What Would the Sixers Do With Each Possible Outcome of the Draft Lottery?
MOC looks ahead to the potential fallout from a date we all wish would hurry up and get here already.
As experienced as longtime Sixers fans are with the draft lottery, I don’t think we’ve ever had one quite like this year’s. During the years of The Process, it always felt like the stakes were high, but it never quite felt the downside was ever all that big. There was a sense of recognition that, yeah, it’d be awesome to get the No. 1 overall pick, but if not, the team still has a treasure chest full of other picks as well as max cap space from now until infinity. We never saw a situation where the Sixers might not only move back in the lottery, but lose their pick outright.
For that reason, the stakes this year feel much more like life or death – the way that the ping pong balls bounce will determine whether the Sixers’ reward for this lost season is a franchise altering savior, absolutely nothing, or somewhere in between. It would be an incredible, timeline-altering break to be able to add Cooper Flagg to a young core of Tyrese Maxey and Jared McCain, and it would be absolutely devastating to come away with nothing.
Here in this piece, I’d like to dive into what exactly the Sixers’ future might look like with each possible outcome of the draft lottery – from landing the top pick, to landing the 6th pick, to losing the pick entirely. Let’s dive in.
Winning the lottery
As I alluded to above, it would be a no-brainer to select Cooper Flagg if the Sixers were able to land the top pick. At that point, regardless of what happens with Joel Embiid’s health, the Sixers would be pretty well positioned for the medium-to-long term future; they would have three potential All-Star-level talents under the age of 25, who fit together quite well as a trio – I love the idea of Flagg’s offensive versatility and defensive prowess being able to play off of and hide the weaknesses of the Maxey/McCain duo.
With how awful this season has gone, I think we all may be sleeping a bit on just how impressive Jared McCain’s brief season was. I truly believe that he will make multiple All-Star teams and that he has the personality to be an elite culture-setter for many years to come. His stats compare favorably to other great guards of this generation in their rookie seasons, he positively impacted winning in a way that very few rookies do (the Sixers were 2.4 points per 100 possessions better with him on the floor), and he remains third on the team in scoring on a per minute basis behind only Embiid and Maxey. He would have absolutely ran away with the Rookie of the Year award had he stayed healthy.
While McCain and Maxey still need to prove that they can coexist over the long term, there is no archetype of a player better suited to play off of them than Cooper Flagg. His elite athleticism and defensive instincts as a 6-foot-9 wing will ensure that their strengths are accentuated and their weaknesses are hidden.
As I’ll touch more on in subsequent sections, Flagg’s combination of fit, talent, and NBA readiness changes the short term calculus for the Sixers in a way that no other prospect does. With Flagg, the Sixers wouldn’t necessarily have to trade any of their current veterans to make space for their young core, nor would they have to be concerned about trying to tank again next year, because their franchise cornerstone(s) are already in place.
Along that line of thinking, if the Sixers do land Flagg, it probably makes sense to simply keep George, unless they can get positive value for him in a trade; PG, despite being in decline, is an unproblematic fit next to Flagg, McCain and Maxey, and paying picks to salary dump him would accomplish absolutely nothing. Additionally, while he’s way, way overpaid, he still would help them remain competitive and push for a playoff berth in the short term – something that becomes an enticing reality with Flagg in a way that it does not for any other prospect.
And of course, if Joel Embiid is able to get on the floor regularly any time in the next year or two – even if it’s as a role player – that would round out an extremely well-fitting starting five.
Getting the second pick
While I can’t say I’ve fully delved into my scouting prep yet, it does seem as if the strong consensus in the draft community is that Dylan Harper is the second best player in this draft, and that the variance in most people’s big boards begins at the third pick. The Danny recently did an excellent film breakdown of Harper’s game, highlighting his elite scoring ability and feel for the game as a 6-foot-6 guard.
The fact that Harper is a guard naturally raises the question of how he would fit alongside Maxey and McCain, but the line of thinking to me remains obvious: If he’s the best player available, you take him and figure the rest out later. If Embiid’s long term health was a sure thing, you could maybe sell me on the idea of moving back or trading the pick altogether, but for a franchise that now seems miles away from title contention, the only correct line of thinking is to take the best player available.
