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PHILADELPHIA 76ERS: state of the franchise

State of the Franchise

Projected Cap Space (before luxury tax): $62.3 million

Background: Though it feels like ages ago, the Sixers only began their tank-tastic ways in the 2013 draft, where they dealt promising All-Star PG Jrue Holiday to the New Orleans Pelicans in exchange for two first-round draft picks. Ever since then, GM Sam Hinkie has been tearing down the roster, dealing away all veterans in exchange for future draft picks. The next season, SG/SF Evan Turner and C Spencer Hawes were traded to the Indiana Pacers and Cleveland Cavaliers respectively for second-round picks, in advance of the trade deadline, and SF/PF Thaddeus Young was the final domino of the Holiday-led Sixers, to fall. He was dealt to Minnesota as part of the three-team deal that sent superstar PF Kevin Love to Cleveland, as well as a first-rounder to Philadelphia. Even SG/PG Alexey Shved, a role player acquired in the Young deal, was exchanged with Houston for another second-round draft choice. Now with a ridiculous amount of future draft picks and plenty of prospects to boot, the rebuild is on in the City of Brotherly Love. It is led by reigning rookie of the year PG Michael-Carter Williams, though he is having a disappointing sophomore campaign and has even faced trade rumors recently. PF/C Nerlens Noel, taken as one of the picks acquired from New Orleans, is having a nice “rookie” season, even though he was drafted in 2013: he sat out the entire 2013-2014 campaign with an ACL injury, making him a “rookie” this year as this is the season where he played his first NBA game. C Joel Embiid and SF Dario Saric were selected by the Sixers in this year’s draft with the third and twelfth picks respectively, but neither will likely play a game this year, as Embiid, like fellow big man Noel, is dealing with an injury in his rookie year, and Saric will spend the next couple of years in the Adriatic league. So why is it that the Sixers want so badly to lose, and are succeeding with the third-worst record in the NBA? Why is it that they trade away all of their good players for draft picks? Why is it that seemingly whenever the Sixers draft a player, they don’t even play that year? The answer is tanking, and it is one of the bigger problems in the NBA today. In a nutshell, tanking is purposely losing games in order to get a better draft pick. And in reality, it’s not a bad idea. The strategy behind tanking over multiple years and acquiring draft picks is to be successful in the long run, once your young guys hit their primes. The Oklahoma City Thunder, then the Seattle Supersonics, are pretty much the model for long-term tanking. In the span of a few years, they drafted superstars SF Kevin Durant, PG Russell Westbrook, PF/C Serge Ibaka, and SG James Harden, morphing themselves into a perennial title contender, though Harden is now with the Houston Rockets. The reason teams elect to tank, as opposed to try to contend, is simple: if you were a team and knew you weren’t going to make the playoffs anyways, or would just get a low seed and be eliminated in the first round, what makes more sense: getting the 14th-worst record and having a 0.1% chance at the number draft one pick, or getting the worst record, and sitting on a 25% chance at nabbing the number one pick? For the Sixers, they certainly think the latter.

Current Financial State: As the Sixers refuse to sign any free agents and resolve to simply build through the draft, staying above the salary floor is a much bigger concern for them than staying below the luxury tax line. Building through the draft certainly has its perks, with the main one being the cheap rookie contracts. Philadelphia is paying a league-low $41.5 million this season, and they only currently have $14.5 million committed for next season, with every dollar of that being put towards a rookie deal. The Sixers are probably the only team in the NBA without salary cap issues, and they don’t intend to change that for a while.

Targets: As the Sixers are not actually trying to be competitive for at least another couple of years, they will likely not target anybody in specific this offseason, despite their surplus of available cash. Instead, they can use their available cap space to acquire even more draft picks. They can do this by taking on a bad contract from a team and a draft pick in exchange for next to nothing. These trades, as you can see from all the bad contracts currently in the NBA, are more common than you would think. The Sacramento Kings are hurting from poor decisions in the past, most notably from backup PF’s Carl Landry and Jason Thompson being originally signed for a combined 9 years/$56+ million just 12 months apart from each other, and now the Kings are left overpaying a couple of role players. However, we know how much the Sixers love second-rounders, and the Kings have two of them this season. Sacramento would be more than willing to dump Landry or Thompson’s 3 year/$20 million contract on Philadelphia and add a couple of second-rounders to sweeten the deal. Philadelphia would, in turn, send the expiring contract of SF/PF Luc Richard Mbah A Moute to Sacramento. One player that the Sixers have of actual value is veteran SF Andrei Kirilenko, who is on an expiring contract worth $3.3 million. One team that could really use Kirilenko’s services is the Los Angeles Clippers, who have been in the market for a small forward for years now. The Clippers could even out the salaries by sending the cheap expiring contract of little-used SF Hedo Turkoglu to Philly for “AK-47” (jersey number is 47 and initials are “AK”), but of course the Clippers would also have to cough up a second-rounder. There have been rumors that the Sixers are shopping sophomore PG Michael-Carter Williams, but it would be foolish to give up on the reigning Rookie of the Year so soon. Yes, Carter-Williams is only averaging 38% shooting from the field, a downgrade from the already-disastrous 40.5% last year, but inefficient shooting is a common issue for younger guards. MCW is still averaging 15 points, 7.5 assists, 6 rebounds, 1.5 steals, and 1 three per game this year, slightly worse numbers than last year, but still very impressive for someone his age. Carter-Williams is oozing potential, but giving up on him so quickly makes little sense, especially with the trade market likely very lean due to his inefficient shooting.

The Fit: PF’s Carl Landry or Jason Thompson would actually take on quite a big role in Philadelphia, in contrast to many of these other players in trades that the team doesn't actually want. They are both veterans who are capable of playing 20 minutes per game, and if you play for the Sixers right now, that likely means you’re a 36 minute per game full-time starter kind of guy. However, Landry/Thompson playing minutes at power forward at someone like Nerlens Noel’s expense would be foolish, as Noel represents the future of the franchise, while neither of these veterans will likely ever play in Philadelphia again once their contracts come off the books. Turkoglu will likely not eat into second-round draft pick rookie SF K.J McDaniels’s minutes, who is looking like the steal of the draft so far (so all those second-rounders do pay off!). The Clemson product is putting together a nice rookie season, averaging 1 three, 1 steal, and 1.3 blocks per game to go along with 9 points. There is light at the end of the tunnel through all this tanking in Philadelphia, but you’d need 20/20 vision to see it right now.
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