On Wednesday 4 January 2017, the Philadelphia 76ers announced waiving veteran small forward Hollis Thompson. Where will Thompson next play in the NBA?
The Philadelphia 76ers have run the ship to the future into shallow waters. While the back court has been the focus of the team, the team has been comfortable at other areas of the team. Wing duty so far has fallen to starter Robert Covington and mopped up with Hollis Thompson. Some players are healing, enough to nudge head coach Brett Brown to revisit the lab of experimentation at the center and power forward roles.
The power forward role once claimed by Dario Saric has fallen upon other players. And so, Dario Saric slides to small forward, and needs minutes from Covington or Thompson. With the waiver today, it’s obvious where those minutes will come from.
Need Help Back There
With the back court already light due to the loss of Jerryd Bayless for the season, and the fractured foot of Ben Simmons, the team has counted on a tandem of Sergio Rodriguez and T.J. McConnell. That duo handled the duties well enough for the early part of the season. But Rodriguez rolled his ankle, a particularly difficult injury to shake off from the duties of point guard.
Now the team buoyed by versatility has sunk to rigidity. The team needs more faces in the backcourt. To do so, the team parted ways with the senior veteran of this team, Hollis Thompson.
But don’t expect Thompson to last long off an NBA Roster. Thompson has a career three-point shooting accuracy of 38.9 percent, better than the average of all but three NBA teams. And as a matter of fact, three-point shooters are coveted in the NBA today.
So which team might give Thompson’s agent a call? Here are some of the top ten NBA possibilities: