Can Nerlens Noel continue to revamp his image with OKC Thunder leading to a summer payday?

OKC Thunder backup center Nerlens Noel has a messy track record when playing for losing teams. Can he build upon a positive first season in OKC?

The OKC Thunder one question for every player series rolls on with Nerlens Noel. His question is simple: Can he stay out of the drama while on a losing team?

This seems like an obvious question, and maybe some of you are wondering what I mean. After all, Noel has been without a media misstep since arriving in Loud City, but it has not always been that way throughout his career.

Last year with the OKC Thunder was the first year in his career that Nerlens Noel got to play with a winning basketball team. He was drafted by the tanking 76ers and spent two years in Dallas while the team was bottoming out before eventually landing Luka Doncic.

At both of his previous spots, things got…interesting for Nerlens Noel and not for particularly good reason. He never wanted to be in Philly, in fact, it was at least the third place he thought he was going. When the Cleveland Cavs shocked the NBA world and picked Anthony Bennett with the first overall pick, Noel was stunned. He was then picked 6th by the New Orleans Pelicans (where then-commissioner David Stern had an epic voice crack) and from there he finally ended up in Philly via a trade.

From there things just sort of spiraled for the once promising prospect from Kentucky. After being traded to Dallas, Noel posted very good numbers to earn a four year 70 million dollar contract from the Mavs. Well, Nerlens elected to decline that offer and that is when things went off the rails.

A breakup in Big D was inevitable after Noel snuck away during a game to grab a hot dog from the Mavs media room. The relationship between him and legendary head coach Rick Carlisle would never be the same.

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This brings us to the present day. The man who once rejected a 70 million dollar offer, having to take a pair of “prove it” deals in OKC to try to earn big money in a weak 2020 free-agent class.

Nerlens Noel did not have the highest per-game totals by any means last year, coming off the bench for iron man Steven Adams, with a roster that sometimes went small with Jerami Grant at the five. However, if you extrapolate his numbers to per 36, his totals leap up to the second-best in his career. the OKC Thunder has been a good stop for Noel.

With Jerami Grant now gone, and the team no longer in a “win-now” mode, it should provide Noel more minutes. There is no longer a need to run Steven Adams ragged, giving him more rest allows Noel to expand on his game and “prove it” more.

Again, the 25-year-old is on an expiring, and cheap deal. He could very well be moved at the deadline to a team that needs a rim protector (look around the league, there are a lot of contenders who fall into this category…looking at you Clippers) so his extended stay in Bricktown may only last until the all-star break.

But in the meantime how will he react to being on a team that may be in the bottom half of the conference again, or at least outside the playoffs? His track record is not good in these situations, and this year he can reinvent his image.

So far, he is saying the right things. In fact, his media day interviews made me question if maybe he wants to be around to see this (what should be short) rebuild through. So he is saying everything right, but when the bullets start flying, and the team starts losing meaningful games, will he keep that same energy?

I think he will. I think he knows at most this is an 82 game agreement and he will hit a weak open market with a ton of teams thinking they are “right there” and just need that rim protecting rim rolling center to get them over the hump.

Do you think there will be any Noel hot dog like drama in OKC this year? Let us know in the comments and on Twitter.