John 3:16- For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whosoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.
So lets examine some of the lies being propagated for those who worship at the altar of Noel.
"You can't can win with a center who doesn't rebound or protect the rim"
Noel doesn't rebound and his OP FG% from the key or closer was middle of the pack. We won 18 games with Noel the previous year. We went 2-20 after Okafor got injured. Clearly, having Noel in the lineup hasn't won us anything
"DeAndre Jordan survives without a jumpshot and post game so Noel can too"
He also rebounds and is an elite rim protector. He has 20+ pounds on Noel which helps defending players in the post. He doesn't turn the ball over like Noel. He generates and converts more of his opportunities from in close. For example if you remove the shots 3+ feet from Noel game he becomes a 6-7 PPG player. Jordan averaged 14 points last season.
When you take all this into account Noel WS/48 is .074. Jordans was .213. To give some perspective of the difference Evan Turners WS/.48 was .085. Durants was .270 last season.
"Noel dramatically improved his offense last season"
His numbers did improve slightly but when your jumpshot is as broken as Noels for example shooting .288 on FG 3-10 feet in 2015 you have no where to go but up. Unfortunately, .308 is not much of an improvement. Most of Noel "improved offense" can be attributed to him giving up on his jumpshot.
That's really not the kind of improvement I want to see from my young players. I want to see them actually improve not just cut out the things they aren't good at.
"Noels hands are fine. Okafor offense is archaic because the entry pass in the post leads to too many turnovers"
Okafor is a different kind of post scorer then most NBA players. For one he doesn't have to get the basketball right next to the basket to be effective. He is actually capable of dribbling and creating opportunities for himself. Which of course is a concern particularly when it comes to defenses and how good they are defending the entry pass.
Noel on the hand led the team in turnovers despite his limited usage. In fact, despite Okafor being essentially a secondary ballhandler his TOV was 12.5 which is below the league average of 14.4. Noel had a TOV of 18.7
Ish Smith had a TOV of 14 which was actually lower then his pre trade NOP numbers. It was also curiously lower then his 2014-2015 pre Okafor PHI numbers and lower then his career numbers.
"Okafor is too slow for the modern NBA"
-9th in distance travelled per game among centers
-2nd in average speed among top 10 centers in distance traveled per game
-85th among NBA players in distance traveled per game