Time for Philadelphia 76ers to Turn Overlapping Talent into Actual Wins
This was supposed to be the year the Philadelphia 76ers' rebuild really picked up steam. This was supposed to be the draft where we saw a clear direction moving forward.
But instead of the momentum escalating, it seemed to fizzle after Thursday night's festivities. There's some warranted doubt creeping in around general manager Sam Hinkie's asset-building approach and Philly's "Trust the Process" mantra.
He just keeps on piling up pieces, and most of those pieces are centers.
It's hard to blame Hinkie for taking Jahlil Okafor at No. 3, considering he was the best talent available on the board. After assuming a top-two ranking for months leading up to the draft, He fell to Philly at the third spot. The Duke big fella is a polished weapon who can do serious damage as a low-post anchor.
But this overlap of talent at the 5 position is starting to have a fantasy basketball feel to it. The acquisition of Okafor leaves Philly with a tricky real-life situation, as it will be tough for all those big men to coexist with substantial roles.
Andrew Unterberger of CSNPhilly.com talked about the logjam in the middle: "None of them really stretch the floor, none of them really offer much positional versatility, and while you could maybe bend the will of conventional NBA wisdom enough to possibly feature two of those guys at the same time, to do so with all three would be basically unprecedented."
There's a chance Joel Embiid and Okafor could coexist because Embiid is mobile and skilled enough to play away from the hoop on some possessions. But it wouldn't be ideal. And if Embiid's foot issues persist and his career never takes off, an Okafor-Noel frontcourt would be a struggle.
Neither Okafor nor Noel can spend extensive time on the perimeter, especially on the offensive end. The duo has a lack of jump-shooting skill to space the floor, so it would severely hamper coach Brett Brown's schematic flexibility.
On the defensive side, Okafor isn't agile enough to chase players around, so he needs to stay home near the hoop. Noel is more agile, but it's unfair to ask him to constantly check 4s when his interior shot blocking is so good.
So as the Sixers added Okafor on Thursday, along with other bigs such as Bowling Green's Richaun Holmes and Lithuania's Arturas Gudaitis, the discussion now shifts to the trade outlook.
Dealing one of the returning or newly acquired frontcourt assets is possible and probable, but Hinkie has less trade leverage than ever before.
It's going to be tough for the Sixers to command top dollar in a swap because everyone knows they're looking to unload a center. Philly can't possibly keep all of its towers long term, so Hinkie shouldn't be surprised when he sees a boatload of low-ball offers.
The other downside to this glut of big men is that the team has stockpiled a bunch of talent at the sport's least versatile position. With the league trending toward smaller, sleeker lineups and interchangeability, Philly is shopping players who aren't a top priority for many clubs.
Another regrettable development from Thursday was Philadelphia's inability to trade its way into a second first-round pick. After Okafor, it didn't acquire any substantial, established talent, even though it had a lot of trading chips to work with. New York Knicks fans may be puzzled that Phil Jackson picked Kristaps Porzingis, but at least their front office found a way to acquire a mid-first-round talent in Notre Dame's Jerian Grant. The Sixers failed to do so.
Danny Chau of Grantland noted the disappointment surrounding Philly's lack of involvement in the first round.
"Reports came out immediately after their pick that the Sixers intended to keep Okafor, which, OK, fine. But there was a palpable tension. Hinkie’s got something in the works. We’re getting to the end of the lottery, for God’s sake. …
By [the late-first round] it was clear: Hinkie had gone dormant. An entire round in the books, and no word of any movement from the Sixers. …
What if the other teams, the teams that Hinkie used as punching bags in asset accumulation, have finally smartened up? What if they’ve caught up?
"
At some point in the rebuilding process, you can't keep hoarding draft assets and continue the revolving door of dispensable players.
It's time to carve out the core moving forward.
If there's anything we can take away from the last few NBA champions, it's that chemistry is king. It took a couple of years for a superstar-laden Miami Heat team to win the title. The San Antonio Spurs got back to the mountain top because the rotation stuck together. And the Golden State Warriors won the crown after sharpening their talented draftees for three-plus years.
The Sixers need to sort out their frontcourt situation and also find foundational pieces in the backcourt and on the wing. They need to move forward instead of running in place.
It's quite possible they find some legitimate weapons in free agency and future trades, but Hinkie hasn't given fans any assurance yet that he's building a team of substance.
When Philadelphia stripped down its roster over the past couple of years and Hinkie began accumulating assets in a radical way, he was widely viewed as a cutting-edge savant like Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey. Nowadays, with such a lack of notable progress, it's reasonable to fear that Hinkie may be more like David Kahn, the former Minnesota Timberwolves executive who outwitted himself by adding too many prospects at the same position.
"Kahn was infamous for thinking he was smarter than everyone else, and his over-infatuation with point guards is starting to feel eerily similar [to Hinkie's big-man selections]," Bleacher Report's Joel Cordes notes.
The story could eventually have a happy ending. "Trust the Process" has been a popular phrase in Sixers-land over the past couple of years. However, it's becoming harder and harder to genuinely believe the front office can escape from this seemingly endless rebuilding merry-go-round.
Quote from Joel Cordes (B/R NBA Associate Editor) obtained firsthand.
Dan O'Brien covers the NBA draft for Bleacher Report.
Follow him on Twitter: @DanielO_BR
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