I’m sure that you have had a chance to read and see much of the initial media questions for Coach Cal that came out yesterday. One question stood out to me as just being funny. Coach Cal eludes that Noel has much work to do and has to get stronger. He laughs at the fact that Davis was able to push Noel off the block during a workout. I think Cal is hilarious sometimes, and he kills most interviews. I’m going to say it again, “He gets IT” !
sourceQ: What do you envision for Nerlens Noel?
I asked Anthony, ‘How was Nerlens?’ because that’s who he matched up against mostly. He said, ‘He’s good, coach. He’ll block some shots.’ I said, ‘How was he offensively?’ He said, ‘I kind of pushed him off the post.’ I said, ‘You pushed him off the post?’ Which is kind of like, OK, we’ve got to teach the kid how to sit down and hold your position until he gets stronger. But what he is, he’s not ever going to be Shaq. That’s not how he is. But he’s really quick and fast, and he’s got a quick twitch.
If a kid is slow going to the ball or reacting to the ball, he can’t play. I don’t care what you say. He cannot play. If a kid is quick – really quick – going to the ball, now he’s got a chance of being special. Anthony was really quick getting to balls. Michael Gilchrist was really quick. Now we had two that were just ‘Bang!’ to balls. Well, this kid is the same way. He’s the quickest on our team getting to balls and doing stuff like that.
If he’s on that baseline or he’s in the high post area with hand-offs and rolls and all that stuff, he’ll finish with dunks. But he’s not in shape right now. He’s physically behind. Back hurts. No kidding; you’re out of shape. You just started here. But I think he’ll be fine.
