As trade deadline tolls, playoff chances at stake
PHILADELPHIA » Two words were looped toward Brett Brown the other day, neither harmless. Together, though, they were enough to make him recoil. So he tossed them right back.
“I’m not looking at this period as ‘crunch time’ at all,” he said.
That the Sixers were at a point where games mattered at all was, in itself, a massive improvement over years of designed strife. But around there, nothing has been urgent since before Brown was hired. So habits are tough to break.
J.J. Redick, though, has not been around as long. As of Wednesday morning, he had been a 76er for 50 games. He didn’t live through years of point-guard-by-committee, through Sam Hinkie’s double-talk, through those seasons in the Wells Fargo Center where it was considered high achievement to have one satisfying month.
So there he was Wednesday, hours before the Sixers were to play the Wizards, sharing his awareness that the season already was down to a sprint, down to 32 games, about the length of a standard college basketball season.
“I looked and saw that we’d already played 50 games,” Redick would say, after sticking around after a morning shootaround in Camden to shoot around even more. “The season has flown by all of a sudden.”
While the Sixers finished the first 50 at a clean 25-25, they could be better. Considering how the stakes rise after the All-Star break, they must be better. And with the NBA trade deadline at 3 p.m. Friday, that means they are approaching their last, best chance to make themselves better.
The Sixers need a guard to do what Markelle Fultz was supposed to do and complement Ben Simmons in an unorthodox backcourt. They could use another shooter at the three spot. They could use two more shooters for their bench. An additional veteran, one with playoff experience, might help.
“We’re always looking at, ‘How do I help our bench score?’” Brown said. “Rarely do I look and say, ‘We need a bunch more stoppers.’ We’re fourth in defense. That’s a high number. And we have room to improve. But I look at, ‘How do we score? How do you help your bench? How do you help us score more?’”
The Sixers’ bench is acceptable, even if less than sturdy playoff quality. With Josh Harris having announced that he wants a playoff team, and with Bryan Colangelo said to be working at some ideas, the Sixers are almost certain to do something to improve before the deadline. And since there are substantially more sellers this season than there are buyers, they could find a value. But their challenge will be to add, not to disrupt.
Trade deadline panic can be harmful. The Sixers showed some in 2001 when Larry Brown absolutely had to have Dikembe Mutombo, just in case his rampaging team would meet Shaquille O’Neal in the finals. So the Sixers gave their demanding coach what he wanted, they played the Lakers in the finals, and O’Neal won the series MVP award in an historic landslide, staring down Mutombo after every dunk.
No matter how itchy their owner is to avoid another trip to the draft lottery, the Sixers will not move any of their valuable pieces. But they have a chance this season to not only be in the playoffs, but to be successful once they are there. When healthy, they are a difficult team to match up against in any game or series, with Joel Embiid as dangerous a five-man as there is in the league and Simmons being able to create offense from 60 feet away.
But they have to realize that they are vulnerable. The Pistons, likely to compete with them for a playoff spot, recently added Blake Griffin, proving that they intend to make a late push. The Sixers need help.
“We’re near the AllStar break and we’ve only got 32 left,” Redick said. “We are in a position where we can be in the playoffs. We have done a good job of putting ourselves in that positon. But we also realize that we need to be a lot better in these last 32 games.”
The Sixers will play five consecutive home games before the Feb. 18 All-Star Game. The opportunity to make a substantial Eastern Conference move is real.
“To overplay this period of time, to say, ‘This is crunch time,’ I don’t feel it like that,” Brown said. “I don’t see it like that. I do see a real opportunity now. We’re at home for five games. In my 17 years doing this, I have never had five home games prior to an All-Star break. And this is an opportunity that we want to admit to the players. It could allow us to get some separation before the All-Star break. To anoint it as anything more dramatic than that, I am not prepared to do that.
“But we do have an opportunity right now. And that is the messaging to my players.”
It’s an opportunity for the players. But it is an opportunity for the front office, too. And no matter how much the head coach wants to crunch the numbers, it’s not a long opportunity. Not anymore.
Contact Jack McCaffery @jmccaffery@21stcenturymedia.com; follow him on Twitter @JackMcCaffery