The 2020 Sixers Stunk: They Should Still Run It Back
Run it back again? Bold plan.
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The holes and redundancies on this Sixers team were obvious all playoffs -- all four games of them. The team didn't have the kind of guard play it needed to compete at the highest level, and its bigs weren't nearly efficient, productive or tough enough to help make up the difference. Even with Ben Simmons out (and not like he would've helped that particular balance much anyway), it was clear that this roster just lacked the players it needed to be taken seriously as a threat in the Eastern Conference. Changes would need to be made.
I say all that to say this: My offseason strategy for the Sixers would probably still be to just basically run it back.
Not that changes won't be made, if only by necessity. We've already fired our coach, as you may recall, and will likely have to hire a new one at some point. Our front office is currently in the midst of a media-leak battle to the death that you have to figure at least a couple of principals probably won't survive. And of course, there'll be your typical signings around the margins, whoever this year's versions of Raul Neto, Kyle O'Quinn and Trey Burke will be who we'll talk ourselves into actually mattering. Some picks will be made on draft night, others sold. Maybe it's not too late to redeem the second year of Mike Scott's contract for some Disney Dollars. Perhaps we have a mid-level exception to use? A mini-mid-level? A maxi-low-level? Dunno, gonna have to ask SixersAdam on that. Regardless, next year's team will be at least somewhat different.
But in terms of the big moves, the moves of real consequence, the kind that actually require a visit to the Trade Machine to be suggested in good conscience... eh. Those big moves could be harder to make than we might think, certainly shouldn't be trusted to this front office (or lack thereof), and likely wouldn't make the difference we need anyway. I'd rather we sit on our hands this summer than attempt to throw bad money after even worse money.
Obviously, the top target for many will be Chris Paul. The OKC point guard and future Hall of Famer was certainly more effective than any Sixer in these playoffs, he fits a bunch of on-court needs for this roster, and most importantly, he's an expensive vet on a team mostly looking to rebuild, meaning he may actually be gettable. Twitter is already awash in trade proposals trying to get CP3 to Philadelphia, usually offering some combination of Al Horford's contract, Matisse Thybulle, Zhaire Smith and future first-rounders as the lure.
Sounds great -- until you consider why the hell OKC would possibly agree to that. They're already pretty well-stocked on future picks, one-way defensive wings, and overpaid big men. Maybe the Sixers throw in Shake Milton, or enough draft picks that it'd be against Sam Presti's nature to at least not give 'em a second glance. But that's about all we got, and it still might not be enough to outbid a team like Milwaukee, who has more useful players on non-absurd contracts than us, whose window may suddenly be closing even faster than ours, and who has a much more legitimate case to just being one player away from title contention than we do.
Chris Paul is just one example, but he's indicative of the number of issues this team will run into attempting to retool via trade this offseason. They don't have a tremendous number of tradeable and/or legitimately tempting assets, they're basically asking any team who trades with them to milk them for all the assets they do have, and the player who does end up being the best trade fit for them might not be good enough to help them get over the hump anyway. Maybe it's worth betting the farm on a player as good as Chris Paul -- though given his cantankerous rep and advancing years, maybe it isn't -- but for Buddy Hield? Jrue Holiday, even? I dunno.
And if our 1B priority in such a deal is getting rid of one of Horford or Tobias Harris... I think that's gonna be a tough 'un. There's just so much money still coming to both of those guys, and even if other teams didn't watch as much of the Sixers' first-round shitshow as we did, they're still capable of pulling up Basketball-Reference and seeing the hilariously poor numbers. With belts tightening around the league post-pandemic, it's going to be even harder than normal to convince owners to focus on the good of what Horf and Tobi can offer and ignore their respective price tags. I think if we're sending either of those guys out, it's going to be strictly for salary-dumping purposes, and it's going to cost us in picks and useful players to do so.
Which leads us to the biggest problems of all with the Sixers going wheeling and dealing this offseason: The dudes currently in charge. We forget that as much as Run It Back was about preserving the team we had last summer because we liked that roster, it was just as much about expecting that our front office would invariably fuck it up by trying to make it better. Even in a calm offseason, in which our front office wasn't a clown car of panicking stooges, would you really feel comfortable putting your faith in our galaxy-brain trust -- the one that sent Landry Shamet and four picks for a non-All-Star of middling fit on an expiring contract -- to get the edge on a blockbuster deal this time around, now that we're twice as desperate? Are the dudes who agreed that a decomposing backup center was an acceptable roster substitute for Jimmy Butler and J.J. Redick really going to zero in on the right missing piece for this already-broken team? How many teams can Elton Brand even call at this point who won't treat him like they're Jordan Belfort selling him penny stocks?
And of course, let's not forget that league-wide belt-tightening goes doubly so for our own notorious cheapskate owners, who will no doubt be in the bidding to buy one of the moons of Jupiter this offseason and needing to save every dollar they can with these Sixers. If we are dealing Horf and Harris, can we be confident that the primary directive in doing so will be to improve our roster balance, rather than clearing up our cap sheet and ducking the luxury tax? Or are we going to officially turn into one of the teams the Peak-Process Sixers licked their lips at seeing come up on their caller ID, knowing that we'd be able to squeeze a truly untoward amount of picks and players assets out of them just for renting storage space for their shittiest contracts?
Ultimately, the safest option for Elton right now might just be to thin out the front office, hire a good coach, and then just go binge The Sopranos like everybody else. Let's also remember that we don't really even know what this roster is at the moment -- we only got two full regular-season games with Shake starting at point guard and Ben at power forward -- and we have no idea how different the team will be under our new coach. The Sixers have dramatically shaken up their roster every offseason since Embiid started here; even in 2018, when they made no big summer moves, they still had to integrate Markelle Fultz into the starting lineup, and then traded for Jimmy Butler a month in. Maybe it's time to try just holding steady and seeing if we can build on what we already have.
Really, I think there's only two even quasi-realistic paths to this team getting where it needs to be: Ben and Jo both taking huge leaps as players themselves, or trading one of the two of them to get the other a better-fitting co-star. Maybe you think it's time to pull the trigger on the second option, and you might be right. Personally, I still think the potential upside of Ben and Jo figuring it out together is worth giving it one more try with a new coach -- and then we can reassess in the offseason (or even at the trade deadline) if it's clear it's just not happening. If we don't unload all our cheap players and valuable picks just to bring in a non-difference-making third guy (or get Tobi and/or Horf off the roster), it'll be a lot easier to make a deal happen with one of our two legit stars at that point -- one that doesn't put us at an extreme disadvantage -- and a lot easier to fill in around the margins from there.
But sadly, I don't think a practical option is there for us to fix this team how it needs to be fixed without Ben and Jo being the principals involved. The team had its shot at landing a third star -- multiple shots, really -- and they blew it. Failing that, I'm not particularly interested in leveraging future assets for cosmetic short-term upgrades that are just going to put this team deeper in the hole without making a fundamental difference to its ceiling. This team isn't close enough to go all-in (again!), and they're not clever enough to keep both their view long and short at the same time. They won't win the offseason by not playing, but they won't lose it either. And for the 2020 76ers, their reprehensible ownership and their punchline front office, not losing right now is winning.