Better Safe Than Good

Yeah, Less Of This Please

So the not terribly surprising, but downright disappointing news today out of Sixer Camp... #1 pick, and bounty from the Jrue Holiday trade, Nerlens Noel is likely to be held out for the entire 2013-14 season as he recovers from knee surgery.

It is, of course, the smart move to make. The Sixers are in full tank mode for the 2014 draft, and are a strong candidate to set a new NBA record for futility as hey collect lottery tickets. When you don't have enough reasonable NBA level players to field a starting five -- seriously, no one know who the shooting guard is going to be here, and there's copious amounts of Spencer Hawes and Eric Turner on hand -- you are going to be spectacularly bad.

Had Noel come back quickly this year, he might have sold a few tickets, and much more importantly, gotten his feet wet with the pro game. His offensive game is still rudimentary at best, and it would have been nice to have him get out the rookie shakes when the only thing at stake is getting enough wins to the worst team ever.

Of course, it doesn't really help that this is the franchise that just traded for a big man that didn't ever play for them, thanks to a knee issue...