The Sixer Sense
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Should the Sixers Keep Carl Landry or Richaun Holmes?

By Josh Wilson

Jan 24, 2016; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Philadelphia 76ers forward Richaun Holmes (22) in a game against the Boston Celtics at Wells Fargo Center. The Boston Celtics won 112-92. Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports
Jan 24, 2016; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Philadelphia 76ers forward Richaun Holmes (22) in a game against the Boston Celtics at Wells Fargo Center. The Boston Celtics won 112-92. Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports /
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The Philadelphia 76ers may be forced to choose between Carl Landry and Richaun Holmes to slim their roster to 15. Should they choose youth or wisdom?

The Philadelphia 76ers have a jam-packed roster going into training camp. An unofficial count of the recent reported signings and free agency acquisitions puts their roster at 21, and they have to slim it down to 20. That won’t be the hard part, however, the hard part will be getting the final roster ready for the regular season, when they have to go from 20 to 15.

Some of the obvious cuts will be made to get the roster down to 18 or 17. I’m thinking of guys like the summer league callbacks, Kendall Marshall, and possibly even Hollis Thompson. Those last few cuts, however, when the team gets down to the final few players before hitting 15 players, will be incredibly difficult for Bryan Colangelo and the executive team to decipher.

I believe one of the final cuts will be down to Carl Landry and Richaun Holmes. Both of them can play in the power forward position, so it makes sense that the team would be choosing between the two as potential third unit players.

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Both of these players, at the moment, have similar skill sets and offerings on the floor on a nightly basis. Neither player has the capabilities to be a solid starting player, but both can be decent off-the-bench players for the Sixers should they make the final roster.

This decision comes down to one thing. Do you choose a youthful, high-ceiling player, or do you choose an older, wiser player who is much past his prime? The general trend of the Sixers over the last several years would tell us that youth is the way to go, but based on moves Colangelo has made over the last few months, one would think that wisdom and leadership is what he’s looking for.

Is that what the Sixers should do, though?

In the essence of looking towards the future, keeping Landry over Holmes doesn’t make a whole lot of sense from several standpoints.

Contractually, Landry does make some sense to keep on this year. His $6.5 million salary will help the Sixers get closer to the salary floor. That being said, they can still have that on the books (and will have it on the books) regardless of if they cut him or not after training camp.

Holmes salary, on the other hand, is just over $1 million, and he is locked up through 2019 with the Sixers. If they were to get rid of him this year, they would be freeing up just about one percent of their salary cap, which isn’t very much considering what they could be sacrificing. So the best move, as far as spending this year and saving for the future, is to cut Holmes this season, but keeping him (and subsequently cutting Landry) really does negligible damage.

What they could be sacrificing by cutting Holmes a high ceiling that he seems to have. Although his rookie season was somewhat overshadowed by the likes of teammate rookie Jahlil Okafor, Holmes is still a solid frontcourt member who could be debuting a more solid 3-point shot in his next few seasons as an NBA player.

If you bring Landry on, a player who was originally acquired via a trade, you’re probably going to lose him next summer. He’s 32, so he may retire, and if he has the opportunity to sign anywhere but Philly, I’m willing to bet he’d jump on that opportunity.

Holmes will be with the Sixers through the 2019 season, if they will have him. Through that time, and especially after the Sixers’ frontcourt logjam is ironed out, he will be offered more minutes and a greater opportunity to become a polished player. By the end of this season I expect him to make strides, especially with his shooting game, and by the end of the season after that I expect him to be a really solid player.

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All things considered, I think it would be foolish to let Holmes go and bring on Landry instead. Landry, although a solid veteran presence who does still have some fight left in him on the floor, is likely to be gone after next year and just simply doesn’t offer enough to justify letting a high-ceiling young stud like Holmes walk.