The Philadelphia 76ers have finally ended an NBA season with the worst record in the league. But beyond the 2016 NBA Draft, there is a great deal more to be optimistic about
The demise of former general Sam Hinkie (he did resign from the team on his own) and the suspiciously coincidental hiring of former Chairman of Basketball Operations Jerry Colangelo’s son, Bryan Colangelo, as his instantaneous replace has many Philadelphia 76ers fans shaking their heads in disbelief and in disappointment. But rising above the nepotism, and the NBA meddling issues, the former GM of the Sixers has made the rebuild of the team virtually fool proof for the new GM of the team. Well, fool proof for a time being in any case. While so many have judged the team on the record alone, the methods used were not focused on wins and losses until the year 2016-2017. It just so happens that we are emerging from our cocoon and entering the white water rapids of the rebuild. Buckle up Sixer Fans!
Much like any construction, the multi-dimensional rebuild of an entire organization focused mainly on the invisible support structures. While the team tore down the roster to the bare bones in terms of experienced players and salary obligations, there was a bevy of rebuilding going on behind the scenes. You may recall the team hiring Dr. David T. Martin, the expansion of basketball analytics, and even the emplacement of a wide array of player support services. The team has even broken ground on a state of the art training facility.
I’ve read disparaging remarks about the results of the team. “Three years is plenty of time to fix a broken roster” are commonplace by the critics. Now, this is not an article of defending the past, merely one pointing out that if it were just about the roster, these observations would be entirely correct.
But it was never about a roster. It was about building a championship infrastructure, a championship organization, a champion model with which to develop, attract, and support a championship team. The hiring of Dr. David Martin required an entire year of recruitment. Was that wasted time? Not if you observe the great lengths that the team has utilized his expertise in restoring star center Joel Embiid to full health.
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Will it have been worth it? We won’t know until Embiid takes the floor. By all forecasting projections, and early analysis, the Sixers have one of the potential superstars of the NBA on their roster. If the team had handled his rehabilitation any differently, that would not be the case. But that two year kid gloves treatment distracted the team, forcing them to look at separate paths of the organization and attempt to synchronize events. Two years rehabilitation delayed the team which had already slated Nerlens Noel to the power forward role, and forcing them to opt for a third center to cover the post until Joel Embiid recovered.
Now the team has three incredibly talented centers, and not much else going for them. Or do they?
Next: Young Talent
I. Young Talent
The Philadelphia 76ers were a victim of their own making in the 2015-2016 season. They were the youngest team in the league. Not only age, but experience as well. Even NBA superstars do not enter the league at the top of their game. In fact, many such elites were awfully hard to identify in their first year in the NBA. We saw that the team is not exactly remiss of talent, despite the detractors. This team is simply lacking playing time.
T.J. McConnell was an undrafted find of the team. He is not the tallest point guard in the NBA, but his talents are undeniable. If you compare his emergence in his first year, you find that he was one of the most proficient point guards in the league. His father is Tim McConnell, who coaches basketball at Chartiers Valley High School, located in Alleghany County in western Pennsylvania. The county boasts 7,010 residents in the 2010 US census, so familiarity with neighbors is a quite common. But the closeness of Tim to his son T.J. is quite special, because Dad was also his high school basketball coach.
"“He was the first person I called when I made the team. It was just a silence. I knew he (my father) was tearing up, because there’s never like a silence when he’s on the phone. And to hear my dad cry like that with such emotion, and hear how proud he was, it made me feel good that I can bring joy to his life for the work he’s put in with me.” – the tearful conversation when T.J. McConnell made the Sixers squad."
Playing for pride is not limited to the McConnell household, but is merely a typical example of the composition of the roster. In the days before the last game of the season, the Philadelphia 76ers players are two thirds between the ages of 20-24. If expanded to age 25, the roster is four fifths at an age of 25 or younger.
ALSO ON SIXER SENSE: Nerlens Noel Needs Offense to become All Star
Compounding this youthful energy is the unfamiliarity with the NBA. Most players run with two or fewer years of NBA experience. That busload of young talent has truly taxed the development forces of the team – relying upon head coach Brett Brown not only to coach them up, but to find the optimal lineups and positions for them to succeed. Since the 2015-2016 season was truly a turnstile of every changing lineups, the continuity that is so very important for young players never truly developed. The Philadelphia 76ers are a diamond for future NBA talent.
Next: Team Play
II. Team Play
When the team was full strength, they played about .400 ball. That is far superior than the 12% success rate of the 2015-2016 season overall. Overlooked in this difficult season was the fact that the team was undermanned at the inception of the year, and at the conclusion of the year. In fact, for all intents and purposes, the Philadelphia 76ers played an entire season handicapped at 14 players, as Joel Embiid was not able to play at all.
But through this adversity, the team leaned on the entire roster. Seven Sixers players earned more than 25 minutes of playing time. On most teams, the number of players with that much playing time per game is limited to the five starters. It was through this willingness to share court time, and the necessity of enduring so many difficult losses, that the team learned to mature together. There is no quit in this team, no willingness to just roll over and play dead. Despite entering NBA contest outgunned and frequently overmanned, they continued to compete until the buzzer sounded, even taking NBA best Golden State to the wire.
