Philadelphia 76ers Hopes Go Beyond 2017 NBA Draft.

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Sep 26, 2016; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Philadelphia 76ers forward Nerlens Noel (4) during media day at the Philadelphia 76ers Training Complex. Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports /

Attrition

The trick will be to harness the emerging talent with significant contracts, while allowing enough flexibility to keep the team’s salary cap at a manageable level. As of right now, this 15 man roster is scheduled to lose five players to free agency. Those are the five known holes in this roster for next season. And as of today, those players are: Nerlens Noel, Ersan Ilyasova, Hollis Thompson, Sergio Rodriguez, and T.J. McConnell.

That could change rapidly with this team.

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But as for starters? Unless the Philadelphia 76ers land one of the top three picks in the 2017 NBA Draft, I would expect a gradual easing of a newly drafted player into quality minutes, much like the path Dario Saric is taking this year.

On most NBA teams, the path of filling lost players comes from the reserves who had been groomed specifically for that occasion. But the Philadelphia 76ers, constructed almost entirely of players on their first NBA contract, does not have that system in place. The “next man up” in Philly could be fresh out of the NCAA. By rights, that was the situation Bryan Colangelo was brought in to avoid.

But he allowed Ish Smith, Isaiah Canaan, Carl Landry, Jerami Grant, and Kendall Marshall to end up elsewhere. As such, the 2016 NBA Draft brought more than just players to look at. But that should not be the standard going forward.