There may be massive questions surrounding Nerlens Noel and the people with whom he’s associating with as the NBA draft draws near. In a podcast with Bill Simmons, Ryen Russillo wondered aloud who would end up writing the article on the topic, but it seems to me he just broke the news.
“I think the Noel thing is the most interesting,” Russillo said of the 2013 NBA draft. Russillo expounded “He has, by all reports if you start digging a bit deeper on this – and I don’t know who is going to end up writing this story – but he has some like epic bad dudes with him.”
The rest of the story is that he hasn’t signed with an agent, he’s been a serial appointment breaker with business people including multiple agents, Clevelander Rich Paul and the infamous World Wide Wes.
Combine that information and the well-known injury questions surrounding the young athlete, and it seems less surprising when there are rumors about Noel dropping down draft boards, including the one being operated by Chris Grant and the Cavaliers.
Of course, maybe there’s more to the story. Certainly a kid rebuffing agents and business managers in the NBA is going to draw attention and cause negative stories in the media. Who else is going to source more stories in the media other than the many managers and agents who pepper the landscape of the NBA? But maybe there’s a real cause for concern too.
You can bet all this and more is factoring into the Cavaliers decision-making process for this year’s draft. We’ll just have to wait, see and judge all this on the back end unless someone really figures it out through an exhaustive reporting process into Nerlens Noel’s “handlers” whomever they might be.
I recommend the entire podcast to Cavs fans, by the way. There were some juicy trade scenarios as Simmons and company like to play with.