CAMDEN, N.J. -- Coaching a team of injured players was one obstacle for Brett Brown. Now that Joel Embiid, Nerlens Noel and Jahlil Okafor are healthy, managing their roles is another hurdle.
Brown isn’t ruling out any possibilities of how the Sixers can maneuver the rest of the season with an unbalanced roster. At the same time, he is realistic about having a trio of centers who could be starters on the same team.
“I think it’ll be an extreme challenge,” Brown said of whether or not having all three bigs available for the season will work. “I think everybody, if you went to our owners, if you went to (president of basketball operations) Bryan (Colangelo), if you went to the team, me, we appreciate it’s a challenging situation. To tick off on untenable, to tick off on it’s impossible, I’m not going there. I think it is most definitely a challenging situation.”
The impact of that challenge was exemplified Friday night when Noel spoke out against his eight minutes of playing time against the Lakers. Noel said he was not an “eight-minute player” and that the Sixers need to figure out the situation (see full story).
Brown met with Noel Saturday to discuss his comments. The two have had many conversations about the Sixers frontcourt situation over the years, and this one was prompted after Noel’s second game of the season in his recent return from injuries. Brown said Noel handled the discussion with “tremendous maturity” and “a lot of class.”
“He’s highly competitive, he’s in a very unusual situation,” Brown said. “The fact that it came out as soon as it did caught me off guard. We’ve discussed it and I’ll be surprised if everybody’s not seeing how we all need to handle this better going forward.”
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Noel has not held back this season with his displeasure of the Sixers’ roster. He said he is going to focus on putting in work so he will be ready when he receives more playing time.
“You might get emotional sometimes and I’m human and I want to play basketball at the highest level,” Noel said. “Now moving forward it’s taking it day by day and keep improving.”
Brown has repeatedly pointed out that he cares for Noel as a player and a person. The two have been together for Brown’s entire tenure with the Sixers. Brown often removes his coach hat and speaks simply from experience.
“He just has a lot on his plate, so no pointing fingers. It’s a situation that we’re dealt with,” Noel said of Brown, also adding, “We had a conversation. He kept it more real with me, so I respect him a little more for that. You see some things with more insight and you handle it how you want to, and just handle it the right way.”
Brown plans to continue pairing Embiid and Okafor in the starting lineup, which leaves Noel on the bench. He said he is intrigued with the possibility of an Embiid-Noel duo because of its defensive potential, but that since Noel was sidelined for so long, he went with Embiid and Okafor first.
How Noel’s playing time shakes out in this new lineup remains to be seen. To Noel, it is important for the team to be close knit and “making sure things are at ease.” The minutes will get sorted out over the course of games.
“I’m not worried. When it comes, it comes,” Noel said. “I know what type of player I am. I know that I’m going to keep working. Nothing’s going to stop me. I’m a prideful player and I’m going to keep going. I’ve been through a lot these past four years ever since I got hurt, so I don’t think anything really can overwhelm me at this point.”
