FanPost

Nerlens Week: The Twin Towers

I understand the fear concerning the durability of the Twin Towers we're building at Wells Fargo Center, but try to look at the situation in a optimistic and realistic way. For one, Nerlens only serious injury has been a freak accident when he caught the stanchion a la Paul George that took Noel off the court for 18 months. Also, we have to realize it's 2014 and although foot injuries have ended the careers of greats like Walton and Yao, there's no indication this wasn't a freak injury as well in Embiid's case. Maybe the stars are aligning for us, because no way we get Nerlens Noel and Joel Embiid in consecutive drafts without the #1 overall pick without some sort of luck. Also, medically and scientifically we are light years ahead from Walton's injury, even the Yao era is a while away. Sports science is making strides, the way athletes recover are changing and injuries are too abnormal to try to plan for them. If the Eagles this year can remain as healthy as they did last year in a sport like football, except your freak Maclin injury, Chip might lend his neighbors a hand in his innovation recovery program, it's bound to come out anyway. If injuries is your team's main concern I'd say you're doing pretty well, because that's every teams concern. Derrick Rose sat out almost two years and seems to be healthy after two major back to back injuries. Paul George is hoping for a 14-15 return, that might be a stretch but injuries aren't the death sentence they used to be. Yao even managed a 14 year pro career, including 8 All-Star appearances. We can't ignore the pattern of big men going down, but not every injured big man is Greg Oden. He should really be considered the abnormal in the situation especially with his two differently sized legs.

Let's forget about the injury scares for a moment and talk about the potential and the mechanics of the Twin Towers we hope to see dominate. At this point it's all speculation because neither have played an official NBA minute, but that's what makes it so interesting. Shortly after learning the Sixers would be drafted Embiid, Brett Brown said he had immediately began to draw up plays for his two big men. I know Hinkie really goes through his process with the end in mind, but the way this is all playing out seems almost planned to the last detail. To find a coach like Brett Brown, who was the director of player development for the Spurs for 11 years, having first hand experience with the Twin Towers in San Antonio able to coach the better set of big men prospects to be drafted in a while. He even compared the two to Duncan and Robinson, and that comparision means the most coming from someone that has been with the Spurs during the Twin Tower era and for all of their championships. But how do the two really compare?

The biggest difference obviously is that both Noel and Embiid are both currently 20 years old. Robinson had been in his thirties when Duncan arrived. This is a huge advantage for the Sixers possibly having both these guys entering their prime at the same time. If I had to assign them both positions today Noel would be the 4, and Embiid the center position because:

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We don't have to worry about Embiid putting on weight, in his case it's going to be up to Brown to keep him fit so that he can stay in shape and not have any unnecessary weight. I still won't count out Nerlens putting on substaintial weight. He's only turned 20 and weighs 228, thats 12 pounds he managed to put on while rehabbing an ACL injury. He weighed in at at 216 at 19 during the combine. Tim Duncan weighed 249 at his draft combine measurements but he was a year older than Noel is now before staying at Wake Forest for 3 years. Now that his knee is healed completely I'm sure he can spend more time on his legs, so I'm not worried about him filling out at all just yet. Tim had skinny legs too at this age at Wake Forest. If Noel stayed in Kentucky for 3 years, without having to rehab a major injury I feel like he would have come in at the 230's. With an NBA workout program, it's not outrageous to say he can max out at a respectable 240-245. Size is something we should not fret about when talking about guys who have at least 5 more years of maturing, right now it's all about development and making these two possible difference makers work.

Offense:

The beginning of this year will be interesting for Noel. He will be a lone tower this year so to say for a extended part of the season, Joel Embiid may not even play at all during 2014-15. Nerlens lacked an impressive offensive game to go along with his defensive prowess unlike Embiid coming out of college. He still managed to average 10 PPG and shoot at 59%, and he seems to have a pretty good work ethic. He's always smart in his interviews acknowledging his temporary short comings with offense and size and how him and Embiid will work together. Even though he came into the Summer Leagues without an offensive reputation he showed off great footwork, speed, and some big man moves. One thing that has been really promising with Noel is his shooting. His form may still look a bit funky but I feel like that might end up being a reliable shot for him, and with that release point it would be pretty much unguardable. This is why I think he would make the better PF out of the two, while Embiid currently has a better shooting touch I project Nerlens out being a better face up player. His shooting touch seems to have improved, doing great at the line during the Summer League one year removed from averaging 52% at Kentucky. Also, I really remember Noel taking 2 or 3 of those jump shots from the high post making only one of them. I'll definitely take Nerlens shooting 30% from mid range this year. With reps he should be able to develop a good touch at that range and you can bet he'll get that this year with Embiid sitting on the bench.

