The Philadelphia 76ers return to the NBA playoffs playing their best basketball of the season. Afterwards, the 2018 NBA Draft rewards the team with six more picks
The Philadelphia 76ers are one of the hottest teams in the NBA. On a 9-1 run, this team has ascended rapidly in the NBA Eastern Conference. Not long ago, the team was fighting for a playoff spot. Now the team is aiming at the 3-seed currently held by the Cleveland Cavaliers. The horizon is filled with the possibilities of postseason. Can the 76ers advance to round two? To round three? To the NBA Championship? In the year of the Philadelphia Eagles shocking Super Bowl victory, can the Philadelphia 76ers shock the NBA?
However you see the 76ers’ chances in post season, the team has more going on this year. Six picks in the 2018 NBA Draft. Six new players to add to the three playing overseas. Nine new players overall. On a 15 man roster, that’s a huge haul. But don’t look for the team to sign everyone to the roster just yet.
High altitude viewpoint
With the Philadelphia 76ers getting a higher and higher seed this season, the team will lean more heavily upon veterans in the years to come. The good news is that the postseason experience for this team will mature practically every player on this roster. And that means everything to this team. Until this season, the “next step” was all about shopping the NBA Free Agency market. To upgrade, we speculated about who could fill the team’s needs.
Need no more. Now, the team shops for fit. The talent level of this team is high enough now that the roster can mask some lack of production. Not every player needs to pop the scoreboard with 30 points and 20 rebounds. The Philadelphia 76ers have Joel Embiid, Ben Simmons, and Markelle Fultz. They are three championship pieces. Put Dario Saric into that mix. And Robert Covington is roaring the defense now too. Now the team needs to add “fits” rather than “upgrades”.
Revisit rewards new insights
We continue to revisit the 2018 NBA Draft for several reasons. The Philadelphia 76ers are a playoff team with a remote chance at the number one pick in that draft. The Sixers are also a rare example of a team which is combining current success with future talent. The team holds three talented players in Euroleague limbo. As the team makes decisions of who goes and who stays, the team will have talented players ready to plug and play into the 2018-2019 roster.
But which players? Which player will remain on this roster? Which player will walk a seperate path? Building a championship roster is not the science many believe it to be. It’s a trial and error journey which the Philadelphia 76ers are firmly committed to now. We know that Amir Johnson and Jerryd Bayless did not produce what this team needed consistently. But we know that J.J. Redick did harmonize. Those trial and errors will continue.
Value of the 2018 NBA Draft
The 2018 NBA Draft holds six picks for the Philadelphia 76ers. 10 percent of the chosen NCAA players in that draft will owe their professional basketball allegiance to Philadelphia. That means the Philadelphia 76ers will have six chances to choose the WRONG players. But it means the team will have six opportunities to choose the RIGHT players. That’s not being facetious nor overly dramatic. The belief that any NBA team can get picks to resonate well for their teams are debunked each season.
Rookies need three things in their first season. Plenty of good coaching. Plenty of playing time. And finally, plenty of patience. The Philadelphia 76ers may not have enough of all three to mete out to new rookies. So the team will be forced to make some tough decisions. Which player? Draft and keep, or draft and stash? When will this player have an opprtunity to impact the 76ers lineup? Drafted players will now be major impacts years down the road. Will they be the right skillsets when the team needs them?
Turn the page
And finally, this team is coming to the end of the stockpile of picks and salary cap space from the former general manager Sam Hinkie. Other NBA fans do not understand why Philadelphia 76ers fans continue to mention him. In a nutshell, no other general manager elevated an entire organization from analytics to players to support staff to draft picks to salary cap space to training facility like Sam Hinkie did. The 76ers simply did not have anything to rebuild with. No picks. No cap space. Nothing in the pipeline.
When he left, the Philadelphia 76ers had Joel Embiid, Dario Saric, enroute to the first pick of the 2016 NBA Draft, multiple first round picks in 2016, and multiple first round picks with protections, swaps, and other leveraged factors for the foreseeable future. Now, that future is nearing the present. That means the team will no longer have options to choose from the top talent of the NBA draft.
Tweaking roster going forward
The Philadelphia 76ers won’t be able to just cut multiple players. Now the energies dedicated to the NBA Draft will soon be aimed at the salary cap and planing to keep the core players on the roster, while filling roster spots with affordable talent. That is an entirely different skillset folks. And it’s far less entertaining to the fans familiar with the wellspring of renewed optimism in each new NBA Draft class.
Now the team will follow the travels of perennial powerhouses like the San Antonio Spurs, the Golden State Warriors, and other upper tiered teams who power the new season with familiar players. The Philadelphia 76ers, with the first season with Ben Simmons and Markelle Fultz, are a solid playoff team. Imagine years down the road when they are all at their prime?
The last hurrah
The 2018 NBA Draft will likely be the last time the Philadelphia 76ers choose multiple picks in the first round of any NBA draft for years to come. That extra 2019 NBA first round pick will convey to the Boston Celtics. And for each year through 2021, the 76ers will get a single first round pick plus multiple second round picks.
So this is the last call. In many ways, the affluence of previous NBA Drafts will diminish into a much smaller annual stipend. Fewer picks and later spots. And those limits make team GMs panic, pushing all their chips into one gamble, and crippling the franchise when those “all in” gambles don’t pan out. Bets the team cannot afford to lose, are bets the team cannot afford to make.
New chapter
By this time next season, we will be focusing on the Philadelphia 76ers and their NBA Championship chances. We’ll have two seasons of Fultz and Simmons, and three seasons of Embiid and Saric. We’ll have projections galore of just how good this team will be. And some of us will reminisce about the innocent years when being a Philadelphia 76ers fan meant being shunned by the mainstream NBA. As of today, March 29, 2018, the Philadelphia 76ers stand to pick at 10, 24, 36, 39, 54, and 60. Those are more picks than any other team in the NBA this year. There are remote chances for the Lakers pick to convey to Boston this year. Those odds are 2.9 percent of landing at either two or three. The chances of getting the top pick in the 2018 NBA Draft is 1.1 percent.
Next: Dario Saric leads Philadelphia 76ers over NY Knicks 118-101
The Philadelphia 76ers can get a complete lineup plus a sixth man in this draft. And depending on the team’s projections of depth and need, they may want to do just that. You can mock the 2018 NBA Draft with Christopher Kline here or simply work off the 2018 NBA Draft Big Board. With six picks to burn, you may want to take some chances. But beware! This is the last time the team has so many picks to use. And with hopes for an NBA Championship, each pick can push the team closer to that goal.