Bummer of a summer unfolding for Sixers
Sixers take step in wrong direction during a crucial offseason
All along, there was a path to peace.
All along, there was an end game.
All along, though The Process, there was a distant view of a place where its supporters and critics could meet, shake hands and maybe even smile about the whole thing. That point for the Hinkie Summit was to be this summer. And Brett Brown knew that point was to be this summer. He knew it after the Sixers won 52 games and a playoff round, and then, with a sparkle in his eye, all but promised that the war was about to end.
“We don’t have to turn this into calculus,” he said. “It’s quite clear.”
It was. The Sixers had done their processing, so much of it that Brown will never be able to dig his way back to even a .500 career record. They had lost games and made lottery trips and found at least a couple of star-level talents in Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons. As they did, they saved money and cap space. By last season, the team whose tickets once famously were being offloaded at a buck for an entire row suddenly was selling out every game. The foundation for that treaty was set.
Sometime before training camp, Brown implied, the Sixers would take their money and other assets and add a superstar talent to that processed foundation. And then everyone would be happy. Those who favored clearing the way for such a project and those who insisted the only way to fulfillment is to acquire good players could celebrate.
“We are,” Brown said at the draft, doing everything but pulling out a bugle to signal the start of the charge, “going star hunting.”
So the Sixers hunted. They just didn’t gather. LeBron James, their primary target, signed with the Lakers as a free agent, not even bothering to show up with his representatives at a meeting with Josh Harris. Paul George re-enlisted with the Thunder. And this week, the Sixers were lowbridged when Brown’s buddy, Gregg Popovich, the man he refers to as “Pop” at least once a week, traded top-five talent Kawhi Leonard not to the Sixers but to Toronto.
That summer of peace? It is has turned into a summer of shocking unrest, with one punch to the Sixers’ fragile jaw after another, each one that must have had Bryan Colangelo howling in laughter, somewhere in a beach cabana.
For a few weeks, it seemed
that the Sixers could wiggle through the postseason better, even if they didn’t add a superstar. The usual NBA salary complications aside, they effectively were about to exchange Marco Belinelli and Ersan Ilyasova for Wilson Chandler and Nemanja Bjelica. If so, their options to switch on defense would have improved without a substantial loss of offense. It wasn’t the level of movement that would have made fans spill onto Frankford Ave. to celebrate. But it would have upgraded the Sixers in the one area that tormented them in an Eastern Conference semifinal loss to the Celtics.
But Bjelica did not sign with the Sixers, as the know-it-alls, and instead started planning to play in Europe, then later began flirting with the Sacramento Kings. And with that, what once seemed unlikely turned real: The Sixers had become a worse team, not a super-team, in two months. More, many of the teams in the Eastern Conference did something to improve, in particular the Raptors, who won 59 games last season and were able to upgrade from the inconsistent DeMar DeRozan to Leonard.
In losing James, the Cavs won’t be the same. The Sixers finished ahead of them last year anyway. Yet with Leonard a Raptor and with Kyrie Irving returning to the Celtics, the Sixers face a wider gap between themselves and the top of the division.
How did that happen so quickly? Some reasons: n Because they drafted poorly through The Process, the Sixers were only able to develop two stars. The Spurs wanted proven NBA ability in exchange for Leonard, not just prospects or draft assets. Had Jahlil Okafor been a productive No. 3 overall pick or had Markelle Fultz been a useful No. 1, the Sixers would have had the stock to move.
n The image of Simmons and Embiid as a championship launching pad is not as widely accepted industry-wide as it is in Camden. Desperately trying to add to his championship collection, James barely gave that notion a consideration as he bolted to L.A. Take a hint.
n The Bjelica bobble could have dozens of explanations. But Harris trusted a summer of great importance to an interim general manager who had never served a day as an NBA executive.
The summer is not over. And in February, there will be a trade deadline, enabling
the Sixers to be buyers and add something for another late run, as they did last season with Belinelli and Ilyasova.
As for the star-hunting, Carmelo Anthony, 33, is leaving Oklahoma City. He continues to disintegrate as a shooter. Jimmy Butler is preparing his exit from Minnesota, rejecting a nine-figure offer to stay. But the whispers are he will join free-agent-tobe Leonard next season in New York, thus further suppressing the Sixers in the East.
If Embiid continues to improve during his first healthy offseason as a pro, that will help. Simmons was Rookie of the Year and, in theory, is just beginning to grow into a star. Brown believes he drafted a gem in Zhaire Smith. But every team adds skill in the draft, so that’s relative. Fultz was the top overall pick in 2017 for a reason. Maybe he’ll develop as a player Brown wouldn’t be terrified to use in a playoff game.
None of that is impossible.
But as for that promise of peace? Maybe some other time. Not this summer. Not at all.