To achieve the goal of winning a NBA championship the Philadelphia 76ers will need to do a lot of things right. Hanging onto their own first-round picks is something the team should try to do.
The NBA Draft is a major part of determining a team’s success. In it, you can draft franchise-changing talent and develop young players.
While the Philadelphia 76ers‘ tanking days are a thing of the past, the team should look to keep its own first-round picks going into the future. The good news is it seems like the team is aware of this, as the Sixers and Elton Brand didn’t include any kind of first-rounder in acquiring All-Star Jimmy Butler.
Obviously the Sixers are a great team now, so you may be questioning why hanging onto their pick is so vital going forward. After all, there is a huge chance that the pick will end up in the 20-30 range of the first round. All of the “elite” young talent is mostly taken by then.
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I could argue this, but it’s better with a few examples. When you look at an elite team in the NBA such as the Toronto Raptors, you see that one of their biggest strengths is their depth. Roster spots 1-15 can all provide quality minutes for their club.
When you look at Toronto’s bench you see promising young players such as OG Anunoby, Delon Wright and Pascal Siakam. Apart from being a big part in the Raptors’ bench rotation, they all have one thing in common: They were late first-round picks.
While there is no doubt the Sixers are in win-now mode, the team shouldn’t shy away from taking young players in the draft. Drafting players has a huge advantage in many aspects.
When you take a player in the late first round and put them on your NBA roster, you typically give them a standard rookie contract. Rookie contracts are huge in many ways, as team’s get full control of a player for at least five years and those players typically don’t get paid much at all.
Hitting on late first round talent is huge. It can bolster your bench, help your team, and save you a ton of money in the process.
Unfortunately for the Sixers, they have been unlucky with late first-round talent. The team had two late first-round picks in the 2016 draft and both of those players won’t be on the team going forward (as the Sixers recently declined Furkan Korkmaz‘s option).
Things like this may seem unimportant, but missing out on minor moves such as this do add up over time if you aren’t careful.
Ex-GM Bryan Colangelo took a ton of criticism for many things, but by far his worst move was trading back into the first round of the 2017 NBA Draft and taking Anzejs Pasecniks over many talented players such as Josh Hart and Kyle Kuzma.
Luckily, the Sixers have had recent success drafting in the late first round with rookie Landry Shamet. Shamet looks to be an excellent shooter and a quality role player that can develop into a decent player going forward. The best part of that is he will be on cheap contract for the next four years, allowing the Sixers to make even more moves to improve the team.
The Philadelphia 76ers currently own all of their tradable first-round picks going forward, which is great on many levels. On top of that, they also still own the rights of the 2021 Miami first-round pick which can end up anywhere.
Regardless of future moves, it is in the best interest of the team that the Sixers do all they can to hang onto their first rounders.