Nerlens Noel is hoping for a fresh start with the Thunder after a tumultuous first five years in the NBA. [AP PHOTOS]

LAS VEGAS — Nerlens Noel calls it “my dog.”

He means a side of his playing personality that comes out when he's at his most intense, his most energetic. The Thunder's newest free-agent acquisition has displayed it during his four seasons in the NBA — even on teams that mostly played dead — but by his own admission, not often enough.

“I definitely want to bring my dog out,” Noel said last week after watching a Thunder Summer League game from a courtside seat. “It's been a while. It comes in spurts, the situations I was in. But I want to have it out on a nightly basis, playing with that energy and that joy.”

It's not the dog he's best known for lately.