Feels Drafty In Here
Frequency, quantity, and hopefully, quality of the NBA draft would fix the team. But that would impact the team’s competitiveness in two ways. In the first way, more draft picks than the standard two per team would drive the age of the team younger and towards less experience. That lack of experience would hurt the team, creating more and more difficulty to finding victories.
The second negative impact is that the team roster was built to facilitate getting more draft picks. That meant lots of salary cap space, only paying for players at a discount, and opening the roster to undrafted free agents. Consider the most important position to head coach Brett Brown, the point guard, and the gyrations of the team to fill the void. Would the season have been different if Tony Wroten and Robert Covington were healthy all season? Likely. But in the void, T.J. McConnell started – an undrafted free agent rookie – and did well enough for the team.
National media will never invest indepth analysis into a team until that team warrants it. Once bad, media will not cover the story until that team improves. Similarly, good teams get greater exposure when they begin to struggle.
In Philadelphia basketball, that translates into perception of a last place team until something changes that perception.
Next: Times Are A'Changing