Quiet draft yielded no immediate help
Eight years after deciding to be quitters, 38 years after their last championship and two months after all of their basketball flaws were exposed by a younger, better team, the Sixers Thursday sent their fans a message. Be patient. Hang in there. The best is coming. It just might take a while.
Such, at least, was the attitude of Daryl Morey at 1:30 Friday morning, long after another NBA Draft left the Sixers with nothing exciting. Not that they were expected to land Shaquille O’Neal with the No. 28 overall pick, or that their opportunities at Picks 50 and 53 were likely to yield Rookie of the Year front-runners, but they would drop three picks on players they knew could not help them soon end a generations-long nightmare.
“Generally, these players don’t pan out in Year 1,” Morey warned. “It’s usually in Years 2, 3 and 4
where they pan out.”
Hurry. Set up the tailgate now for the 2026 NBA Finals, when Jaden Springer, Filip Petrusev and Charles Bassey lift 32-year-old Joel Embiid to his first championship.
“I view the draft as the really important blocking and tackling that you do if you’re going to have a consistent winner like we plan to have here in Philly,” Morey said, “and have had in many points in history.”
The Sixers did have the top record in the Eastern Conference last season, so they were not desperate for immediate draft-day help. Besides, they trusted the draft before and came up with Markelle Fultz, Jahlil Okafor and Ben Simmons. Yet the particulars of their three Thursday selections baffled, for not one is ready to help win a game of professional basketball.
Though he can shoot — which is an upgrade over the Sixers’ last two top picks of Matisse Thybulle and Tyrese Maxey — Springer is such a project that of the 25 games he played in his one season at Tennessee, he only started 15. He’s 18 and was selected not for anything he’s done, just for something he might do some other time.
“It’s pretty rare to have a guy, especially at the 28th pick, who has already demonstrated a strong level of play in college before the age of 19,” Morey said. “We just thought that combination was too unique to pass up.”
So if he sat on the bench for 10 college games when he was 20, would that have been a difference? How about at 21? Maybe the Sixers will get lucky. Springer is known as a dazzling talent, Doc Rivers needs bench scoring and either Thybulle or Maxey could yet go in the unavoidable off-loading of Simmons.
Who knows? Maybe Springer can read a scouting report on Trae Young. That would be an upgrade.
At 50, there was Petrusev, 21, a center who can shoot and who had success at Gonzaga before retreating to Serbia to play professionally. Already, there are doubts as to his desire to immediately try the NBA, backed by reports that the Sixers wouldn’t mind tucking him in Europe for a while. As for Bassey, of Nigeria, did produce three successful seasons at Western Kentucky and is known as a defensive rebounding and shot-blocking specialist. At 6-11, the 53rd overall pick should prove to be the Sixers’ best value in the draft.
“We like who we picked,” Morey said. “Shocker.”
The second-round picks are the second-round picks for a reason. There is zero value in quarreling about whether there was someone better plucked in the 50-to60 range. Rivers liked both Petrusev and Bassey. He makes $8 million a year. Let him try to make it all work. He almost did last season.
At some point, though, the Sixers need improvement. The draft was one way to do that, either by trading up or trading the first-round pick for an established talent. Instead, Morey selected a player who intrigued him for, among other reasons, he was highly recruited out of high school.
Isn’t it a little late in the process (pardon the vulgarity) for that?
Morey did try Thursday to make the Sixers different, only to be reminded that whenever an unpopular, over-paid, over-rated organizational burden who won’t shoot is available, it tends to be a buyer’s market. And no one was buying in on Ben Simmons at the Sixers’ asking price.
There is still time to trade Simmons for veteran value. Morey will have jobs open, a popular coach and a contending team to dangle, so he could dazzle in the free-agency period. Before the next postseason, there will be another trade deadline. So, of course, the Sixers will be much different the next time they are in the tournament.
It’s just that the draft has passed, and so has one standard opportunity to improve a team ready to win. An 18-year-old project, and a player who may stay in Europe, and a rebounding specialist won’t get that done.
But just try to show a little patience.