Why Didn’t Kendall Marshall Work with the Philadelphia 76ers?

The Kendall Marshall experiment with the Philadelphia 76ers didn’t work, but what exactly is the reason for that?

When the 2015-16 season came to an end for the Philadelphia 76ers, it seemed ominous for Kendall Marshall’s future with the team. On Friday, after months of anticipation of Marshall’s relationship with the team coming to an end, it was finally reported that he was going to be traded by the Sixers.

The deal was one that brought in draft picks as well as center Tibor Pleiss, who will likely be waived by the team. This one was Hinkie-esque, all about the picks.

Going back about a year, Marshall was an exciting signing that Sam Hinkie had orchestrated leading up to the 2015 season. While he was no household NBA name, he did seem to be a player that could lead the Sixers to more wins, even once they got out of the treacherous basement that the 2016 season ended up being.

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The former Chapel Hill product had a career that was overshadowed by injuries before coming to the Sixers. In fact, before injuries stopped his prior seasons, he was on track to be in the top 10 in the NBA in total assists in one of his seasons with the Lakers. So there was a ton of excitement with Marshall being a Sixer, despite him coming off of a torn ACL.

As the Sixers went into training camp and the regular season, Marshall was still rehabbing his injury, and didn’t debut until December 11th. That late start was the beginning of the issues for Marshall in 2015.

Marshall’s first five games weren’t all that bad. He averaged 4.7 points and 4.4 assists per game on an average of 17.1 minutes per game. He certainly wasn’t putting up All-Star numbers, but he was pretty solid for a player coming off of an injury, especially as far as moving the ball around and giving his teammates good looks.

When the Sixers went into the new year, though, that’s when things started to go down. But it wasn’t all Marshall’s fault. A huge part of the issue was the fact that Marshall was not offered very much playing time. Between January 1st and January 30th, the Sixers played in 14 games, but Marshall was only put on the floor in four of them. He only played in more than 10 minutes in two of those four games.

That lack of consistency can seriously hurt a player and their development. Part of it was the fact that Marshall was limited due to the injury he was coming off of, but Brett Brown could have attempted to slip Marshall into more than just four games.

From there on out, it wasn’t necessarily rare for Marshall to get play time in any given game, but it was rare for him to get decent minutes. He was never really given the opportunity to gel with his teammates and get matriculated into the Sixers system.

Aside from that, Marshall certainly didn’t play up to expectations. As much as he could blame that inconsistent playing time, it’s apparent that he didn’t live up to be the guard he was supposed to be.

Part of that was an issue with the guards Hinkie was looking for. Before the season started, he brought in a lot of one-trick ponies when it came to the backcourt. He tried Isaiah Canaan as a point guard, who is only good at scoring. He tried T.J. McConnell, who is only good at passing. Tony Wroten was a fair balance of the two, but didn’t do either of the things well enough to stick with the squad.

Marshall passed excellently, but was unable to score. He never has excelled in that realm. On his career, he averages just 5.0 points per game, and shoots below 40 percent from the field (with a 37 percent success rate from beyond the arc).

As much as we can blame Marshall’s inability to work well as a Sixer on things like playing time, injury recovery, and chemistry issues, what it comes down to is that Marshall and the Sixers worked well on paper, but that’s not always how we should jude things. Clearly, this is one of the players that should have been vetoed, but the front office just couldn’t see it — perhaps due to a heavy reliance on stats.

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Moving forward, the Sixers have brought in three new guards — Gerald Henderson, Jerryd Bayless, and Sergio Rodriguez — that pushed the need to have Marshall on the team out. He was pretty much at the door at the end of the season, and it was certainly not a surprise to see him go. The experiment just didn’t work for him in Philly.

Next: Are There More NBA Chapters for Kendall Marshall?

Marshall has been an NBA nomad up to this point in the NBA, and as he moves to yet another NBA town, it doesn’t look like it’s slowing down yet.