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76ers coach sees Noel at PF/C, compares Noel-Embiid to Robinson-Duncan

Reuters

The payoff for a few down years in Philadelphia might be a dynasty for the 76ers in the years to come.

Of course, that's the goal and rallying cry for every bad team, but 76ers head coach Brett Brown sees a more direct connection between the fruits of the team's failure and the path to success.

In the past two drafts, Philadelphia has selected centers Nerlens Noel (2013, No. 6) and Joel Embiid (No. 3, 2014), in an obvious play to assemble as much talent and upside as possible, regardless of position. Noel missed the entire 2013-14 season as he recovered from a torn ACL and Embiid might miss most or all of 2014-15 recovering from a broken foot, but eventually they'll have to find a way to play together.

On Thursday, Brown described how he sees the partnership playing out in an interview on SiriusXM NBA (the audio has since been taken down but was transcribed by Eye on Basketball):

Originally, I kept talking about, 'Is (Noel) Tyson Chandler? What type of 5 man is he? Is he gonna be Joakim Noah?' Since we have drafted Joel Embiid, I've sort of reshifted my own vision of the program, where from only a height perspective, I wonder if there are things to be learned from Timmy and David Robinson to roll out two big men and really think about the rim protection and the defense that we could have here. Which puts him more at the 4 spot. So I'm flexible. I think this year you're going to see him at both positions. I think at the end of the day where he's going to help us the most is a rim protector and from the defensive end.

Comparing a pair of big men to Tim Duncan and David Robinson sets the bar pretty high. While we don't have lineup data going back far enough to evaluate their time on the court together, it's clear that Duncan and Robinson co-existed just fine:

Twin Towers Robinson MPG Duncan MPG Team D-Rank
1997-98 33.7 39.1 2nd
1998-99* 31.7 39.3 1st
1999-00 32 38.9 2nd
2000-01 29.6 38.7 1st
2001-02 29.5 40.6 2nd
2002-03* 26.2 39.3 3rd

* - won championship

If Brown sees Noel as a hybrid frontcourt player, that makes him the Duncan and Embiid the Robinson. 

Comparisons aside, the important thing here is that the Sixers already have a plan in place to use the two immensely talented bigs together, at least on defense. An effective offense might require one or both to develop an outside game, something Embiid flashed in small bursts at Kansas, but it might not matter much if no team can get a shot off in the paint.

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