CHICAGO: Nerlens Noel will not be ready to start the season and is targeting a debut around Christmas, he said Thursday during the NBA combine. Noel said he is ahead of schedule in his recovery from a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee and is expected to go No. 1 in the draft despite missing the first two months of the season.

“Ever since the surgery, everything is going great,” Noel said. “I’m 100 percent confident, not just getting back to what I was, but stronger. Going through this time not playing basketball, I’ll just be working on things I need to polish. It will improve me in the long run.”

CHICAGO: If the San Antonio Spurs choose Deshaun Thomas in next month’s NBA draft, they might have a hard time reaching him to tell him. That’s because when the Spurs asked the former Ohio State star for his phone number Wednesday night, he refused to give it to them.

Thomas said teams asked him plenty of difficult and interesting questions during his interview process at the combine. But the most interesting, he said, was the fact the Spurs’ first question was for his cell phone number and his e-mail address. He gave them the e-mail, but not the phone number.

CHICAGO: When he was asked about the NBA teams that felt like the best fit for him, the first team Otto Porter Jr. mentioned was the Cavaliers. Yet he won’t be meeting with Cavs General Manager Chris Grant and the team’s traveling party during this week’s NBA combine.

That’s mildly surprising, but it doesn’t mean the Cavaliers aren’t interested in the small forward from Georgetown.

Dion Waiters was named to the first team All-Rookie Team on Tuesday and Tyler Zeller was named to the second team. The league's 30 coaches voted on the award. They were asked to vote for five players for the first team and five for the second team, regardless of position.

Waiters received 21 first-team votes and eight second-team votes, while Zeller received three first-team votes and nine second-team votes.