In recent years, the Philadelphia 76ers have become one of the better teams in the league when it comes to acing their draft picks. Daryl Morey and the entire front office, most especially the team’s numerous scouts, deserve a lot of acclaim for allowing the franchise to nab high-value players through the draft.
Thanks to this fact, the front office has been able to keep adding talent to the team despite them already having one of the more expensive rosters in the league. While they keep paying huge amounts to their stars, young players looking to make their mark in the league have come in without the lucrative price tags.
Players like Tyrese Maxey and Jared McCain are perhaps the best examples of this. Both players were taken outside the lottery, but one of them is already an All-Star and the other was well on his way to claim the Top Rookie plum before an injury shut his freshman season down early.
The same, however, cannot be said for a couple of players whose NBA careers are already looking dead in the water. And such an unfortunate development will definitely leave a bad mark to the team’s otherwise above-average track record when it comes to drafting.
76ers track record dips as Ben Simmons and Markelle Fultz see their NBA careers decay fast
Former top picks by the 76ers, Ben Simmons and Markelle Fultz, seem to be headed to a domain well outside the NBA zeitgeist, at least according to some well-informed people in league circles.
Fultz, whom the 76ers took with the first overall pick in the 2017 NBA Draft, has become a massive afterthought. He ultimately ended up a complete bust, with injuries killing his chances of living up to his hype following his stellar college career. Even worse, Philadelphia made the decision to move up in the draft, trading places with the Celtics which took Jayson Tatum for themselves.
He played briefly for the Kings last season, but it was far from a noteworthy stint. He appeared in just 21 games for Sacramento, averging just 8.8 minutes per outing. As a result, his market was completely dry, stale, and barren, as he still does not have a new team with training camp just right around the corner.
Even more glaring is what happened to Simmons. He was a bona fide star in the league who had the ability to impact the game in a major way on both ends, but since crumbling in the 2021 NBA Playoffs, his confidence never really returned as his back issues slowly doomed his long-term outlook in the league.
Following his uneventful stint with the Clippers last season, the three-time All-Star also failed to find a taker for his services this offseason. Heck, there were even whispers about him possibly considering retiring early, although he has since shut those rumors down.
Hopefully, both players can still find a way to stay in the NBA and make do with whatever they have left in the tank. Otherwise, the Philadelphia 76ers will have nothing but a regretful closure to those unrealized sagas.