At last, Buddy Hield is a hypothetical Sixers player no more.
First reported by Shams Charania of The Athletic, the Sixers agreed to a deal with the Indiana Pacers to acquire Buddy Hield in exchange for Furkan Korkmaz, Marcus Morris Sr., and three second round picks.
There’s no need to belabor the point. I’m the film breakdown guy, and most of you want to know how Buddy Hield can help an injury riddled Sixers team that is 1-7 in its last eight games. Let’s see how the sharpshooter from Indiana can help them out:
Here’s the full list of NBA players who have hit more threes than Buddy Hield since the beginning of the 2016-17 season, Hield’s first in the NBA:
Stephen Curry
That’s it. End of list.
Hield is a “Do Your Job” All-Star. His teams want him to get those threes up, and he’s more than happy to comply. He’s not an ineffective chucker, either. He’s shooting “just” 38.4% from three during the 2023-24 season, but for his career 40.1% shooter from behind the line.
Put another way — Buddy Hield has made more threes and shot a better percentage on his threes over the last eight years than Damian Lillard, Paul George, James Harden, Zach LaVine, Jayson Tatum, and CJ McCollum.
He rarely ever wastes his time in the mid-range, attempting only 21 of such shots so far this season, in comparison to the 357 threes that he’s launched. The Pacers loved using Hield as a “Ghost Screener” for their point guards. A Ghost Screen is just a basic ball screen where the screener slips out into open space by design, not even making contact on the pick.
Just the threat of a ball screen forces a defense to get into its coverage, and if they’re just a second late in containing Hield on his ghost screen, he can find enough daylight to let it fly.
I made a whole video yesterday on how much the Sixers have been struggling to give Tyrese Maxey viable passing outlets when he gets trapped and blitzed on his pick and rolls. Hield’s presence will greatly relieve Maxey’s burden.
He’s not going to set any bone crushing picks that free up Maxey to get downhill, but the very threat of his movement shooting makes ball screen defenders to hesitate, and all Maxey needs for a driving lane is momentary hesitation. And if teams load up to blitz Maxey, Hield’s ghost screens are an easy passing read for Maxey to make, seeing that Hield doesn’t really do anything besides flare into open space.
Though Hield prefers to shoot off the catch, he’s also adept at the shot fake and side dribble move that has been popularized in the NBA over the past decade. He doesn’t create much space with his side step, but he doesn’t need too much. He’s got a quick trigger, and is comfortable shooting contested shots with defenders in his air space.
That might seem like a small thing, but the Sixers need a player this wired to hunt threes. Players like Maxey and Tobias Harris are inclined to dribble inside the line and pull-up for long two’s when they get run off the line by defenders. Hield knows where his bread is buttered. He’s always trying to keep his toes behind the three-point line.
In a cruel twist of fate, Hield fulfills the role most Sixers fans and reporters wanted Isaiah Joe to have with the team, and the one he’s actualized in Oklahoma City. A crazed movement shooting three-point hunter who injects a level of randomness and venom into an offense with his ability to go nuclear from deep at any time.
Now Hield certainly has his flaws. He’s a bad defender, largely due to his slow first step. Hield often plays at a distance from whomever he’s guarding, knowing that if he tries to pressure the ball, it will end with a blow-by to the rim. The end result is a lot of his opponents walking into relatively easy pull-up jumpers, or simply bumping him out of the way on a foray to the rim.
In a playoff setting, Hield is 100% the player on the Sixers that opponents would start switch-hunting for their offense. He’s a liability on that end.
Additionally, though Hield’s dynamic shooting can accentuate the strengths of superstar like Maxey and Joel Embiid, he’s not much of a connector or passer. His shooting gravity creates openings for his teammates when they have the ball, but put the ball in Hield’s hands himself, and he doesn’t do a great job creating for others.
Movement shooters such as Max Strus, Duncan Robinson, and Klay Thompson are able to moonlight as good passers because the threat of them whirling off a pin down is so great that they draw two defenders and can slip easy pockets passes to their teammates.
For a myriad of reasons, Hield can’t access that part of the movement shooter archetype. He’s smaller than all three of those examples, and doesn’t move as violently in a North-South direction flying off pin down screens. His preference for East-West movement into his shots is why teams use him more as a ghost screener. It’s what he’s better at.
Overall, I like the Hield trade for the Sixers. All they gave up in order to acquire him were a limited veteran forward on an expiring deal, a guy outside their rotation who had already requested three trades, and second round picks they already replaced in other deals. They didn’t give up anything they were really planning on holding onto anyway.
Hield will both help the hospital Sixers keep their head above water until Embiid’s return, and has a defined role that fits with the league MVP on the actualized healthy version of this roster. He’s a fun but flawed role player who draws strong, polarizing opinions from the fanbases he’s played for.
He’ll fit right in with the Sixers.