Philadelphia 76ers Must Know All Great Players Grow From Modest Beginnings

NBA players become proficient after learning over several years. Philadelphia 76ers must know all great players grow from modest beginnings, but not everyone agrees

“No more than four or five players on this years roster should even make the team next season.”

That comment, and others like it, are occurring with every increasing frequency on social media. Whether its a simulating NBA GM software, the abundance of 2016 NBA draft picks controlled by the Philadelphia 76ers this year, or simply impatience with a team that has failed to record 20 wins in each of the past three seasons, the perspective of applying a mulligan to this roster and simply moving ahead with a virtually brand new team is gaining popularity.

Popular choices are seldom wise ones.

With two thirds of the current team roster at or younger than 24 years of age, and with even less at three or more years experience in the NBA, the concept of cashing in this roster for a new group of people is akin to tossing the cookie dough before anything has baked. A perfect example of this is the starting lineup of the Golden State Warriors, a team whose season has approached perfection as closely as possible. The youngest player in that lineup, center Festus Ezeli, is a 26 year old player with just two years of NBA experience. Their “veteran” is point guard Stephen Curry, the 28 year old player of six years of NBA experience. Rounding out the starters are 26 year old four year veteran Klay Thompson, 26 year old three year veteran Draymond Green, and 23 year old three year veteran Harrison Barnes. In comparison, Harrison Barnes would qualify as “veteran leadership” on this Sixers roster.

And so, the arduous task of sorting through each player for evidence of growth potential. It’s not about who these Philadelphia 76ers are, but about who they may be someday.

Let’s begin at a position of great need for these Philadelphia 76ers – shooting guard. The team has 22 year old one year veteran Nik Stauskas sharing the load with offensively charged reserve Isaiah Canaan. Let’s compare Nik Stauskas with a true competitor at the shooting guard position, Chicago Bull 26 year old shooting guard Jimmy Butler. In his rookie season, Butler averaged 8.5 minutes per game, 2.6 points per game, recording .3 steals per game, while shooting just 18.2% from the perimeter. In his second season, he improved to 26.0 MPG, 8.6 PPG, 1.0 SPG, and found his range shot at 38.1%.

More from Sixers News

Comparing the two, 22 year old Stauskas averaged 15.4 MPG, 4.4 PPG, .3 SPG and shot at 32.2% on treys. His second year, and first with the Sixers, he is averaging 24.1 MPG, 8.1 PPG, .6 SPG and his range shot has improved to 38.9%. But moving forward on Stauskas is all speculation, or is it? In Butler’s third season he scored 13.1 points per game with 1.9 SPG, followed by 20.0 PPG and 1.8 SPG in his fourth season, and this season he is at 21.2 PPG and 1.7 SPG.

Of course there is no causality in the relationship of Jimmy Butler or Nik Stauskas, and neither player’s trajectory has any relationship to the other. But this illustration is not to claim that Nik Stauskas is the second coming of Jimmy Butler, nor any other NBA great – MERELY THAT HE WILL IMPROVE OVER TIME.

ALSO ON SIXER SENSE: What Happens If Joel Embiid Is Better Than His Reputation

Most of the teams in the NBA mask the shortcomings of their youth by embedding them on lineups and rosters with a plethora of active veterans in both starting and reserve roles. In short, if you have a chorus of 20 voices and one is off-key, the other voices can mask the outlier. But on this Sixers roster, they are all young. In fact, it’s the occasional appearance of Carl Landry, Elton Brand, or even Ish Smith which demonstrates what a smoothing effect veteran presence causes on the basketball court.

Next: Philadelphia 76ers 2016 Offseason Free Agency Pitch

Now go back to the Golden State Warriors. If you analyze that team, you will see that the team’s starters are compacted nicely in the sweet range of three to six years of experience and from 23-28 years of age. Twelve of the current fifteen players on the current roster are either too young or haven’t enough NBA experience for that grouping yet. This team is not ready for harvesting yet, and nobody will truly know what we have until we get there. Some players will never realize their potential. Some will achieve NBA caliber skills, but not in the make-up or level associated with championship caliber teams. Some will develop both. The only way to be certain is to find patience.

With up to six new bodies arriving this off-season, plus whatever the team can harvest in either trades or free agency, the make up of next year’s team will be a completely new landscape. The simplest route is to examine the current roster and presume that Brand, Smith, and Landry are not part of next year’s young roster, but that is oversimplifying the complexity of building a championship. This roster needs two more years before their true potential can be adequately evaluated. With more rookies making the lineup for the 2016-2017 season, that simply adds more time to the requirement of certainty.