Philadelphia 76ers: Should Wilson Chandler get benched?
The Philadelphia 76ers traded for Wilson Chandler during the 2018 offseason to add depth to a team that lost two of their best bench players. While Wilson Chandler has had good games, he has been an disappointment overall for the Sixers.
The Denver Nuggets traded Wilson Chandler and a 2021 second-round pick to the Philadelphia 76ers for cash considerations. As a 31-year-old small/power forward making $12.8 million during the 2018-19 season, before becoming an unrestricted free agent, Chandler averaged 10 points, 2.1 assists, and 5.4 rebounds per game during the 2017-18 season.
Chandler’s decrease in points and rebounds—he averaged 5.7 less points and 1.1 less rebounds per game during the 2017-18 season than the 2016-17 season—made the Nuggets decision to move on from him an easy one, but one the Sixers had to take advantage of.
Marco Belinelli and Ersan Ilyasova were two of the 2017-18 Sixers’ top seven scorers, and both of them signed deals with other teams during 2018’s free agency making new additions Chandler and Mike Muscala their replacements.
While Muscala is playing slightly worse for the Sixers this season than he played for the Atlanta Hawks last season (he’s averaging 0.1 points and 0.1 rebounds less per game while shooting 2.8 percent worse from behind the three-point line this season), Chandler is playing significantly worse this season. Chandler is averaging 6.5 points per game, which is the lowest average of his career and 3.5 points worse than last season.
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Chandler’s role in the Sixers’ offense is stretch-four, or a power forward that spends a significant amount of time around the three-point line. Shooting 38 percent from behind the three-point line, Chandler appears to be doing enough to force opposing defenses to remove one of their big men from the paint to guard him, but his above averaging three-point shooting doesn’t do enough to make up for his below average overall shooting and poor defensive rebounding.
Only 42.9 percent of Chandler’s shots are going through the rim, which is only one percentage point better than Markelle Fultz’s overall shooting percentage. And Chandler’s 3.3 defensive rebounds per game is much worse than former Sixers Robert Covington (4.6) and Dario Saric (5.0). Chandler is only averaging 1.3 more defensive rebounds per game more than J.J. Redick, which is terrible considering their height and play style differences.
After watching Chandler play 32 games with the Sixers, I truly believe the starting lineup would be better if they replaced him with Jonah Bolden. The only reason head coach Brett Brown should hesitate from making the change, is not wanting to weaken an already weak bench.
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Hopefully the Sixers can find a better starting power forward before the trade deadline, but if they’re unable to get a better player through trade or waivers, they should start giving Bolden more playing time than Chandler. Because a version of Bolden with slightly more experience than the current version of him, is more likely to help the Sixers advance in the playoffs than Chandler.