Anderson is back for energy, leadership

The first time Justin Anderson came to help, the Philadelphia 76ers were a 30- win team just looking for somebody, anybody with reasonable NBA skills. The second time, it is different. “Quite different,” Anderson said Tuesday from Camden, N. J., where the Sixers are trying to finish an eight- year project. “We’ve got a better Ben ( Simmons). We’ve got a better Joel ( Embiid). Everybody has grown. It’s not 2017 anymore. So I would expect it to be different in a lot of different ways.”

Anderson was acquired by the Sixers around the 2016- 17 trade deadline in a move that sent Nerlens Noel to Dallas, an early sign that The Process was not going quite as planned. Anderson would show a willingness to defend at multiple positions, a skill that appealed to then- coach Brett Brown. He hung around through the 201718 season, often injured, occasionally productive, playing 32 games and averaging 6.2 points.

He was, like his team, pretty good but less than special. And while the Sixers would win 52 games that year, enough to begin to see consistent contention, he was flipped to the Hawks in a convoluted, multi- team deal that effectively landed the Sixers Mike Muscala.

From there, too little has worked, not for the Sixers, not for Anderson, who spent the 1018- 19 season with the Hawks, but did not have his contract renewed. Last season, he tried to make the Wizards, but was dismissed, and eventually squeezed into the minor league routine, first in the Toronto pipeline, then with a Nets’ farm club on Long Island.

“That,” Anderson said, “was a humbling experience.”

He was still just 26 and not far removed from playing college basketball well enough at the University of Virginia to become the No. 21 overall pick in the 2015 draft. And there he was in the G- League. Gee. “I went from flying private to having to fly commercial,” Anderson said. “I was driving on a bus, long hours to different cities. Those things allow you to grow in ways you didn’t grow before. Now, I am here. And that experience helped me, showing that I can be a small piece to a puzzle.”

After his season in the minors and the long NBA hiatus before its encampment in Orlando, Fla., Anderson did join the Nets for the bubble- wrapped postseason, appearing in three games to lackluster results. After his contract was not renewed by Brooklyn, Anderson resurfaced last week with the Sixers, agreeing to a two- year deal with limited guarantees this