Well, it appears that the Philadelphia 76ers, without doing anything, managed to dodge a bullet in free agency. Former All-Star DeMar DeRozan could have been a good fallback option for the front office, had they missed out on LeBron James. Having already won that vaunted bidding war, they can only be grateful, as they prevented themselves from having to deal with the DeRozan's reported unwillingness to accept a lesser role.
As reported by NBA insider Jake Fischer, the idea of coming off the bench for DeRozan was a sensitive topic for the six-time All-Star. The Kings apparently tried to approach him about a role realignment this offseason, but obviously that did not pan out. As such, Sacramento's brain trust deemed it necessary to waive him. Now, DeRozan remains unsigned in the open market.
The 76ers were lucky not to be in a position where they had to pursue DeMar DeRozan
Had Philly lost the sweepstakes for the King, Mike Gansey and the entire front office might have been tempted to go after DeRozan to at least address their scoring woes off the bench. Well, that was obviously never going to be the case given the 37-year-old's aversion to the prospect of being a second-unit catalyst.
Sure, DeRozan still enjoyed a rather productive individual campaign this past season, but the Kings were one of the worst teams in the league. He was still a very efficient scorer and a reliable playmaker on the secondary, but his utter lack of three-point shooting and defensive acuity were never felt more than in the previous campaign.
Given his skill set, DeRozan would be such a perfect nominal sixth man for a playoff team. He will definitely feast going against other bench players, and he will have more liberty to create for himself, which is something he is still pretty good at.
The 76ers are going all-in on their championship bid next season, so there will be necessary sacrifices along the way. On that note, it is just fortunate that the franchise got their best-case scenario to materialize this summer, lest they would have gone after a looming headache in DeRozan, at least role-wise.
Technically, Philly can still go after DeRozan for the minimum if they waive a player, but at this point, that is no longer worth the trouble. After all, if he cannot buy in and accept that he will be much better off getting shoehorned into a lesser role, he would simply be a liability.
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