The big news around the NBA is that the Boston Celtics and the Philadelphia 76ers agreed to swap the first and the third picks in the upcoming draft, with a future pick also going to the Beantown. As much as this is in the news because of Danny Ainge’s decision what to do with the number one pick, it’s as interesting move from the Sixers standpoint.
The City of Philadelphia and the Sixers fans worldwide have seen so much bad basketball, losing and missed games due to injury that it’s hard not to be thrilled for them to finally see their beloved franchise take proactive steps in the return to a competitive level.
They have clearly recognized that there are only two generational players in this year’s draft and won’t settle for less – with the first pick from the previous season, Ben Simmons, missing the entire season due to injury, the Sixers are now set to become the first NBA team ever to have two rookie first overall picks in the same season. And with Embiid and others already showing some progress, Philly will watch one of the most talented young teams in the league.
Whether this is what they have envisioned when they hired Sam Hinkie with his vision of the rebuilding, famously known as The Process, is hard to tell. There were reports from within the organization that the plan was to build a contender in 7 years, so it’s clear that the Sixers were aware that this painful operation is going to be slow and that it would require patience. Now, the end of it can finally be perceived.
The Philadelphia 76ers: The Process
I was never a fan of losing to get better. When the NBA teams are tanking come spring, I’m never going to sugarcoat it and say it’s anything else. Yes, the NBA franchises are more business organizations than sports teams, but a sports fan in me refuses to accept that anything good can come out of the intentional losing.
The Philadelphia 76ers have been intentionally losing for four years. Take a minute and ponder it. Four years passed since The Process started. True, the Sixers have at least been frank to their own fans (and the rest of us) – they said they are going to lose. Sam Hinkie’s crazy idea is that you can only get on top if you lose so heavily so you would get the best young talent year in and year out through the draft. They have tried other methods, and those backfired, so the owners and key people within the organization bought it. Losing it is.
It started after the Sixers gathered all their assets (Iguodala, Vucevic, Harkless and a first round pick in 2017) and traded them for then dominant big man Andrew Bynum. Bad luck or bad decision, but Bynum never played for the Sixers. The Philadelphia 76ers were left with no star caliber players, little cap space, few high value draft picks, and they were not by any stretch of the imagination a free agent destination for a top-tier player despite playing in the fourth largest city in the country.
After the Bynum trade, adversity became familiar for the Philadelphia 76ers. As if the Sixers were deliberately delaying the up-rise, the team has been signing a carousel of D-League-at-best players who would not likely last longer than a 10-day contract under traditional circumstances.
Former team president and general manager Sam Hinkie could have surely formulated a roster of NBA caliber rotation players and still bottomed out in the standings to strengthen the Sixers chances at receiving the number one overall pick. But Hinkie tried to accumulate as much assets as he possibly could over the years, using the growing cap space as a sponge to take other teams’ bad contract sweetened with picks.
The collection grew, but never did he turned those assets into any actual value for the Sixers. Additionally, the high drafted players who would be redshirted for a season or two (Noel, Embiid and Simmons), as if they didn’t want to get marginally better.
The karma has fought the Process, so even the unbelievably patient fans became restless, and ultimately the main guys in the franchise grew sick of waiting. Hinkie got ousted, not because his Process was not yielding what it had promised – young stars – but because there was no end to it. Before what were supposed to be cornerstones of the franchise would leave for more assets, the Sixers have had enough and hired Brian Colangelo to finally start doing something with all the picks and the cap space.
Cultural change
Losing and winning can turn into habits. It’s a mental thing. When a franchise is very successful or very unsuccessful as the Sixers were over these past years, it stays the same for much longer than it should. Losing becomes acceptable. Good effort is praised, occasional wins celebrated and the young players can’t learn what it takes to win night in and night out. You can’t just turn a switch and make a tanking team a good one in an instant, even with all the pieces set.
The Philadelphia 76ers have been far from set even when Colangelo took over, as their most coveted players were all playing the same position – center no less. So cleaning up had to start there.
Noel was sent to Dallas to create more balanced squad and preserve cap space. The free agents aren’t likely to come to an annual 25 wins team, so the Sixers were finally asked to start playing winning basketball in the second half of the season. That was the first step to make it contagious, but unfortunately, Embiid got hurt again and the Philadelphia 76ers couldn’t continue to build on the good period.
Over the course of the season, the Sixers also prepared their 2016 first pick Ben Simmons for a new position, point guard. This might not work all that well according to sources, but the extra training regime on the ball surely improved Simmons’ passing and ball handling skills, and he might take turns in orchestrating the Sixers offense next season.
However, it was clear that it’s not enough. Okafor turned out to be one-dimensional, Embiid looks great, but he’s clearly injury-prone, and the rest of the team is at replacement value. They would need another star.
Summer of 2017
If you had been reading my scribblings the last couple of weeks, you might have spotted that I highly ranked the Sixers as one of the most probable franchises to build the next super team. The summer has not even started and they are proving me right.
Philly has eight guaranteed contracts for the next season and five non-guaranteed. Among the non-guaranteed, they have some decent players with Henderson, Covington, McConnell and Holmes, so they are likely to renounce rights to at least some of them. Still, the Sixers projected cap space for 2017-18 is up to $55 million dollars, enough to sign two stars to max deals, should they decide to join.
But, with all the losing and the few NBA caliber teammates to play with, Colangelo realized that this seasons cap space will likely turn to the next season cap space (and later be used for extending rookie contracts to the players that barely played for the franchise), and that he needs to do more than just show them the money.
That was the reason the Sixers gave up two top 5 picks to move up two spots in this year’s draft. But don’t read into it as an impatient move. I’ve already explained it to you in another of my previous articles. As much as the media are pumping this draft season as a deep one, there are two players that separate themselves from the pack by talent and potential and then there are 4 that are projected to be good. Good is not enough for the Philadelphia 76ers.
Pairing either Fultz (likely) or Ball (less likely) with Simmons, Embiid and the rest of the pack, now that’s an attractive core! But it’s only a part of it. Expect the Sixers to stay aggressive and sign at least one prized free agent this summer. The process of finalizing The Process has started, and the fans in Philly should be excited. Really excited.
Stay tuned with Get More Sports for more interesting NBA news!!!
