Nerlens Noel has just about had it with the Philadelphia 76ers. After coming back from a left knee injury that left him on the sidelines for the first 23 games of the season, Noel has played in two of three games, logging 10 and eight minutes respectively.
“I think I'm too good to be playing eight minutes. That's crazy. That's crazy. That's crazy. We need to figure this shit out,” said Noel, according to CSN Philly's Jessica Camerato.
“It's just too much on the coach's plate. So regardless of who handles it, I think there's a lot of frustration.”
Noel is clearly the odd man out in a three-center royal rumble for minutes — while he's been the one holding down the fort for the team the past two seasons, the Sixers are going with a more offensive-minded lineup of Joel Embiid and Jahlil Okafor.
The Kentucky product has been vocal about the presence of too many bodies for the position and not enough minutes to go around, hinting that he'd welcome a change of scenery if it came to that.
The addition of stretch-four Ersan Ilyasova coming from the Oklahoma City Thunder through a trade last month has also made things more difficult for Noel to get minutes on the floor.
While he is indeed deserving of more than garbage minutes on the floor, this is a direct consequences of a 76ers management that drafted for talent instead of tending to the team's needs.
Due to recent injury and most recently his work ethic, the team has a lot less leverage to shop him around, as his stock has severely decreased in a span of a few months.
Just like the Milwaukee Bucks and the Greg Monroe situation, where he's just not a fit in Jason Kidd‘s system — once teams know a franchise has to trade a player, they have all the cards on their favor.
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