Nerlens Noel Has Been a Locker Room Nuisance With the Mavericks

Former Philadelphia 76ers big man Nerlens Noel has been a troublesome player in the locker room for the Dallas Mavericks so far, according to NBA rumors.

The Philadelphia 76ers, over the last three years, had a very young team with little veteran guidance. Nerlens Noel was, over the last several months after Jerami Grant‘s departure early in the season, the longest tenured Sixer, and the player who had lived through the rebuilding process for the longest period of time.

Some might say that could have caused issues with his development as a responsible player both on and off the court. His experience with the Mavericks so far may be backing that up.

The Sixers parted ways with Noel on Thursday, February 23, the day of this year’s NBA trade deadline. They sent him to the Dallas Mavericks for a cherry sprite and a coupon for half off any kids meal at Burger King Andrew Bogut, (who would later be bought out) Justin Anderson, and a first round pick that will almost certainly not convey because of protections and turn into two second-round picks.

There’s been talk of that being really low value, and for what we see on the floor, it’s evident that it is low value. But there’s also been rumors over the past few seasons that one of the things holding Noel down in value has been issues he’s shown off of the court.

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While in Philadelphia, we didn’t hear about many of those issues, but that’s likely because anything involving the team likely wasn’t discussed in the public. To show outright that players were not handling their careers seriously would be a negative light on the radical rebuild, and more of a reason for people to say that running a team with only young players is detrimental to a young player’s success.

The biggest thing that Noel got publicly looked down upon for was the trashing of a condo he was renting out. 

Other teams operate their public relations department a bit differently. The Dallas Mavericks were not afraid to shy away from an early disciplinary measure with Nerlens Noel. Noel reportedly was late to a team flight (by 10 minutes) and was demoted to a reserve for their game against the Atlanta Hawks because of that.

Head coach Rick Carlisle sarcastically stated that he would be able to start in the team’s next home game agains the Memphis Grizzlies, as long as he can find the arena.

Carlisle then said this, regarding team mentor Elton Brand who worked in close capacity with a lot of the young players on the Sixers.

Now, Carlisle seems to be joking, but it also seems to be one of those, “I’m joking, but I’m not,” situations. Clearly, Noel has screwed up already in his time with the Mavericks, so it’s interesting to wonder if he had any tendencies like this when he was with the Sixers.

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We could potentially chalk this lateness and irresponsibility up to Noel being in a new city and getting used to being on a new team, but with murmurs of Noel’s behavior being flaky in the past, it has to make you wonder if he’s a locker room problem at times.