The other unspoken challenge to the team this season is the “tryouts” of both Noel and Okafor at the power forward position – essentially trying out for the 2016-2017 season by auditioning their initial comfort in the role as well as their rate of improvement. The team has significant talent on the roster, but the course of converting two starting centers in power forward players sequentially placed the teams season into choppy waters all season. Despite the immediate drop of defense for the team as Jahlil Okafor migrated to the four, the experiment did round out the first year of Okafor’s rookie season, at least to the point of expanding his shots and knowledge base. It was this experience that gave reason for optimism for Okafor’s sophomore season, if he remains with the team next season.
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It was not just the front court where efforts were made. Brown loves the two-way player, and made it a point to target both Robert Covington and Nik Stauskas as players who should expand their roles to cover both offense and defense. While the effort to defend is a team benefit, it does tend to slow down the game, and lower more individually measured statistics like points per game and rebounds per game (fewer shots on basket equals fewer rebound opportunities).
As Brown had challenged each player on the roster to step up, each player has attempted to do so to the best of their ability. They did so because they understood that the team relied upon each individual to improve, to achieve. The team did not find success in the win column, but the team did find success in the maturation process of so many young players simultaneously.
Next: Young Talent
III. Statistical upticks
Statistics in the win and loss column suggest that the team is far worse off than previous years. But the fundamentals of a team improve long before the record reflects the improvement. Take the team in the turnovers section. The Philadelphia 76ers were the NBA worst team in turnovers a year ago, averaging a generous 16.9 turnovers per game last season. However, the team has improved to 15.6 turnovers per game. While that number is still at 29th in a league of 30, it is merely .3 TPG from the 26th Houston Rockets. In a related statistic, the Philadelphia 76ers had the ball stolen at a league-worst rate of 9.5 times per game last season, while this year, that thievery has improved to just 25th in the league at at 8.7 SPG.
The team even suffered on the assists per turnover statistic, again a league worst in the 2014-2015 season at 1.21. That statistic has improved dramatically, improving to 1.37 assists per turnover, good for 28th in the NBA.
It was not simply ball security that improved significantly with this team. Offensively, the team was a very lackluster 92.0 points per game last year, and at the point of the season where Mike D’Antoni was hired, the team had descended to a league worst 91.1 points per game. But by season’s end, the team had improved to 97.3 points per game, tied for 29th in the league. Shot accuracy is also on the uptick, as the team shot just 40.8% from the floor, and just 32.0% from three point range. The team even struggled at free throws last year, shooting just 67.6% from the foul line. This year, the team has improved all around: shooting 43.1% from the floor, 33.6% on treys, and 69.3% from the foul line. While none of these improvements have translated into wins, it demonstrates that the team fundamentals are improving. Those fundamentals were driven upwards despite the age of the team falling to the league youngest.
ALSO ON SIXER SENSE: Nerlens Noel Has Quietly Improved
Next season, improvements will be dramatic. With no risk of a mass exodus in free agency (just point guard Ish Smith and power forward Elton Brand have expiring contracts), the team can be patient and strategic in identifying players who deliver both offense and defense to this young roster. Brett Brown has already displayed his excitement at adding veteran presence in the back court to anchor consistent performances there as well as deliver a guiding hand to the youngsters on the roster.
Next: Future Moves
IV. Future Moves
Eventually, the critics of the Philadelphia 76ers will tire of chiding the team’s direction and focus on other team which appear to be more catastrophic: the Brooklyn Nets with no draft picks, the Los Angles Lakers and their reluctance to commit to developing young players for the future, even such teams as the Phoenix Suns (who had experienced significant coaching changes this season) as well as the Sacramento Kings (who have suffered from no playoff appearances despite using “basketball minded” efforts to chase high dollar free agents and all but abandon the NBA draft). When that happens, the Sixers will quietly improve in ways which do not depend upon NBA lottery balls.
We know that the 76ers would be active in NBA free agency, and now with Bryan Colangelo at the helm, I expect the shopping list budget to grow significantly. If the team does not wish to relinquish the future production of their young triad at the center, they can adapt a strategy of signing free agents to the roster who can help improve and mentor the young talented players already on this roster. That strategy, although would not be as an immediate impact as using trades to bolster the team immediately, would nonetheless prove to be less risky. Much of the future keys on what Joel Embiid can deliver for the Sixers, and at what position he can deliver it at. Despite rhetoric of his role anchoring the center spot, he continues to work heavily at the range shooting. Ideally, his size and athleticism places him most akin to Ralph Sampson‘s selfless willingness to migrate to the power forward role to make room for Akeem Olajuwon to set up at center. If the Philadelphia 76ers can pull off debuting Embiid at the four, swapping Okafor and Noel at the five, and sliding other players (Saric to three, Covington to two), the team will field an incredible large and athletic lineup that will truly tower over the smaller competition.
Next: Embiid and Okafor Will Dominate Together
I believe this was the direction that Sam Hinkie envisioned: small ball movement and athleticism, biggy ball post game and fill the court with large wing spans to play havoc with passing lanes. Whether the efforts of the new president and general manager will pick up on the same trail remains to be seen. But the rhetoric of the team left in shambles is simply sensationalism to drive a panic through the Sixers fan base. The team did not want Sam Hinkie to go, they merely wanted someone making the final decision on personnel transactions with a more traditional take. It could be that with the team already fully stocked for the journey now, that who drives the decisions going forward is insignificant.
The Sixer vaults are filled. The NBA draft is less important to the team going forward than it had been to this point. Enough so that even in a doomsday scenario, the Sixers will be well off next season. Perhaps in the grand scheme of things, that is why Sam Hinkie resigned. Even he is confident that the next guy can’t screw it up .