The 100 Greatest Sixers of the 2010s: 80-61
Now we’re getting into the nitty gritty, the Chris Johnson range.
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This week at If Not, Pick Will Convey as Two Second Rounders, AU is counting down The 100 Greatest Sixers of the 2010s -- ranking players by on-court contributions, as well as general symbolic and cultural importance to the 76ers decade that was. Read on for Nos. 80-61 below, find a more detailed intro and Nos. 100-81 here, and check back all week as we make our way to No. 1.
80. Casper Ware (2014)
One of several brutal lessons Process Trusters got this decade in summertime dominance not necessarily equating to regular season competence. After a brief stint with the Sixers in the 2013-14 regular season, undersized PG Casper Ware imposed his will on the 2014 Orlando league during the team’s unforgettable championship run -- but a brutal preseason in which he shot 34% over seven games meant he never got a chance to build on it over the Sixers’ next 82. Wasn’t the first, wouldn’t be the last.
79. Chris Johnson (2014)
Chris Johnson only played nine regular season games in Philly, but his Process legacy was secure after he became the Sixers’ unlikely opening night starter at the two-guard position in 2013, scoring 12 points on 5-10 shooting for the undermanned roster. Not unrelated: The Sixers lost all nine games Chris Johnson played for us.
78. Thomas Robinson (2015)
Boy, did it take us five seconds to talk ourselves into the brilliance of this one. Thomas Robinson had already flopped with the Kings, Rockets and Blazers in just over two seasons’ worth of rookie-contract journeymanning, but uh maybe all he needed was a team that really believed in and had minutes for him? Or to play next to Nerlens Noel and Henry Sims? Not so much, but he did put up some decent numbers for the playing-out-the-string ‘14-’15 Ballers,
77. Sergio Rodriguez (2016-2017)
The veteran point guard we had long been promised, back from winning an MVP and a championship in the EuroLeague and ready to steward the Sixers to to turn-the-corner competence in Joel Embiid’s rookie season. Turns out dudes don’t generally get more athletic after a half-decade overseas, though, and Sergio was still overmatched when it came to creating (and shooting) in the Association -- which, combined with a bad propensity for head-smacking late-game turnovers, made him a pretty tough hang as our starting PG. Still, compared to some of our 2015-16 options, he was Spanish Steve Nash.
76. Andrés Nocioni (2010-2012)
A three-and-D specialist who didn’t do either particularly well for the Sixers, Doug Collins loved giving this guy starts -- 17 of ‘em in 2010-’11, and even a final token first-five appearance in 2011-’12, where he played a grand total of 5:42 all game. Had a PER of 1.8 that season for Philly, in 11 games played, which is almost kinda impressive.
75. Trevor Booker (2017-18)
Likeable enough that Sixers fans were willing to buy he could be a legitimate rotation piece for the team -- despite being a power forward with no shot-blocking or floor-stretching abilities, and no other elite skills to speak of -- after he proved the primary return of the nauseating Stauskas/Okafor deal with Brooklyn. He was waived a couple months later, but not after a stretch where he made exactly one field goal in seven consecutive games, still tied with Jim Spanarkel in 1980 for the franchise record.
74. Greg Monroe (2019)
We can only hope that Moose ends up going down as the worst player to ever start a Process-era playoff game, filling in for the ailing Joel Embiid in Brooklyn -- for a game the Sixers somehow won, despite Monroe going approximately 1-17 on shots at the rim. Ultimately, he wasn’t worse than any of the similarly disastrous options the Sixers had at the backup center position last postseason, and my dad -- a longtime Monroe coveter -- would undoubtedly have been tickled to know that he finally made it to Philly.
73. WIlson Chandler (2018-2019)
Not bad for a dead guy, but not overly good either.
72. Shawn Long (2016-2017)
Your eyes might pop a bit at the stats Shawn Long left the Sixers with: 24.1 PER, 59.5 TS%, a higher Win Shares per 48 rate than any of the three centers the team actually wanted to give minutes to. Not sure how real any of it was -- or if it was worth him robbing Ben Simmons of a rookie year by being the foot that our rookie point guard landed on to in the team’s 2016 training camp to suffer his season-ending Jones Fracture -- but sorta surprising it wasn’t enough for another team to give him a regular-season look at some point.
