raved about D'Angelo Russell's passing. Russell reminded me more of Matt 'Thread the Needle' Goukas (now I'm giving away my age). He has enormous upside at least as a passer. Simmons, on first blush, looks like he could pass to Jabaar.

And not to shortchange Noel, he's surely got a more refined shot than Noah. And when Ish played point (I forget the numbers) but Noel's shooting efficiency (3-ft range) tended to go up, I believe to around 60% but I don't have the stats at hand.

Your OKC/Golden State example is good. You don't construct a team to deal with a once-in-a-lifetime shooter like Curry.

As for the Iggy comparison, Iggy never handled the ball well in traffic. I would hope that Simmons is better. Time will tell.