The Sixer Sense
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NBA Centers Are Still A Key Piece To The NBA Championship

Bret Stuter|
Dec 11, 2015; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid (R) and center Jahlil Okafor (M) greet Detroit Pistons forward Stanley Johnson (L) prior to game action at Wells Fargo Center. Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports
Dec 11, 2015; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid (R) and center Jahlil Okafor (M) greet Detroit Pistons forward Stanley Johnson (L) prior to game action at Wells Fargo Center. Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports
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Sep 11, 2015; Springfield, MA, USA; Dikembe Mutombo speaks during the 2015 Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame Enshrinement Ceremony at Springfield Symphony Hall. Mandatory Credit: David Butler II-USA TODAY Sports
Sep 11, 2015; Springfield, MA, USA; Dikembe Mutombo speaks during the 2015 Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame Enshrinement Ceremony at Springfield Symphony Hall. Mandatory Credit: David Butler II-USA TODAY Sports

The Sixers Center Dilemma

The Philadelphia 76ers franchise has a long and lauded history of NBA success.  Whether the team was being led by Allen Iverson, or “Doctor J” Julius Erving, the team never truly realized its destiny until the team found a center.

For Erving, the search went on for years until the team landed former Houston Rocket Moses Malone.   In 1983, that championship run was one of the best NBA teams in history.

For Allen Iverson, the big man in the post was none other than our NBA lottery prognosticator, Dikembe Mutombo.  While they only made it as far as the NBA championship series, the key to that success was that the Sixers finally had a center to aid their shooting star – Iverson.

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And there’s the rub.  In both cases, incredible talent at all other positions were thwarted time and again because the team could not control the post in the post season.  Many of the follies of previous regimes occurred from the realization that centers win NBA championships.  The disaster of trading for former Los Angeles Lakers center Andrew Bynum was driven out of the desperation of the team to make the attempt to land a key piece of the lineup to build around.  Instead, the move crippled the franchise, burying the team in the desolation of a player who simply could not take the basketball court.  Wasted salary, wasted picks, wasted opportunity.

That brought Sam Hinkie here in 2013.

While so many point to the basketball court, scoff, and ridicule the man for “wasting” so many draft picks on the center position, lets review what really happened in the past three years.  With the exception of Karl Anthony Towns and Kristaps Porzingas, the Philadelphia 76ers have acquired the services of three of the top five prospects at the center position in the past three years.  60% of the best of the NBA big man prospects.

I don’t think the team will be making desperation trades for a center in the near future.

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