Is Richaun Holmes a Player to Keep Long Term?

The Philadelphia 76ers have no shortage of big men, and Richaun Holmes is one of them. Is it worth it to keep him around long term?

The Philadelphia 76ers have a huge logjam in their frontcourt. While they are lucky enough to have a lot of young talent in that position, it seems as if they probably have too much.

Jahlil Okafor, Nerlens Noel, and Joel Embiid are all the forefront names on everyone’s minds when talking about the frontcourt logjam. On media day, as team president Bryan Colangelo was addressing the media about recent negative comments from Nerlens Noel regarding the logjam, Colangelo pointed to the idea that Holmes, too, was a moving part of the logjam.

Whether or not Colangelo said that to divert attention away from the distraction of Noel is unknown, but as the preseason came along, Holmes set out to prove Colangelo right in saying that he’s an important big man on the team.

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Who the first preseason game came around, it was hyped because of the debut of Joel Embiid and Dario Saric playing for the first time in Sixers uniforms. Holmes didn’t see action in the first half since the Sixers were running Embiid and his 12 minutes of playing time during the first half, and Noel when he wasn’t in.

Since then, the Sixers have played two additional games, and Holmes has put up stat lines that have been impressive. His per game stats after three games have come out to be 16.3 points, 7.7 rebounds, and 1.7 blocks per game. All of those categories lead the team. He’s going hard, and it seems like he’s a solid piece to have for the long run.

Even if Holmes doesn’t get much playing time behind Joel Embiid and whichever of the big men the Sixers choose to keep in Nerlens Noel or Jahlil Okafor, he seems to be a solid third string player. We must remember, however, that Holmes is playing this hard in the preseason, and the preseason in the NBA is generally a joke as far as showing how difficult the regular NBA season can be.

So, the worst case scenario is that Holmes isn’t as good as he’s looking in preseason. In all reality, this is probably true, and probably is the case for other Sixers players that have been showing out as of late. The representation of the regular season is simply not there.

If that’s the case, the reality is that Holmes may actually be a solid player to keep around. Even if the preseason is as bad as it’s being made it out to be, there’s no way a truly terrible player puts up those numbers in a preseason game either. To have him as a backup to an already loaded frontcourt is deadly.

If that’s not the case, and Holmes can keep this level of play going in the regular season, there’s not a whole lot of reason behind keeping a player that is that talented. Holmes could easily be valuable to another team, and the Sixers may be able to get some solid draft picks or shooters in return for him.

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The issue with potentially trading Holmes — and this will hold true for any of the bigs that the Sixers decide to put on the trading block — is that there is no way the Sixers can get him 25+ minutes during the regular season to prove that he’s worth a trade. The frontcourt is so jammed up that there’s just no way the Sixers can give minutes like that to really any of the bigs if they’re all at 100 percent health.

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Whatever the case is with Holmes, really all we can do now is wait. With the way things are playing out, it seems like he could be a great longterm player as long as he is okay with a minutes cut and can keep his level of play high even with low minutes.