What do we do when Embiid is healthy and ready to play alongside Noel? With both big men good ball handlers and passers, I don't see it getting too clogged inside the perimeter working from the high and low post, and as they develop skill and body wise hopefully the can become versatile in who mans which post. This is where I suppose the "twin" part comes in, Hakeem Olajuwan has reached out to Embiid for some off season training once he heals, but why should only Embiid take advantage of that? Working alongside Joel, Nerlens should be able to expand his post moves and when he puts on weight he can command more of a presence to really pull off some of those big boy moves.

Obviously this is the end goal here:

Defense:

Not really much to speculate about in this department. What make's this defensive anchor pairing so frightning has to be the rim protection they would bring. With these two it's going to become more of a chemistry thing for a while knowing who is going for the blocked or altered shot and who should grab the rebound. When should the help defense come over, timing, a bunch of things that will come in time. With Noel being able to jump twice before some players are able to get up once, Embiid would be in great position to either provide help defense at the basket or picked up the rebound of a altered shot and vice versa. Noel seems to have a real skill at blocking shots, and all around causing havoc on defense. He might have some of the quickest hands I've seen on a 7 footer, just honestly a physical specimen made for disrupting passing lanes and altering shots. Some people think he shouldn't try to alter ever shot but I'd honestly have him average 5 rebounds a game if he also average 4 or 5 blocks and countless altered shots. As you saw in the Orlando Summer League someone with their mind on rebounding like Hollis Thompson can really take advantage of all the available boards that Noel causes. With Embiid, he would be in great position to take advantage of those altered shots, and if Noel is caught in the air he can provide help defense so that if even Embiid might not be able to make a defensive play Noel will be ready to take another shot at the block attempt. Noel has blocked/tipped his fair share of jump shots as well so him so with his quickness he can get out to the perimeter to alter shots. Embiid will again take advantage of the low post with rebounding and clean up duty.

Durability:

Again, I hate to go back to the injuries and durability conversation and I know that there isn't conclusive data that big men are more susceptible for injuries we have to be realistic here. Big men get hurt, especially smaller big men like Noel currently. Still in Embiid/Noel's case I'm not much more worried than I am about any of our players getting injured. Other than Noel's high flying dunks there's been an overreaction to his style of player. Again, Noel's game would be better at least for now as a face up dominated game, and during his playing time he rarely generate much body contact to be deemed a dangerous play style. He managed to stay in the game at Ole Miss carrying 4 fouls and registered 12 blocks. It's all about timing with Noel not overpowering guys he's more athletic than so I doubt he'll just be throwing himself into bigger guys without bulking up first. He may get pushed around a bit now but with his small frame it might be a good thing for now with all the calls he'll be sure to receive. Embiid also plays a safe game, and none of the injuries he's sustained are chronic.

Like I said before the best part of this new version of the Twin Towers is that both of them are only 20 years old. Looking back at the most potent twin towers in NBA history pairs like Kevin McHale and Robert Parish, Hakeem Olajuwon and Ralph Sampson, and Duncan and David Robinson come to mind. While almost all of these players have eclipsed 3000 minutes at a point in their career, the only instance in all of these pairings where the front court accounted for 6000 minutes was in 87-88 season with McHale and Parish without either player playing a full season. They were 4 years apart in age, with Houston's pairing being two years apart, and the outlier Spurs being a whopping 11 years apart. Houston's twin towers had the most potentional for a long run with both players bound to enter their prime together, but minute management might have cut them short with Sampson's unfortunate injuries. However I feel like we are in a better situation.

The Sixers are bringing in a lot of versatile front court players who can go from 3 to 4 or 4 to 5 or maybe in Dario's case 3 through 5.With a deep front court Noel and Embiid could average 30 minutes per game over 82 games and only log 2400 minutes each a season. Even though going over 6000 minutes combined for these twin tower pairs has only happened once, each of these pairs have come very close to that mark for multiple seasons. If Embiid and Noel can average 4800 minutes together a season hopefully along with improved medical care they can enjoy long healthy careers.

Although we can't be to sure what happens when 240 pounds goes crashing to the ground, we shouldn't feel any anxiety over the health of our to star prospects unless unnecessary worrying is your thing. Injuries could happen to any player. Best to not fret over things we cannot control. We can only hope that they play as long a career as they can and fully reach their potential whatever it might be.

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