Morey picked wrong time to play it safe
The Sixers had a chance to add a superstar but passed up the shot, writes columnist Jack McCaffery.
Enter into a rebuild and accumulate draft picks.
Improve slightly, watch some premium young players grow.
Become competitive. Make the playoffs. Develop All-Stars.
Hire a winning coach. Hire a winning GM.
Finally, when all is in place, pounce at an appropriate time and add a superstar. Take a chance on being great in the moment, not in some other moment. Take it to the rack. Dunk. Make the rim wiggle. Hear the roar.
That’s the NBA process, the one the Sixers accepted for years.
That’s the one they just missed Thursday, settling for George Hill, 34 years old and injured at the trade deadline, when Toronto’s Kyle Lowry was available at some price Daryl Morey was unwilling to pay.
“George Hill,” Dwight Howard would say after an afternoon shootaround in Los Angeles, where the Sixers later would play the Lakers. “I think he can provide a lot of defensive pressure from the guard position. Also, he is a savvy veteran who has been around for a while and understands the game. He is playing for one reason, which is to win a championship. I am looking forward to having him on our team and making a great impact here in Philadelphia.
“I can’t wait.”
Hill, out of his cast after missing the last 30 games with a busted thumb, is a solid trade-deadline addition. It’s just that the specs for winning NBA championships haven’t changed since Harold Katz traded for Moses Malone: Build a championship contender, then add a superstar. And even at 35, Lowry not only continues to maintain that status, but would have flourished in a lineup with Joel Embiid, Ben Simmons and Tobias Harris.
Hill can shoot with accuracy from great distances and defend at a helpful level. He’s been a consistently productive NBA player since 2008, an impressive run of professionalism. As Gregg Popovich, one of his many former coaches, once said, “He does a little bit of everything.” Even as a backup, Hill will give the Sixers what they have lacked for too long: A scoring point guard, allowing Simmons to frolic around the basket. It’s not unlike what Brett Brown had in mind for Shake Milton, except that Hill adds more experience and veteran presence.
“It’s a very long season,” Howard said. “Everybody just has to stay locked in on our purpose, which is to win a championship. And it takes a cohesive unit to do that. I think we have that right type of team. Adding a guy with George’s skill will help. He plays excellent defense. He is going to facilitate the offense. And he is going to be great for our team.
“I am looking forward to him bonding with us and making the championship run special, just like the 1983 team, when they won the championship. We want
to bring back some of those vibes and energy from that team and get another championship to Philly, which is desperately needed.”
The Sixers and their fans, as the man said, are desperate for a championship. But rather than spend young guards Matisse Thybulle and Tyrese Maxey, along with faded Mike Scott and perhaps Danny Green for Lowry, Morey settled for Hill. His team, his choice. But according to SportsBetting.com, that resulted in “no change” to the Sixers’ odds at winning an NBA championship.
None.
Lowry, though, almost certainly would have had an odds-board impact.
“I can’t specifically address a player on another team,” Morey said. “But obviously at the trade deadline you have lots of options.”
That Lowry didn’t go anywhere Thursday, even with ever-aggressive Pat Riley known to have had an interest in him for the Heat, suggests that the Raptors’ asking prices were unreasonable. More, it was reported that Lowry was about to ask for a two-year,
$50 million contract extension. By then, he would be 37.
Maxey, 20, will be great, but only if he improves his shooting. Thybulle is a mesmerizing game-changing defender at a time when that skill is rising in value around the pro game. And Green is a valuable leader who has never lost his shooting accuracy. Nor does adding a superstar guarantee a championship. The Sixers disrupted a successful team in 2001 to add Dikembe Mutombo, who was overwhelmed by Shaquille O’Neal in the NBA Finals. Two years ago, they welcomed Jimmy Butler, who won games with his scoring and lost them with his habit of creating divided locker rooms.
To acquire Hill from Oklahoma City in a threeway setup with the Knicks, the Sixers had to part with mildly interesting center Tony Bradley, ordinary Terrance Ferguson and a carryout package of empty-calorie second-round draft picks. Ignas Brazdeikis, a G-League-level forward, will also arrive from New York. In that, the Sixers became
a little different and a little better without disrupting a chemistry that had yielded a 31-13 record, tops in the East.
When it first became obvious that the Sixers were capable this season of contention, Doc Rivers was OK with the notion of adding star talent at whatever risk to team chemistry. It was always his opinion that team spirit was the coach’s obligation, and he was willing to give that a try for the $8 million a year he would be drawing from Josh Harris. More recently, though, the Sixers’ coach began to sound more protective of his current core.
By Thursday, Morey basically was unwilling to see it shattered.
“There was a lot of speculation on options that were out there,” Morey said. “All I can say was that we were very excited about the option we ended up with.” It was an option.
It was reasonable.
It just won’t result in an immediate roar.