28. Philadelphia 76ers
Starters – Jerryd Bayless, Gerald Henderson, Robert Covington, Nerlens Noel, Jahlil Okafor
Bench – T.J. McConnell, Hollis Thompson, Jerami Grant, Ben Simmons, Joel Embiid
Trust the Process. Er… sorry. Let’s try this again.
R.I.P. ‘The Process’, 2013-2016. Or according to Joel Embiid, ‘he died for our sins’.
No matter what way you chop it, the Sixers have been really bad for what feels like an eternity. I’m talking Brad Pitt in Moneyball describing where the A’s are on the totem pole of spending. But wait! What’s that in the distance? Hope?!
Look, you can buy the hype on Ben Simmons (pictured above) or not, but his skill set is going to be maximized in Philadelphia. He just happens to be on a team that loves to collect oft-injured big men. Thankfully, they’re all healthy*, but now there’s a logjam big enough for a whole family of beavers to make a home out of.
Despite all that, I think Simmons comes off the bench to start the season. He went No. 1 overall, but why throw him into the frying pan? He’ll be scrutinized no matter what he does, so why not let him get used to the NBA playing against ‘lesser’ opponents and be eased in?
This in turn allows defensive stud Nerlens Noel and the offensively-gifted Okafor to man the paint down low over the aforementioned Simmons and the supposedlyhealthybutIhighlydoubtitbecausehesuffersasetbackeverytwosecondbutiswildonsocialmedia Joel Embiid.
Jerryd Bayless and Gerald Henderson are stopgaps until the Sixers find their starting backcourt of the future (Nik Stauskas is not the answer people).
While T.J. McConnell has been a very impressive facilitator and turned some heads in Summer League recently, he’s still inconsistent offensively. A fine bench player, but nothing more.
RoCo is an excellent combo forward who doesn’t get any love because he’s in Philly. Period.
Thompson is a sniper, but is exclusively a spot up shooter (think Anthony Morrow), so he’s on the bench as well. Grant has been impressive in bursts when he starts, but with all these bigs now ‘healthy’, he has no choice but to move to the bench; or at least I think so.
The Sixers are improving, but I can’t rate them any higher because Embiid hasn’t played a lick of basketball. I’m sorry, I just can’t.
Next: No. 27