Philadelphia 76ers center Nerlens Noel got a chance to get his coach's thoughts after a one-on-one meeting with Brett Brown addressing his shortage of minutes during the past two games.
Upon his return, Noel played 10 minutes against the Detroit Pistons and after missing one game with an ankle injury, he came back to play just eight minutes against the Los Angeles Lakers — something that caused outrage in the third-year player.
“He just has a lot on his plate, so no pointing fingers. It’s a situation that we’re (dealing) with,” Noel told Jessica Camerato of CSN Philly on Saturday. “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.”
As for his controversial comments after Friday night's game, Noel said it came from wanting to contribute to the team.
“You might get emotional sometimes and I’m human and I want to play basketball at the highest level. Now moving forward it’s taking it day by day and keep improving.”
Brown was patient in the midst of a lose-lose situation that sees both Noel and prized rookie Joel Embiid unhappy with their roles as he experiments with different lineups and deals with minute-limitations due to health reasons.
“I think it’ll be an extreme challenge,” Brown said of the three-center rotation. “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.”
While the Sixers will likely find a solution once one of the trio gets moved elsewhere, Brown stopped short of saying that a trade was absolutely necessary — something Noel thought was inevitably in the cards before the season even began.
“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,” Brown said.
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