April 2016- June 2016
The Philadelphia 76ers held three draft picks in the 2016 NBA Draft. In that draft, the team selected Ben Simmons with the first overall pick, Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot with the 24th overall pick, and Furkan Korkmaz with the 26th overall pick.
The team elected to bring both Simmons and Luwawu-Cabarrot onto the roster immediately. For Furkan Korkmaz, the team elected to draft-and-stash him for a year in the Euroleague. But the trend for Bryan Colangelo began to be noticed even in the 2016 NBA Draft. While the team selected the best-player-available in Ben Simmons, Colangelo turned to foreign players in the draft, and favored a draft-and-stash scenario for Furkan Korkmaz over bringing both TLC and him to the team simultaneously.
Good moves, bad language
Free agents signings were logical, if not grandiose. The team signed shooting guard Gerald Henderson, point guard Sergio Rodriguez, and hybrid guard Jerryd Bayless. The reinforcement to the back court stabilized the tumultuous situation, and gave some depth to the very shallow positions on the team roster. They were economic free agents with flaws. Bayless had a bad wrist, Henderson had a bad hip, and Rodriguez had hamstring injuries.
While the moves were logical,the verbiage was not. Almost immediately after assuming control of the team, Bryan Colangelo professed to the world that the team had too many centers and he wanted to unload one if not two. The NBA immediately reacted by lowering the bid and value of both Nerlens Noel and Jahlil Okafor. And that set up the team for disappointment going forward.