Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
76ers’ ‘process’ is paying off
Free-agent signees, young core could yield a contender
The word “process” means different things to different people, and no one knew that better than the 76ers.
On one hand, it represented hope — the hope that the team had a direction, a plan to transform not only into winners but into champions. And on the other, it represented losses — a whole bunch of them.
The 76ers lost 199 games from 2013 to 2016 before breaking through — and this is in the most relative sense — for a 28-win season in 2017. The losing, largely, was intentional, with the front office putting young, inexpensive players on the court while improving the odds to get the top draft choices — hoping that it would all lead to something special.
And if the picks they made didn’t work, they pushed the back timetable.
They dealt rookie of the year Michael CarterWilliams when it became clear he wasn’t the star they were searching for. When Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons suffered injuries, they sat them for seasons instead of weeks, using as much caution as possible. And when a young player such as Jahlil Okafor wasn’t working out, they quickly moved on, jettisoning him to the second unit.
The architect of the process, Sam Hinkie, no longer is with the team, the burden of losing covering any light at the end of the process’ tunnel.
But his vision has been kept alive by Embiid and the city, and now the plan seems ready to work.
The team came to terms last weekend with veterans J.J. Redick and Amir Johnson, moves that heavily bolster what has become one of the top young cores in the Eastern Conference, if not the league.
Earlier this summer, the 76ers traded up to select Washington’s Markelle Fultz with the No. 1 pick in the draft. Dario Saric and Embiid finished second and third, respectively, in last season’s rookie of the year voting. And the top pick in the 2016 draft, Simmons, has yet to play in a professional game.
Hope is suddenly abundant.
The 76ers agreed to sign Redick to a one-year, $23 million deal that gives the 33-year-old former Clipper a massive payday while allowing him to re-enter free agency next season. It gives him the chance to play near his newly constructed home in Brooklyn. And it gives the 76ers a deadeye shooter who can school a young roster on the work required to be a professional.
To celebrate the deal, Redick tweeted his new team’s credo: “Trust the process.”
The one-year deals given to Redick and Johnson, a hard-nosed reserve who’ll earn $11 million, could be a clue into what the Lakers — who would likely admit to being slightly behind the 76ers in their rebuild — could do with their summer.
Redick and Johnson bring credibility to the locker room, and neither player’s deal hampers the team’s long-term ability to re-sign its own stars or big-name free agents down the line.
Redick, in particular, is an excellent fit. He’ll provide spacing for Fultz, Simmons and Embiid with his endless movement off the ball, which his former coach Doc Rivers liked to call “an offense to itself.”
Redick averaged 15.8 points in his four seasons with the Clippers, but resigning with the team never seemed like a possibility.
And by moving to the Eastern Conference, the opposite of players such as Paul George and Jimmy Butler who just got traded into the highly competitive Western Conference, Redick and the 76ers have an excellent chance to snap a five-year playoff drought, the second longest in the franchise’s rich history.
With the power balance shifted hard to the Western Conference, Redick’s signing actually made the 76ers favorites to make the playoffs at the Westgate Las Vegas SuperBook.
The process isn’t complete. Redick won’t push the 76ers past the Cavaliers or Celtics, and he sure won’t get them past the Warriors. But the signing signals a significant culture change.
The 76ers are ready to press the accelerator pedal on their process.