Nerlens Noel has just received a five-game suspension for violating the league’s substance policy which, from the length of the suspension, means it’s probably marijuana. But, more importantly, since the Mavericks only have five games left in the season, that means that Noel’s Mavericks season is over. And what a season it was!
Noel has never not been a confusing player. At the time he was drafted, No. 6 overall in a weak draft, there was at least the slim possibility that he would be the No. 1 overall pick. In fact, mediocre as he’s been, he’s obviously been better than the No. 1 pick (Anthony Bennett), and you could make a case for anybody ahead of him except Victor Oladipo and Otto Porter. He’s also always produced at least as well as lots of guys who get consistent minutes in the NBA, averaging 9.3 points, 7.2 rebounds – including 2.2 offensive boards – and 1.4 blocks a game despite limited minutes
Then again, he’s always had limited minutes, and it’s typically the case in the NBA that when there’s smoke there’s fire. I don’t mean anything about his head not being screwed on straight, which is something I think sportswriters shouldn’t weigh in on, just that it’s likely that if he were doing what the coach thought he should do on the court, it’s likely he would have gotten more minutes last year here, and more minutes in Philly. Then again, on the third hand as it were, the Sixers were never trying to win while they had him and the Mavs can be real weird about stuff like this.
Since Noel will not play again this season, it is indeed most likely that Mavs fans have seen the last of him in a Mavs uniform. If so, and even though Noel may never have much of an NBA career, the Noel experience has to go down as a front office mistake, one way or the other. When free agent talks suddenly fell apart last season, many people, apparently forgetting how weird every big Mavs' free agent saga has been, believed the logical thing would happen – which is that Noel would get ample chance to prove himself this year – he hasn’t – and that if he did, the Mavs could pay him even more at the end of the season.
That, of course, isn’t going to happen and may not even have been possible. Fans sometimes adopt the rhetoric of teams that this is a “business” and that players understand, but you only have to think of Tyson Chandler spurning the Mavs’ one-year max deal, and then refusing to wait around the second time to recognize that players have their pride. But, after this year, Noel won’t be worth the $17 million a year he supposedly was offered, and is probably pretty peeved at the team regardless.
Of course, some people will say good riddance, and of course, those people may well be right. But say that’s true. In that case, the Mavs traded a young player and first-round draft pick for nothing. In that case, the Mavs made a huge mistake offering Noel what would have been an albatross contract and only got lucky that he said no. In that case, they failed to even trade him, a young player with a lot of talent whatever his foibles, for any real assets.
And of course, the Mavs can congratulate themselves to some degree on being just this kind of lucky before. They were lucky that Chandler Parsons didn’t resign, lucky to get rid of Monta before his production fell off a cliff, lucky that they only had Odom and Rondo for one-ish season. They were even to some degree lucky they didn’t sign either Dwight Howard or Deron Williams when they were so desperate to do so, as neither contract worked out well for the teams that actually signed them.
But at some point you have to ask, why is it that they so rarely get anyone worth keeping and are as often as lucky to have failed to make the moves they wanted to make as they are in the contracts they refuse to sign? How come they keep being lucky not to have to keep the guys who they bring in with great fanfare? How come the cupboard got so extremely bare, and why do they have so few assets to do something about it?
At this time next year, I hope I’m watching Dennis Smith and whoever they draft this year laying the foundation for the next era of Mavericks basketball and not worrying about any of this. But it’s sad to see what is probably another opportunity gone awry, however it goes.
