He benefits Nerlens Noel
One of the reasons I really don’t like having Nerlens Noel on the team and keeping him as a longterm player is because of how dependent he is on Ish Smith. At certain points this season, Noel even expressed that the Sixers needed to bring him back to the team because of how much he needed a player like Ish to succeed.
Although that’s a reason for us to think about moving Noel — a player who needs to be catered to to truly succeed offensively should be looked at as a negative — we shouldn’t knock Ish because of that. And if Nerlens is here for the long haul, maybe it’s worth keeping Ish around until the Sixers can find another point guard who can push Noel the same way Ish does.
Ish is a good player with a heads-up mentality. He’s always looking for the best option. Does he take the ball in and score himself, or does he give it to a teammate? Ish always seems to know what’s best, and does a good job of keeping turnovers relatively low.
As far as setting Noel up nicely, he works really well in the pick-and-roll with Ish. Noel rolls off of Ish and Ish looks for him for a lob. Sometimes Noel can cut backdoor as well and Ish finds him with a lob there as well.
Before Ish, this most recent season, Noel was really struggling. He was asked to be a power forward and didn’t have a guard with him that could push him to success. He was scoring just 9.8 points per game while shooting 45 percent from the field. He had an offensive rating of 84.
After Ish, however, he improved, averaging 11.9 points on 56.4 percent shooting with an improved offensive rating of 106.
Just as Ish improved this team, he improved some of the Sixers as well by being an incredible teammate.
It’s clear that the Ish effect is real with Nerlens, and if Nerlens is one of the big men that will be a part of the foundation of this team, it’s worth considering keeping Ish on to get as much as we possibly can out of Noel.
Next: Solid bench player