Acquiring Nerlens Noel in free agency prior to the 2018-19 season was one of the biggest free agent pickups the Oklahoma City Thunder have ever had. After the re-signing of Paul George, he and Russell Westbrook sold Noel on coming to Oklahoma City on a minimum contract to play the backup center position.
After playing just one season of college basketball at Kentucky, Noel was drafted sixth overall by the Philadelphia 76ers in the 2013
After two and a half seasons in Philadelphia, struggling to fit in, he was traded to the Dallas Mavericks at the trade deadline. With his rookie contract coming to an end, Dallas felt that Noel was worth the risk and hoped a fresh start would rejuvenate his career prior to signing him long-term.
In the summer of 2017 Noel, a restricted free agent at the time, shockingly turned down a four-year, $70 million contract with Dallas. Instead, he signed a 4.1 million qualifying offer with the Mavericks instead, making him a free agent the following summer.
When that next summer came around, the Oklahoma City Thunder would be the next team to give Noel a fresh start. Nerlens Noel signed a two-year, $3.7 million minimum deal with the Oklahoma City Thunder, with a player option in the second year giving him an early opt-out to once again test the free agent market the following summer if he chose.
Coming into the season, Noel knew he would be coming off the bench behind Steven Adams, and was completely fine with that. He ended up playing a career-low 13.7 minutes per game with the Thunder.
Although he didn’t play many minutes, Nerlens Noel was extremely efficient. He produced 4.9 points on 3.6 shot attempts to go along with 4.2 rebounds per game.
Just to show how efficient Nerlens Noel was with his minutes, per 100 possessions he had the highest offensive rating as well as defensive rating on the entire team. Oklahoma City didn’t expect him to be a force on the offensive end but knew he had the potential to be a spark off of the bench and an anchor on defense. Noel was not a letdown in either of those categories.
Noel was 21st in the entire NBA with 1.2 blocks per game, even in limited minutes. If you look deeper into his ability to block shots, he was third in the league in blocks per 48 minutes with 4.37. He also had active hands on the defense, coming up with 0.9 steals per game. Overall, the rim protection and energy he brought off of the bench made him one of the most crucial pieces on the entire roster.
Nerlens Noel made the first playoff appearance of his career with the Oklahoma City Thunder in the 2018-19 season. In his playoff series debut, he essentially brought the exact same production he had in the regular season. In 12.0 minutes per game, he averaged 4.8 points and 3.8 rebounds.
According to data Forbes' Brett Knight compiled for his lists of the NBA's most overpaid and underpaid players, Nerlens Noel was extremely underpaid last season. Knight adapted a methodology created by Southern Utah University economist David Berri, estimating the value of a win and multiplying that figure by an estimate of how many wins a player produced to determine what that player's salary should be. To determine the number of wins a player generated, Knight averaged each player's figures for Wins Produced, Win Shares and an estimate based on Value Over Replacement Player. According to this data, Nerlens Noel's production in the regular season was worth $14,933,520, which is $13,176,091 more than the $1,757,429 he made.
After the disappointing first-round loss, Nerlens Noel had great things to say about the organization in his exit interview. “Its definitely been great, a fun year for me to experience a team like this that has winning intentions and a mentality like that.”
When asked if he wanted to come back to Oklahoma City or explore other options, he simply said, "I love this team and all but I'm definitely let my agent handle that situation."
Will Nerlens Noel be back in Oklahoma City next summer? Even if he does opt out of the second year of his deal, he still could come back to Oklahoma City if they were to offer him more than the minimum. Noel would be a solid player for the Thunder to use their taxpayer mid-level exception worth almost $6 million this offseason.
