Kentucky Wildcats vs. Philadelphia 76ers: Who Ya Got?
We don't care if John Calipari himself thinks the Kentucky Wildcats wouldn't hold water with any NBA team, even the 0-11 Philadelphia 76ers. If an NBA team chooses to torture its fanbase and tank, it deserves public shaming in the form of a question: Could it lose to an inherently inferior team?
Please note this debate yields zero closure and satisfaction, and there are no winners in this argument, only arguers.
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Bleacher Report NBA columnist Adam Fromal was brave enough to take up the case of the amateur Kentucky Wildcats.
Fellow NBA columnist Grant Hughes was brave enough to champion a professional basketball team constructed to lose.
The question is simple...
Who would win a single basketball game between this year's Kentucky Wildcats and this year's Philadelphia 76ers, assuming each team plays at its absolute best?
Adam Fromal, Kentucky Wildcats truther:
Normally, I'd be quite hesitant to compare any college team to a professional one, regardless of the sport, but this is a straaaange situation. This is different than comparing the Alabama Crimson Tide to the Jacksonville Jaguars in years past, or even Anthony Davis' Kentucky Wildcats to the Charlotte Bobcats of old.
The Philadelphia 76ers, not-so-proud owners of a winless record, don't deserve to be called an NBA team this season, and it's not as though they have any veteran talent. Nor do they have any truly great prospects on their team who are actually playing (see: Embiid, Joel) other than Nerlens Noel.
Even if all players were forced to wear blindfolds, last year's squad would've blown any college team out of the water, thanks largely to the veteran presence of Thaddeus Young, Evan Turner and Spencer Hawes. But this roster is entirely different. The Sixers are giving JaKarr Sampson and Brandon Davies significant minutes, and it's not like either was transcendentally good in college or has had much time to improve at the professional level.
Meanwhile, between Willie Cauley-Stein, Aaron Harrison, Andrew Harrison, Dakari Johnson, Marcus Lee, Trey Lyles, Alex Poythress and Karl-Anthony Towns, the Wildcats could have as many as eight first-round picks. The sheer depth of this team would surely take advantage of Philly's second unit, offering at least some hope of a historic victory.
But any NBA team is still better than any college team, right Grant Hughes? Right?
Grant Hughes, Philadelphia 76ers freedom fighter:
If the question is "Could Kentucky beat the Sixers in a single game?" the answer is, of course, yes. Upsets happen all the time, and even if Philadelphia smashes the Wildcats 99 times out of 100, there's still that one outlier in the mix.
But is it likely? And more broadly, can we say Kentucky is in any way objectively better than the 76ers?
No. One thousand times, no.
Nerlens Noel was the best player in college basketball two seasons ago, and he would be, without question, the best player on Kentucky's current roster. Michael Carter-Williams is a decent NBA talent, was the league's top rookie in 2013-14 and was a good collegiate player in his own right. Both have been focusing solely on basketball—working with and against the best competition in the world—since before most of Kentucky's big names began their senior years in high school.
If you took Tony Wroten, or even someone like Alexey Shved, and plopped them into the college game right this second, both would instantly be first-team All-Americans.
Adam, what would be the Wildcats' strategy against the 76ers? Is there a specific matchup in the starting lineups you'd try to exploit if you were John Calipari?
Michael Carter-Williams and Tony Wroten definitely aren't going to allow the Harrison twins to enjoy themselves out on the court. That's the mismatch that severely favors the Sixers, and Nerlens Noel's presence in the middle doesn't make things any easier. But it's at forward where the Wildcats have the smallest disadvantage in the starting lineup, as Hollis Thompson and Luc Richard Mbah a Moute—or whoever else Brett Brown uses, since it's been a bit of a revolving door—will have some trouble against the extreme athleticism of Karl-Anthony Towns and Alex Poythress.
But it's not in the starting five where Kentucky gains any sort of advantage. Philadelphia actually has an initial lineup filled with players who belong on an NBA court now that Carter-Williams is healthy and raring to go. The bench, however, presents a different story.
Henry Sims has bounced from team to team during his brief NBA career. K.J. McDaniels has roughly a dozen more games of professional experience than anyone on the Kentucky roster, while Brandon Davies and his 8.5 career PER don't exactly inspire confidence. Chris Johnson, Robert Covington, JaKarr Sampson, Drew Gordon and Malcolm Thomas aren't far removed from their college days, and none of them were prospects on the same level as these current Kentucky standouts. Together, those five barely have over 100 games logged in the NBA, so it's tough to make the argument that they're seasoned veterans. Alexey Shved is a threat, but I'm not willing to concede that he's a first-team All-American if he goes to school.
While they don't boast any distinct advantages in the starting five, the Wildcats can at least keep things close with their extreme size, length and athleticism. It's not as though the Sixers have been particularly good at avoiding point hemorrhages thus far.
But it's the bench that makes up ground.
John Calipari has been using a platoon system—think about changing lines in hockey—which develops plenty of chemistry from the second unit even in these early stages. While we're still talking about college players, we're discussing a group of guys who will mostly be first-round picks in coming years. That's where the biggest advantage is, since Kentucky is deeper and, frankly, just better once the respective coaches start going to their benches.
And on the topic of coaching strategy, what is it about Brett Brown's offensive and defensive schemes that suggests Kentucky would be in over its head?