The unfortunate reality is that if Harper pans out roughly as the player he’s projected to be, the long-term choice is likely to trade Maxey; with uncertainty up and down the rest of the roster, it makes much more sense to pivot to a McCain-Harper backcourt rather than trying to build around Maxey in his mid-to-late 20s while Embiid and George’s contracts weigh the team down.
Additionally, unlike Maxey, Harper is the prototypical combo guard whose size allows him to play next to a smaller guard like McCain. Since drafting Harper likely lays the ground for a Maxey trade, it pushes back the Sixers’ timeline in a way that Flagg would not – but with that being, said having both McCain and Harper on rookie contracts for the next three years would allow the Sixers to have a strong chance at becoming competitive sooner rather than later.
Again, this is all highly hypothetical; Harper could be a bust, Maxey could take another unexpected leap, or McCain could tap out as a great sixth man. Maxey is one of my favorite Sixers ever, and I would not be at all sad if the path forward shifts in such a way that it makes sense to keep him. But given his age, contract and the team’s newly established timeline, the most likely scenario after getting the second pick would be that the Sixers eventually pivot to a McCain-Harper backcourt, rather than trying to build around a no longer adolescent Maxey while Embiid and George’s contracts weigh the team down.
Getting the third pick
Lots can change between now and the draft, but for now, consensus says that Ace Bailey is likely the third best player in the draft. Bailey, a 6-foot-10 wing with incredible individual scoring talent, is a flawed but tantalizing prospect who undeniably has superstar potential. If I were the Sixers, I’d be pretty pleased with the opportunity to come away with Bailey as a reward for this terrible season.
Part of the benefit of coming away with Bailey is that, unlike other players mocked in the 2-6 range, his theoretical fit next to the backcourt of Maxey and McCain makes perfect sense. While he’s an inferior prospect to Harper, he doesn’t provoke the same questions in terms of what happens to McCain and Maxey if he winds up on the Sixers. While plenty of valid concerns exist about Bailey as a player, it’s undeniable that his strengths – his length, athleticism, skill, and shot making – could wind up being excellent additions to a long term plan that currently only features two small guards.
One of the key differences, though, between adding Bailey versus Flagg is that even if Bailey hits his upside, the early years of his career are likely to be far more messy than Flagg’s; Flagg has a strong chance to immediately impact winning at a high level, whereas Bailey’s raw skill set and many bad habits might take years, to be refined and translate to star-level impact – if they ever even do.
As I said earlier: Flagg changes the short term calculus in a way that Bailey likely does not. Drafting Bailey still likely leaves the Sixers as a lottery team in the short term. It would likely make sense to trot out a similar roster next season – I don’t think drafting Ace means that PG, Maxey or Embiid are more likely to be traded – but it does mean that the expectations league-wide should probably be that this team winds up with the ~10th worst record.
That’s a bit of a bummer, considering that the Sixers’ pick next year would become top-4 protected if they keep it this year – but you’d be hard pressed to make a sober-minded case that adding rookie Ace Bailey and second year McCain to this current roster is going to catapult it to a playoff berth.
All that being said: I really like Bailey as a prospect, and while there’s some real boom-or-bust potential there, taking a risk on someone like that makes a lot of sense for a team with a future currently as murky as the Sixers’. While other players in this range may offer more certainty in terms of their floor, picking Bailey and having him hit his ceiling is one of the few ways that the Sixers could potentially find their way back to contention in a few years, given their somewhat limited draft capital and difficult financial situation.
Getting the 4th-6th pick
Again, there’s often quite a bit of change in mock drafts between now and June, but currently, the expectation is that the 4-6 range will feature Baylor’s V.J. Edgecombe, Illinois’ Kasparas Jakucionis, and Texas’ Tre Johnson in some order. All three players are ~6-foot-6 guards whose fit next to a duo of Maxey and McCain is mildly questionable at best.
In addition to questions around fit, you’re also likely hitting the part of the draft where true superstar potential is now harder to come by. While there’s plenty to like about all three of them, I think it’s important to have the expectation that getting a pick in this range is not going to massively impact the Sixers’ short term future, and it also brings plenty of questions about long-term fit.
