The Jahlil Okafor-Nerlens Noel pairing isn’t working

The other night against Karl-Anthony Towns, the player drafted two spots ahead of him and an early Rookie of the Year frontrunner, Jahlil Okafor was at his very best. The Sixers’ rookie center scored 25 points (on 10-15 from the field and 5-7 from the line) and grabbed 12 rebounds. He won the battle with Towns decisively, a 10-8 first round on Harold Lederman’s scorecard:

Still, while it’s too early to make any conclusions, some of the returns from Okafor on the team level are pretty concerning. In 499 minutes, he has the worst net rating on the team, which basically means that the Sixers are getting outscored worse when he is on the floor than anyone else. It’s an ugly number, too: 21.3 points per 100 possessions per Basketball Reference.

The Sixers have actually played decent (around even, which is swell for this group) when Okafor is off the floor. All of the caveats (small sample, no spacing/shooting, very little help in general) may apply, but both the offense and defense currently get drastically better when Okafor leaves the floor. Regardless of how early we are in the game, this is certainly not a great sign. Here are the numbers so far:

 
So when you see historical comparisons to all-time NBA greats based on Okafor’s large counting stats, my advice would be to take them with a grain of salt. The situation for Okafor is not ideal to say the least and rookie big men tend to struggle (especially defensively), but it’s fair to say he still has quite a bit to prove outside of his scoring and rebounding averages.

Watching Okafor’s excellent effort against Minnesota, it appeared like Brett Brown made a concerted effort to stagger Jah and Nerlens Noel’s minutes. In general, Brown played a lot of Jerami Grant at the 4, Hollis Thompson and Robert Covington on the wings, one of his traditional big men (Nerlens or Jah), and a point guard (T.J. McConnell or Isaiah Canaan).

Going forward, I think leaning on those lineups (Nik Stauskas and JaKarr Sampson can rotate on the wing, too) is the Sixers’ best shot to stay competitive. The spacing seems much better with those groups, while both Okafor and Noel can maximize their development.

Again, extremely small sample, but of the Sixers’ five 5-man lineups with a positive net rating (in at least ten minutes of action), only one includes the Noel-Okafor pairing. Grant is the power forward in three of them, and Covington is the nominal 4 in the other.

The Okafor-Noel pairing has started off, to put it bluntly, disastrously. One more time, it’s still early and bricky shooting/lack of playmaking from the perimeter players aren’t helping matters at all, but the spacing issues are apparent when you watch those two share the court. It’s awfully crowded in the paint, and the numbers back it up (per NBA Wowy):

It has obviously been a very rough start to the Sixers’ season. Unless we start to see a major shift, we should see much less of the “Center City” lineup in the upcoming weeks.

Follow Rich on Twitter: @rich_hofmann