Terrible. Horrible. No good. Awful. Pick one of these and you have a pretty good description of the Dallas Mavericks defense. The Mavericks ranked 20th in the league in defensive rating at 113.0 points per 100 possessions during the regular season. During the playoffs, this already terrible number fell to 122.2 points per 100 possessions. They have to get better and Nerlens Noel would help with that.
The basics
Noel is a non bird rights free agent after playing on a 1-year, $5 million deal with the New York Knicks in 2021. Noel famously and foolishly turned down a 4-year $70 million contract with the Mavericks in 2017 betting on himself and losing in an epic way.