Philadelphia 76ers unconventional winners
By Bret Stuter
The Philadelphia 76ers are at the leading edge of a basketball evolution. Toss those five traditional positions, because versatility and skill sets make them obsolete.
The Philadelphia 76ers are redefining the NBA. Not by loading up on stars, nor by overwhelming the NBA Draft, nor even by breaking sales records for tickets or merchandising. No, this evolution is far more subtle, and far more important. The team is loading up on versatility throughout the roster. While many NBA team have a checklist of center, power forward, small forward, shooting guard, and point guard, the new NBA model ignores those categories.
Recently, the Philadelphia 76ers had begun to field a starting lineup of Ben Simmons, J.J. Redick, Robert Covington, Dario Saric and Joel Embiid. Who is the small forward in that lineup? Who is the power forward? In the end, what does it matter? That particular lineup is one of the most effective in the NBA right now, and the fact that they are one of the tallest starting five sets the tone of things to come.
Odds favor tall over small
Some will argue that this Sixers team is all luck, pure and simple. They will point out to the fact that the Philadelphia 76ers had no way of anticipating Joel Embiid’s availability at three in the 2014 NBA Draft. They will scoff at any inference to the Philadelphia 76ers selection of Ben Simmons with the first overall pick of the 2016 NBA Draft. Not only did the 76ers have no way of knowing they would have a top pick, but Ben Simmons availability in that draft could very likely be a once-in-a-blue-moon event. In the end, the Philadelphia 76ers ended up with very talented bigs.
But height means nothing without more to it. The Philadelphia 76ers are not simply big to be big, but are big because wing span, defense, open shots, and passing all favor taller players of equivalent skill sets. The great thing is that these Philadelphia 76ers players have those skill sets. And the team did not “luck out”, but rather introduced a system of rapidly cycling through NBA players to determine which ones “had it”. For every drafted Joel Embiid, the team has an undrafted Robert Covington. For every drafted Ben Simmons, the team has an undrafted T.J. McConnell. It was not about high draft picks, but rather highly talented players.