Philadelphia 76ers Draft History: All Big Men

The Philadelphia 76ers have built their team through the draft, and so far it’s been all big men.

The Philadelphia 76ers have, up to this point, been rebuilding their franchise solely through the NBA Draft. Although trades have occurred over the last few seasons, almost all of them involved draft picks coming or going.

This is typically how things go in the NBA. Before teams can sway high-level free agents to come play on their team, they have to prove that they can build a good young cast of players through the draft, and the Sixers have done that pretty well. The only thing is, the Sixers have drafted with a “best available” mindset, and not a “draft for fit” mindset, which has led to them selecting a large cast of frontcourt players, most of them big men.

The Sixers did take Michael Carter-Williams with the 11th pick in the 2013 draft, a backcourt player, but he was traded to the Milwaukee Bucks later that season. The Sixers got a draft pick (Lakers top-3 protected from this season) in return for him.

Aside from that, Nerlens Noel, Dario Saric, Joel Embiid, and Jahlil Okafor have all been the biggest draft pieces, and they have all been frontcourt players.

This isn’t all bad, as the Sixers now have some of the best young big men in the league, and can use them in whatever way they please. If they think putting them on the same court would be a good idea, they can, but they can also leverage a trade with another team through one of the big men available.

In light of the draft coming up fairly soon, I thought it would be fun to take a look at each of the big men that has greatly impacted the rebuild for the Sixers through acquiring them from the draft.

Next: Nerlens Noel