The Times Herald (Norristown, PA)
With chance to progress, Sixers revert to Process
CAMDEN, N.J. » Find a player, Brett Brown said. Find a good one. Find him, sign him, bring him to Philadelphia, then ready that confetti machine again.
“I think we need help to win a championship,” Brown said at the end of last season. “If that’s the goal, and for me it is, then that’s the answer I give.”
That’s where the Sixers stood after winning 52 games and a playoff round before falling in the Eastern Conference semifinals to the Boston Celtics. They were that close, a player or two away. Their days of collecting assets, not fulfillment, were over. Process that.
Then came the draft Thursday, and it happened: The Sixers traded their lottery pick for the Phoenix Suns’ No. 16 pick and a 2021 first-round pick. Again? Again. The Sixers could still wind up with that transformational talent Brown was open to covet, without naming names. LeBron James, Kawhi Leonard and Paul George can be available for the right money or the proper level of recruiting. That’s what Brown meant, of course, when he made that endof-season plea. If the Sixers were to improve from outside contenders to Final Four regulars, it would not necessarily have come with the No. 10 overall pick in the draft. And in sneaking out of the lottery, they did save some cash they could use to inflate their offer to James.
Yet there the Sixers were Thursday, stumbling into an opportunity to make meaningful improvement and select superstar-elect Michael Porter Jr. They will snarl that Porter was damaged, having played just three games in his only season at Missouri due to back surgery. There were even some reports of a postseason hip issue. But that’s why Porter didn’t go No. 1 or No. 2, even though he had that ability. He would have been what the Sixers needed, particularly in Brown’s scheme, a position-less shooter who can defend any position off a switch.
And there was Porter, available and willing, when the Sixers hit the clock at No. 10. Instead, the Sixers formally selected Villanova role player Mikal Bridges, who will be 22 when the next season starts. Then they flipped Bridges to Phoenix for 6-3 defensive specialist Zhaire Smith of Texas Tech. For that accommodation, they will receive the 2021 first-round pick from the Suns through Miami.
The way that works, the Sixers made an investment Thursday in a player who likely is a high school sophomore. Think about that the next time Joel Embiid strolls to the line and the urge strikes to scream “Trust the Process.”
There is always a risk in adding an injured player. The Sixers seem to have survived their decision to spend the No. 3 overall pick in the 2014 draft on Embiid. Even if he has never finished a college or NBA regular season healthy, Embiid has become an All-Star. That has worked. But choosing Porter at No. 10 would not have been as much a risk. Somebody was going to take that chance. The Nuggets did at No. 14.
“This is a blessing,” Porter said. “I am not entitled to this. I am so excited. I am going to make sure this pick is the best pick this organization has ever made.”
He could have been among the Sixers’ most successful value picks. Instead, Brown maneuvered for Smith. He has a chance, too. He can defend at any position. But he took only 40 three-point shots in 37 games during his one season at Texas Tech. That suggests the Sixers have three guards, not just Ben Simmons and Markelle Fultz, who are not in any hurry to take lengthy shots.
When they selected point guard Landry Shamet of Wichita State, the Sixers did address that issue. Shamet can shoot. But unless they are ready to move Fultz, and every indication during the postseason was that Brown had seen enough of Bryan Colangelo’s concoction, Shamet will only crowd a position that already is ably manned by Simmons and T.J. McConnell.
Role players work. McConnell is a role player, and the Sixers become better every time he strolls to the check-in table. Brown milked maximum value out of shooting specialist Marco Belinelli, but only until his defensive limitations were too severe to matter in an Eastern Conference semifinal series. Depth works.
If the Sixers do add that player Brown has admitted they need, then talented athletes can be good, complementary pieces. Smith will have a chance to succeed. In New York, he told reporters that Brown said he reminded him of Leonard. Smith is 6-4, Leonard 6-7. So whatever it is that Brown notices must show up in the intangibles column.
The Sixers are close to keeping regular company with the NBA’s elite. But their fans are expecting the real Leonard, or a player of that accomplishment and ability, not a mid-first-round specialty player and a future draft choice unlikely to ever play when James is still at his best.
That sounds a little too much like process-trusting at a time when they are so close to using that confetti machine the right way. Contact Jack McCaffery @jmccaffery@21stcenturymedia.com; follow him on Twitter @ JackMcCaffery