Brett Brown fell off the San Antonio Spurs coaching tree, where he was an assistant under Gregg Popovich for over a decade. As such, his offense with the Sixers features plenty of ball and player movement. Though there's no way to argue the results in Philly have been good, there is evidence that the process is sound: The Sixers average the third-most passes per game in the NBA, and those passes create 42.6 assist opportunities per game—an above-average figure.
Remember, these stats have come against NBA competition. Not recent high-school graduates.
A college team, no matter how deep and athletic it is relative to its peers, simply lacks the experience and physicality to stick with players darting around in an NBA offense. The screens are set harder, the back-door cuts are sneakier, the counters are more sophisticated and the overall speed is vastly superior.
Maybe the Sixers struggle against professional competition, but they'd put on a layup parade against a college team that has only been practicing together for a few months.
Defensively, Brown's Sixers are long, rangy and athletic. Kentucky has never seen passing lanes disappear as quickly as they would in this hypothetical matchup. McDaniels, who plays only spot minutes for Philadelphia, was the ACC Defensive Player of the Year last season. It's safe to assume he's only gotten better by playing against stronger competition since collecting that award. And Philly's bigger, stronger defenders will funnel the ball toward Noel, who was the SEC Defensive Player of the Year in 2013.
As for exploiting Philly's forwards, I'm just not seeing it. Mbah a Moute isn't what he was three or four years ago, but we're not all that far removed from a time when he was regarded as one of the truly elite stoppers (at either forward position) in the league. I'd like to see a 19-year-old take a run at him and come out unscathed.
But Adam, Calipari has NBA coaching chops and could probably coach the Philadelphia 76ers if he wanted to, right? Don't you think he'd out-fox Mr. Brown?
The only reason John Calipari isn't coaching an NBA squad right now is that he's got one of the best jobs imaginable. Not only does he get to enjoy hero worship in Lexington and put his recruiting magic on display every offseason, but he routinely has an opportunity to coach up the best and brightest the college ranks have to offer. Let's not forget—not that you have, Mr. Hughes—that the Cleveland Cavaliers recently offered him a 10-year, $80 million deal that he turned down because he never wants to leave Kentucky.
That's saying something.
Was his stint in the professional ranks a disaster? Sure, he didn't exactly steer the New Jersey Nets out of turmoil in the late 1990s. But we're more than a decade into the future now, and Cal has grown quite significantly as an X's and O's guy, gaining plenty of experience managing egos and maximizing talent over the course of a season. If he came out and said that he wanted to coach the Sixers, Sam Hinkie would probably make it happen, and not just because of the big brand associated with his name.
But here's the fun part. Cal's coaching style—while he's undoubtedly a recruiting master first and foremost, he still has a distinct style—is perfectly geared to challenge this current Philadelphia team.
He preaches great, disciplined defense, which is going to prevent a team with literally the worst ORtng+ in NBA history (and it's not even close) from turning the game into anything even resembling a layup line. We're talking about when these teams are at their best, so I'm assuming the Wildcats have had a season to work on their rotations and build plenty of defensive chemistry.
And on offense, Calipari has plenty of great athletes operating out of dribble-drive sets, which should work rather nicely against a team struggling to protect the rim.
Should this hypothetical matchup ever take place, I'm expecting Philly to get in some foul trouble, given the constant assault on the basket, especially because the Sixers are already sending plenty of players to the line against teams with more balanced strategies.
Make no mistake about it. Calipari is an asset in this matchup, one who can't be overlooked.
OK guys, final predictions in a 48-minute game, including final score, leading scorers for your team of choice.
Fromal:
The line for this game has been set and has the 76ers favored by 17 points, per ESPN.com's Marc Stein.
That's too much. I'll concede that the Sixers would win in a one-game setting on a neutral floor, but it would be a single-digit margin of victory: Philadelphia 94, Kentucky 86.
Even with a scoring onslaught from Trey Lyles, who comes off the bench to drop 20 points against Philadelphia's second unit, the Sixers do ultimately have a bit too much experience. But—and this is a big but—this is only in a one-contest setting. If these two teams were able to play a seven-game series, one that featured some games in Lexington, it would not be a sweep for the Sixers, with the Wildcats stealing one or two outings. And that's a huge deal for a college team, one that underscores how historically bad this Philadelphia team actually is.
Of course, there's an additional factor that could lead to an upset.
John Calipari is used to coaching teams that want to win games. Brett Brown is accustomed to calling the shots for an organization that doesn't necessarily need to avoid losing them.
It's hard to break old habits.
Hughes:
It shouldn't come as a surprise that I'm going the other way on this.
Seventeen points isn't enough; I think the Sixers cruise to a winning score of 107-82 after opening up a lead that reaches 37 and gradually comes back down to 25 as both teams wade through extended garbage time before the buzzer.
Michael Carter-Williams leads all scorers with 24 points, and he snatches five steals from the overwhelmed Wildcats guards for good measure. Tony Wroten gets into the lane at will, finishing with 22 points and several fancy-schmancy lefty layups. Noel is the game's most dominant player, piling up 19 points, 14 rebounds (half of which come on the offensive end) and seven blocks. Only through compassion for his former school does he restrain himself in the second half, purposely avoiding a triple-double.
And if we're talking about a seven-game series, my outlook doesn't change. It's a Sixers sweep.
