The Mavericks are failing Nerlens Noel and their own future

Few truths are to be gleaned three weeks into the NBA season, but one widely made prediction has indeed come true: The Dallas Mavericks are terrible. Dallas is a league-worst 1-10. The Mavericks started last season 2-13, and that’s actually looking pretty good about now.

Dennis Smith has provided some highlight-reel moments, but he is also a rookie point guard, and we know how that goes. Smith is one of three starters shooting below 40 percent from the field, along with Wesley Matthews and Dirk Nowitzki. The bench isn’t much better with Seth Curry sidelined.

One exception: Nerlens Noel, who has been the most efficient rotation player, the best rebounder in the regular rotation, and someone who doesn’t demand the ball much, allowing Smith and Harrison Barnes to get reps as creators. The problem, as Tim Cato outlined two weeks ago, is that Noel isn’t playing much.

Eleven games in, Noel has played 20 minutes or fewer nine times. He’s been bounced in and out of the starting lineup due to matchups, as head coach Rick Carlisle tells it. Nowitzki, who is fading hard at age 39, is being forced to defend centers much of the time simply because he can’t keep up with power forwards. Truth be told, he’s struggling to keep up with most centers, too.

One presumes that if Noel had signed that four-year, $70 million contract last summer, he’d be starting every game and playing 28 minutes per night. He didn’t, and he is not. After firing his agent, he signed a one-year qualifying offer worth $4.4 million. The Mavericks, who traded a couple of second-round picks for Noel last season, expect some team to make a substantial offer in unrestricted free agency this summer. So why develop him?

It makes sense in cold theory, and it’s well within the Mavericks’ rights to slow-trot Noel and keep his visibility and value down. But is it good for the Mavericks now or ever?

Of course not!

Noel isn’t a great NBA player right now. But he’s about 30 percent more productive on a per-minute basis and vastly more efficient than Dwight Powell, who is receiving equal minutes. Noel has better defensive upside too, though he isn’t connecting the dots quite yet. Noel has a better chance of making a positive impact than Salah Mejri, certainly. Most importantly, he fits the timeline Dallas should be focused on more than any other Mavericks big man.

Nowitzki is not going to be on the next good Dallas Mavericks team. He is absolutely struggling this season. So why on Earth is he playing more minutes than any other big man on the team?

Dirk hasn’t hamstrung the Mavericks in the ways that Kobe Bryant hamstrung the Lakers in his final season. Kobe soaked up a huge portion of the payroll and was a high-usage vortex on offense. Dirk is neither. But the Mavericks’ deference and allegiance to Dirk’s legend is keeping him a starter and keeping him in the game way too often. Only feelings are keeping Nowitzki in such a prominent role. Tactically, strategically, it makes no sense.

Given that, one understands that only feelings are keeping Noel on the periphery as well. If the Mavericks want to build something, they’d start Noel with Barnes and Smith, perhaps with Matthews and a young guard or power forward — Barnes and Matthews can swing up a position. Nowitzki could come off the bench and hear a massive ovation in every city. The Mavericks might not win many more games — the roster is really bad compared to two-thirds of the league — but at least they’d get Smith reps with a mobile pick-and-roll partner in Noel and offer their so-called Tyson Chandler starter kit an opportunity to grow.

Instead, the Mavericks are caught up in their feelings — strong, earned positive ones for Dirk and strong, earned negative ones for Noel. At some point, Carlisle needs to do what’s best not for the Mavericks’ hearts, but for their future. Getting Noel onto the court — or finding a trade for him — is part of that.

Keeping one of the team’s few promising players on the bench over sour negotiations sends a terrible message to the other young prospects on the team, and to agents and free agents out there watching. Losing most nights creates enough negativity without Dallas adding even more to the pile.