Sixers Should Rely on NBA Draft for Shooters, Not Free Agency

The Philadelphia 76ers lack outside shooting in an era in the NBA where shooters reign supreme. They need to build through the draft for Ben Simmons.

Ben Simmons was the Philadelphia 76ers No. 1 overall pick in the 2016 NBA draft. Simmons has drawn comparisons to great players such as LeBron James, Magic Johnson, and even Kawhi Leonard.

When Simmons steps foot for the first time on an NBA court, the expectation is that we will see great distributive skills from Simmons. He will be expected to be the primary ball handler and make his teammates better. Simmons is currently developing his jump shot, and will be expected to thrive on dribble penetration. From there, he can shoot, dish it to his big guys, or kick out to three point shooters.

Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid has displayed a solid 3-point jump shot from outside, as has power forward Ersan Ilyasova. That can be of value to the 76ers, but you would rather have perimeter players out there knocking down outside shots. That way, the big guys can rebound and score inside.

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Ben Simmons will need shooters. He loves to get his shooters involved — as seen in his summer league and college games — and as of now, the 76ers don’t particularly have knockdown shooters. Robert Covington is one of the guys that could be that for the 76ers, but RoCo shoots only 28.2 percent from behind the arc this year, near the bottom of the league amongst qualified players. Another “shooter” the 76ers have is Nik Stauskas, and although Stauskas is much improved from last year, he shoots 38 percent from three and isn’t considered an NBA starter for the future.

So where can the Sixers add to their shooting inventory?

NBA Draft

The Philadelphia 76ers may very likely have two lottery picks in the upcoming NBA draft. Arguably the best shooter and maybe even scorer in this upcoming NBA draft is Kentucky guard Malik Monk. He would work perfectly with the 76ers as an off the ball shooter and scorer.

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Free Agency

This upcoming free agent season, Kyle Korver is an unrestricted free agent, however, after recently being acquired by the Cleveland Cavaliers, Korver may choose to just finish his career where he can be a title contender every year with LeBron in Cleveland. Overall, free agent shooting options are slim this upcoming year. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope from the Detroit Pistons is an option as well, but is a restricted free agent, so the Sixers will have to potentially out-bid the Pistons and any other interested teams, while the Pistons can still match any high offer and keep KCP.

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Overall

Ultimately, the 76ers best option is to build and develop shooters with their top picks in the NBA draft. Free agency is purely speculation, and as of now, current shooters on the team are far too inconsistent and unreliable. When Ben Simmons returns, he will struggle with the lack of scorers and shooters on the perimeter around him. Look for the Sixers to target shooters such as Malik Monk in the draft, as it will tremendously help the team and Ben Simmons’ game.