Philadelphia 76ers’ Plan Showing Signs of Future Success
By Mike Gibson
@papreps
John Geliebter-USA TODAY Sports
If all goes as planned, the trio of rookies who are seeing a lot of time as starters this season for the Philadelphia 76ers will be backups in a year or two, and that’s as it should be.
The young players contributed to a 89-69 win over the visiting Detroit Pistons on Wednesday night, but the story of the Sixers is not told game-to-game as it is year-to-year. Even though the Sixers have three of the top 15 NBA rookie scorers in K.J. McDaniels, Nerlens Noel and Jerami Grant, if any of those guys are starters — with the possible exception of Noel — in two years, the plan should be abandoned. The plan, of course, is to amass as many top draft choices as possible and have those No. 1s become starters in two years.
The plan includes getting the already signed top young player in Europe, Dario Saric, to come in and play the three and Noel and last year’s No. 3 overall pick, Joel Embiid, to become bookend 7-foot twin towers. If chemistry doesn’t mix well, one of either Embiid or Noel can be traded for another asset.
Meanwhile, this year is all about depth. Over the last two years, the Sixers have added four lottery picks. Noel was selected No. 6 in the 2013 draft, and Michael Carter-Williams went 11th. Last spring, Embiid was taken at No. 3 and Saric 12th. In the second round of the 2014 draft, the Sixers acquired McDaniels and Grant with picks No. 32 and No. 39, respectively.
This team is being built from the back to the front, with essentially future backups starting now as McDaniels averages 9.2 points per game, third among NBA rookies, and Noel is fourth among first-year players at 8.0 points per game. Grant is 13th at 3.9. This is the way to build a champion in the NBA, where too many teams are stuck on neutral in the middle without any real chance of moving up.
Embiid and Saric are not contributing to the team yet, but once they get on the court, expect these current starters to slide to the end of the bench and, if that plan is executed, the rest of the NBA should take notes.
Mike Gibson is a writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @papreps , “Like” him on Facebook or add him to your network on Google.
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