(Christopher A. Vito)

The 76ers’ Nerlens Noel put on quite a display after Thursday’s practice.

The rookie center worked out with assistant coach Greg Foster, in front of reporters for nearly a half hour. He dunked and took hook shots with both his left and right hands, took passes from assistant Billy Lange and backed down Foster, tossed in a few spin moves and practiced his free throw form.

Enough for fans to get excited over? Not so fast, said Sixers coach Brett Brown. Noel, who has yet to play this season while continuing rehab from a February 2013 knee surgery, isn’t close to a return. His next step is 5-on-0 scripting, in which he can make sharper cuts and graduate to a workout beyond “shadow-boxing,” as Brown called it.

“The message is two-fold: Yep, you’d be as excited as I am to project out what could be in Nerlens Noel. But don’t get tricked,” Brown said. “There’s a long ways to go. When it happens is anybody’s guess right now. Those are the two messages.”

Check out the videos below and pick up Friday’s Daily Times for more on Noel.

(AP)

The 76ers have yet to announce – by way of an official press release – the members of coach Brett Brown’s staff, even though Lloyd Pierce, Chad Iske, Billy Lange, Greg Foster and Curtis Sumpter have been visible figures ever since training camp.

So when a reporter asked Brown after Thursday’s practice for the identity of the guy under the far basket, wearing a Sixers T-shirt, working with Spencer Hawes, it was somewhat surprising that Brown revealed who he was.

“That’s Vance Walberg,” Brown said.

Walberg, who most recently was on George Karl’s staff last season with the Denver Nuggets, is regarded for developing the dribble-drive motion offense. A California-based high school coach from 1978-2002, Walberg was the head coach at Fresno City College from 2002-2006 and Pepperdine from 2006-08, worked as an assistant at UMass from 2008-11 before joining the Nuggets last year.

“If you looked on Google, you would see Sports Illustrated articles and other articles on him,” Brown said of Walberg. “He’s very renowned and researched in the dribble-drive game. That’s his claim to fame. Many articles declared him to be one of the most innovative coaches in all of basketball. Coach (John) Calipari has implemented his system at Kentucky. For me, I’m interested in that attack game, that drive-and-dish game, that proactive game. The combination of that and pick-and-roll is the future of the game, and I want to learn more. So he’s been with us and he’s been fantastic."

One of these days, the Sixers will unveil who is serving on Brown's bench. It's yet to be determined if Walberg is one of them.