If the Sixers are hellbent on keeping Maxey and McCain around for the long haul – not to mention Quentin Grimes – it may make sense to trade back a few spots in order to take a wing or a big man. That would also help them recoup some precious draft ammo, which given that they could potentially lose both their 2026 and 2027 first round picks, would be massively beneficial.
If the Sixers see enormous upside in one of these guards, though, the right decision is likely to take one of them and figure the rest out later. As I mentioned in the section on Harper, the most likely long term outcome there is that Maxey becomes the odd man out in that guard rotation if Embiid’s health doesn’t bounce back. If Embiid somehow does become healthy by next season, Maxey likely stays here for the long term and this pick very likely becomes ammo for a win-now trade.
We’re talking about an extremely unlikely scenario here, but in a world where the Sixers have legitimate reason to believe in Embiid’s health heading into next year, perhaps some sort of package based around George and Edgecombe for Kevin Durant would make sense.
If not, coming away with someone like Edgecombe from this draft would still be a really fun outcome, but it just doesn’t offer the short-term clarity or long-term upside that getting a player like Flagg, Harper, or Bailey. Regardless of who they select, getting a pick outside of the top three in this draft would still be exciting, but would also create a much more confusing path forward for the Sixers’ franchise.
Losing the pick entirely
Coming off of this season with no pick to show for it would be truly devastating – there’s no way around it. The only positive to find from it is that the Sixers would own their own first round pick outright next season with no protections. As I said earlier, if they keep it this year, they will then owe it to OKC next year with top-four protection.
Assuming no miraculous Embiid recovery, the Sixers will have to do some serious soul-searching this offseason in terms of what they actually want their future to be. If the team’s goal is truly to win a championship as soon as reasonably possible, the smartest thing for them to do would be to trade Maxey, trade George (if possible), bottom out for the next two seasons, and hope to build around Jared McCain and the following years’ draft picks. Stripping this roster of any and all valuable vets would prevent them from having to worry about giving their 2027 first rounder to the Nets, which is currently top-eight protected. As much as it would suck, the alternative path of trying to maximize the current form of the roster likely just keeps them in purgatory and potentially loses them their 2027 first round pick.
If they are hellbent on avoiding a rebuild, though, I imagine that they would retain almost all of their current roster, re-sign valuable rotation pieces like Yabusele and Grimes, hope for a major leap from McCain, and pray that Paul George is healthier next season. In the best case scenario for that plan, though, they are probably a sixth or seventh seed that goes on to get smacked in the first round. They’d then get the 16th pick in the draft next year, trot out virtually the same roster in 2027, and then lose their pick to the Nets. They would truly be stuck in purgatory.
If they lose their pick this year, I wouldn’t begrudge any Sixers fan that just wants to bring the same squad back next year, hope for better health, and have a watchable team take the floor on a nightly basis. But if there’s one thing that this year has proven, it’s that the current roster has absolutely zero shot of contending without a franchise-altering talent like peak Joel Embiid. If you want the team to be half-decent, that’s all well and good, but if you want to contend at any point in the foreseeable future, you need a player like Embiid, and in all likelihood the only way to acquire such a player is to put yourself in position to get a top pick in the draft – or at least, a pick somewhere in the draft, which they would not have if they remain in purgatory in 2027.
In the best-case scenario of this draft lottery, the Sixers walk away with Cooper Flagg, who not only figures to be that franchise-altering talent, but fits perfectly with the Sixers’ current supporting cast. In the worst case scenario, the Sixers come away with absolutely nothing, and are stuck with a group that may have to get worse before they have any chance at getting better. May 12th should be a fun, not-at-all stressful night – at least we’ll all be together to watch it at the lottery party.
Mike O’Connor is the best O’Connor in basketball writing. Previously of The Athletic, you can find Mike on Twitter @MOConnor_NBA. Mike’s writing is brought to you by Body Bio, supplements based on science, focusing on your gut and brain health.
Josh Harris getting the top pick conspiracy out there?
Unfortunately the only realistic outcome is that we convey the 7th pick to OKC