Another Quiet Tournament: Taking Stock Of The Sixers Bench
So who should get the burn?
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As it currently stands, the Sixers’ bench is just not a very trustworthy bunch. Shake Milton has solidified himself as a no-brainer rotation player, but the rest come and go as their performance fluctuates from week to week. Tyrese Maxey looks promising one week and unplayable the next. Furkan Korkmaz looks like an integral piece for a few games, and then leaves you begging for Isaiah Joe. Even Matisse Thybulle, who has been earning major minutes of late, was glued to the bench at the start of the year and looked completely lost on both ends.
The point being, the Sixers have roughly 6.5 indisputably playable players on the roster right now -- the starters, Shake Milton, and Dwight Howard (the .5). The rest have (and will continue to have) their minutes fluctuate based on how they’re playing in any given week.
But for the purposes of a contending team like the Sixers, all that we really care about is how the rotation shakes out in the playoffs, when it gets trimmed down to ~8 players. So here in this piece, I’ll try to take stock of how the quiet tournament is going for each of the participants.
Tyrese Maxey
Suffice it to say that Maxey finds himself on the outside looking in to the playoff rotation. After starting six straight games in mid-January, Maxey has seen 15+ minutes in just three of the past 13 games. Even in Wednesday night’s win against Houston -- a game in which he played well -- he saw just 12 minutes despite the team missing both Ben Simmons and Shake Milton.
At this point, the value in playing Maxey is less about immediate contributions and more about developmental purposes. Maxey’s jump shot is far away from where it would need to be for him to eclipse Thybulle, Korkmaz and others for minutes. If the Sixers don’t trade for another guard, it’s possible that Maxey could see some spot minutes in the playoffs when the team is desperate for a scoring punch -- he’s the only player on the bench besides Milton that can do anything off the dribble -- but even in that category, Maxey feels a ways away from being a reliable contributor. He should continue to get minutes in the regular season, but his value at this stage is mostly for purposes of daydreaming what he could be down the road.
Furkan Korkmaz
Korkmaz’s stock continues to decline. He’s shooting just 32 percent from 3 on the year, he’s looked miserable on defense, and his shot creation ability remains useless (one more bricked floater and AU might keel over). After taking a considerable leap last season, Korkmaz has completely plateaued and perhaps even regressed.
The shooting will come along, but even once it does, the same flaws that contributed to him being out of the rotation against the Celtics in last year’s playoffs remain in place today. He hasn’t added much strength to his frame, he is no more dynamic with the ball in his hands, and he’s still not very laterally quick. For some reason, those flaws felt less apparent last regular season, but so far this year, Korkmaz’s flaws have been more prominently on display.
If the Sixers do end up acquiring a high quality bench wing (Tucker, P.J.), I think that wipes out most of the postseason minutes for both Korkmaz and Thybulle. But at this point in the season, Korkmaz is clearly below Thybulle in that pecking order. Heck, I’d even play Maxey over a cold-shooting Korkmaz.
I’d love to be proven wrong with a major Korkmaz resurgence over the second half of the season, but on his current trajectory, Korkmaz is on very unstable footing for the playoff rotation.
Isaiah Joe
My level of trust in Isaiah Joe is perhaps unreasonably high -- I hope that he continues to get minutes like he did against Houston on Wednesday, because he’s deserving.
Here is my case for playing him over Korkmaz: he leads the team in 3-point attempts per 100 possessions by a mile and has made 37 percent of them. He is far more laterally quick than Korkmaz, and while he’s skinnier and shorter than Korkmaz, I trust him to defend one-on-one better against guards. He has a far better handle (Joe played point guard in high school and is a surprisingly reliable dribbler). And, he rarely tosses up ill-advised shots inside the arc, as Korkmaz has a propensity to do.
I do not think that Joe makes the playoff rotation -- again, a trade for a wing feels likely to me -- but at this stage my only conviction is that he’s willing of a 2-3 game audition for Korkmaz’s minutes.
Matisse Thybulle
Fresh off his first start of the year, I think it’s safe to say that Thybulle is leader in the pack of the quiet tournament -- of anyone outside of the starters, Milton, and Howard, I feel most confident that Thybulle will play in the playoffs out of anyone on this list.
Matisse remains a trainwreck on offense -- quite possibly the worst offensive wing in the league -- but his defense has been electric. He is leading the league in both deflections and steals on a per-minute basis, and is tied for first in blocks among guards with Yuta Watanabe. His ability to get his hands involved in the play in one way or another is otherworldly.
He is not without flaws. He still takes outrageous gambles, fouls too much, and gets burnt in one-on-one situations from time to time. But it’s clear that Doc Rivers has a ton of confidence in him as a defender, and I think that puts him safely ahead in the rotation of players like Korkmaz or Mike Scott. On multiple occasions, Rivers (who always rides the hot hands) has even been willing to close games out with Thybulle on the floor instead of Danny Green.
Thybulle’s on vs. off splits are a good illustration of his current impact. Per Cleaning The Glass, the Sixers are a whopping seven points worse per 100 possessions offensively with Thybulle on the floor, but they are an impressive 2.9 points per 100 possessions better defensively with him on.
When Thybulle is on the floor with Ben Simmons, the Sixers force turnovers on 17.7 percent of opponent’s possessions -- good for 97th percentile in Cleaning The Glass’ lineups database. Stats like that illustrate what a game changer Thybulle can be on the defensive end when locked in.
I still have my qualms about him as a major rotation piece in the playoffs. Remember, six months ago, Thybulle essentially lost his spot in a Ben Simmons-less rotation against the Celtics. But with a roster that is now better built to absorb his offensive woes, I’d bet on Thybulle making the cut for this year’s playoff rotation.
Mike Scott
It’s hard to know where or if Mike Scott will fit into the rotation moving forward. He’s hardly been healthy this year, and when he has played, he’s looked horrible. He does carry with him a level of experience and physicality that some of the younger Sixers do not have, but there is a strong chance that Scott is just washed. It had looked that way for much of last year, and this may just be a confirmation of that.
At this stage, you have to consider Scott as being behind Korkmaz in the pecking order. If and when a trade for a wing or combo forward happens, Scott gets bumped from the rotation before Korkmaz does, in my mind.