71. Maalik Wayns (2012-2013)
Casper Ware before Casper Ware, the Sixers’ original Let’s Pretend This Guy Is Definitely Real Because It’s More Fan Than Acknowledging He Probably Isn’t summer leaguer. After a dynamite Vegas showing for the Sixers in 2012, the compact combo guard shot a resounding 29.5% from the field in 27 appearances for the Sixers in 2012-’13, a showing fortunately overshadowed by all the much bigger crises the Sixers faced that season.
70. Byron Mullens (2014)
I didn’t hate Byron “Don’t Call Me BJ” Mullens as much as some -- I dunno, he seemed springy at least, and he actually shot 40% from three in his brief stint as a Sixer. His supremely low basketball IQ and general pliability in the post made it unsurprising when his Philly stop was the final of his NBA career, but I enjoyed his Philly cameo well enough. Feel like he had a big dunk at one point. Or maybe he was dunked on, can’t remember.
69. Gerald Henderson (2016-2017)
Part of the veteran wave that the Colangelos decided were sufficient to shepherd the Baby Process Sixers into NBA prominence, Henderson was the most productive of the three big offseason acquisitions -- but considering the other two were Jerryd Bayless and Sergio Rodriguez, that might not be saying a ton. Still, his stats were competent enough, if roundly uninspiring; he probably could’ve found another team to soak up minutes for if injuries hadn’t wrecked his next two years and forced him to retire a little prematurely.
68. Alex Poythress (2017)
Man, I love Alex Poythress. Dunno if there’s a place in the NBA for his brand of one-way chaos if he doesn’t learn how to shoot properly (which he won’t), but I’d probably use a two-way spot to keep him on the Sixers just ‘coz. He’d be a great emergency option for our Team Fuck Shit Up lineup.
67. Jarvis Varnado (2014)
In another only slightly different timeline than this one, Jarvis Varnado is probably making $25 million a year getting spoonfed buckets by Damian Lillard while Hassan Whiteside is patrolling the paint for Hapoel Gilboa Galil of the Israeli Premier League. Didn’t quite work out the good way for Jarvis in Philly, but he certainly blocked a whole bunch of shots for us while he was here, which was nice.
66. Shake Milton (2018-2019)
"Shake was just about to break out when..." — 76ers fans, 2017 - 2022
— Andrew Unterberger (@AUgetoffmygold) December 13, 2019
65. Furkan Aldemir (2014-2015)
Didn’t do a ton for the Sixers in his 41 games of duty -- less than a field goal a game, and his Basketball-Reference nickname of “Mr. Rebound” oversells his 11.7 per 36 minutes at least a little bit. Still, his broad frame meant that he was a pretty solid pick-setter, he moved decently into open space, and he had enough highlights to score at least one three-minute YouTube montage. At the end of the day, he was a Furkan.
64. Christian Wood (2015-2016)
The definitive big man version of the Process Sixer who would electrify during the summer months but short circuit during the regular season. At the time, we theorized that he was just kind of a Quad A player, but history has shown that he’s more of a “put up awesome bench stats on a crappy Detroit Pistons team” type dude. Hard not to be happy for his belated success, which we absolutely get to take credit for, of course.
63. Lorenzo Brown (2013-2014)
A pioneer of I-95 travel, point guard Lorenzo Brown was famously shuttled between the Wells Fargo Center and the University of Delaware so many times over the course of 2013-14 he could probably rank all the gas stations and rest stops in between the two. Never quite bad enough to get stuck in Delaware or good enough to catch on with the pro squad in Philly, Brown was simply born to wander -- ultimately making it to the Raptors, where he may or may not have received a championship ring for the team’s eventual 2019 title victory, depending on how generous Masai Ujiri & Co. were feeling with handing those things out.
62. Raul Neto (2019)
All we ever wanted was a backup point guard who could shoot, handle and play defense a little. Raul Neto doesn’t totally seem like the answer to those prayers, but he’s basically done those things so far this year, including a 48.5% (!!) shooting line from three. TBD if he’ll be playing when the games really matter though.
61. Jahlil Okafor (2015-2017)
The worst draft pick of the Sixers’ 21st century still haunts the franchise, a limited center prospect drafted when we already had one limited center prospect on the active roster (and one unlimited-but-injured center prospect waiting in the wings). We’ll never know if there was some master plan Our Once and Always Dark Lord Sam Hinkie was waiting to implement with Okafor -- who did have some nice rookie performances, at least offensively -- but he had already waited long enough for us (and anyone else paying attention) to be able to tell that Jah at least mostly stunk, and there was really no turning back from there. The trade to get rid of him remains impossibly dumb, but it did get rid of him, at least.