Philadelphia 76ers Following 3 Rebuilding Paths, Hoping 1 Prevails
By Jake Hyman
In order to facilitate a rebuild and convince management that intentionally shedding the present for a prosperous future is the ideal route, a plan has to be ushered. General manager Sam Hinkie notoriously swayed management with an elaborate PowerPoint presentation in 2013 and has evolved a renowned plan that has been both questioned and lauded.
It’s had an entire league question its regulations. Backlash came in troves against the Philadelphia 76ers for continuous ineptitude and stronghold attempts to maintain their roster instead of adding NBA talent in the 2014 and 2015 offseasons. The route Philadelphia has taken might be an outlier in a league filled with competitive organizations, but it’s far from revolutionary.
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Rebuilding is a state every professional team has encountered over the course of their history. Some obviously take multiple years, while others are shorter due to a smart draft pick or high-caliber free agency signing. San Antonio endured one year of obscurity to nab Tim Duncan and make the playoffs the following 17 seasons.
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Hinkie previously illustrated that Philadelphia will undergo and lengthy rebuilding process on a multi-year timetable before entering the class of Eastern Conference juggernauts. A combined 37 wins over the past two seasons has netted Philadelphia two possibly transcendent centers, but the media’s lack of faith in a turnaround is likely to come to fruition in another rebuilding campaign.
What’s evident so far of this process resides in three former methods in developing an eventual contender in the NBA. The annual accumulation of top college talent is reminiscent of a recent rebuilding stage programmed by the former Charlotte Bobcats.
Charlotte Bobcats: 2004-08
As a redefined team after the Hornets moved south to New Orleans, the Bobcats jumpstarted their franchise with the rim-protecting Connecticut product Emeka Okafor. A far cry from his distant cousin Jahlil Okafor in terms of an offensive move set and polish, Okafor captured Rookie of the Year honors on a talent-deprived Bobcats team in the 2004-05 season.
Averaging a double-double (15.1 PPG and 10.9 RPG), Okafor, year one, looked like a steal at No. 2 in the 2004 NBA Draft and a cornerstone for the young Bobcats.
Parlaying a promising opening campaign for the franchise into the No. 5 pick in the 2005 NBA Draft, the organization took one of the most pro-ready prospects in the draft. North Carolina’s Raymond Felton followed fit and the “BPA” approach for Charlotte and was believed to take the reigns of the emerging franchise and provide a backcourt maestro to the frontcourt beast in Okafor.
They also targeted his teammate with the No. 13 pick, Sean May, whose weight and lack of athleticism tied into a disappointing career.
Felton, like Okafor, flashed contributing ability his rookie year as PointAfter elaborates on the spark the UNC product brought to the backcourt in the 2005-06 season:
"With a player efficiency rating (PER) of 14.2, Felton was a solid rookie, outpacing 80% of his fellow newcomers. For reference, the league average PER for rookies was 10.4 in 2005. In his rookie year, Raymond Felton averaged 11.85 points, 3.31 rebounds, and 5.57 assists per game. His final totals included 948 points, good for third amongst his rookie class."
Felton, like Okafor, gave Charlotte belief that he could be a fixture in the eventual plan to relevancy in the East. However, a scenario detrimental to rebuilding transpired as the 7’0″, 250-pound behemoth (Okafor) hit the crippling plateau of his abilities. He never developed into the two-way interior presence fans and management hoped he would be.
Following suit, Felton showed promise, yet couldn’t jump into the same category of young, budding superstars like Chris Paul who went one pick earlier in 2005. Both Felton and Okafor were pieces to a young core developing in the Carolinas, but flopping in 2006 on their third straight top-five selection showed the risks in building strictly through the draft.
Gonzaga’s Adam Morrison was a pure scorer in college but failed miserably to translate his most desirable trait against tougher competition and more athletic defenders. Like his predecessors in Charlotte, not many saw the lack of franchise-altering ability from Morrison until after his rookie season.
He failed to average near the five-point mark throughout the remainder of his brief career and was shipped to Los Angeles.
Charlotte followed up the Morrison mess trading the draft rights to North Carolina’s Brandan Wright for Jason Richardson, who didn’t bolster Charlotte in a playoff contender in the East. The continuous run of top-10 picks ended in 2008 with Texas PG D.J. Augustin, who has been a prototypical journeyman in only six seasons.
Philadelphia’s plan of hoarding top picks and converting them to prominency only works if each one pans out. Selecting a Morrison or trading for a J-Rich type and giving away a prestigious selection smogs a clear focus for the organization.
It’s been noted previously of Sam Hinkie’s shunning of the myopic path of playoff contention and he ushered his admiration of building through the draft.
He’s a different breed of GM from what Charlotte had through it’s repeated mishaps through the draft. Hinkie has “BPA” tattooed across his chest and that mentality has panned out so far discounting Joel Embiid‘s long-delayed NBA debut.
Los Angeles Clippers: 1998-2002
Another flawed rebuilding stage for an organization that follows the trajectory of the Sixers in the “Baby Clips” of the late 20th and early 21st century. Unlike Charlotte’s contingency of first-rounders, Los Angeles selected players oozing with upside if they eventually panned out.
Michael Olowokandi, Lamar Odom, and Darius Miles were three straight top-four picks who were expected to get the Clippers approaching the same stratosphere as the Lakers.
The “Kandi Man” showed flashes rookie season, but two seasons of underwhelming play led to the selections of both Odom and Miles in 1999 and 2000 respectively. Where this path by the Clippers takes a sharp left from Charlotte’s is the asset accumulation process through the 2000 draft.
Sam Hinkie would envy this haul as L.A. brought in Miles, PG Keyon Dooling with the No. 10 pick, wing Quentin Richardson with the No. 18 pick, and young swingman Corey Maggette.
With Odom, Miles, Olowokandi and Jeff McInnis, who emerged as the team’s starting PG, the Clippers endured one more year of rebuilding before making their blockbuster deal. Once again in the top-four of the lottery, they flipped Tyson Chandler for pseudo-star PF Elton Brand.
The Clippers had executed a lethal and idolized rebuild filled with blossoming talent ready to jump into playoff contention. Los Angeles put the talent together, but the parts of the cog never clicked.
In an amorphous direction far from ideal, Richardson and Maggette transitioned into plus starters while Miles struggled with the law and the 7-foot, 269-pound Olowokandi became a poster child for busts.
Labels and upside are only terms placed on players at such a young age without proper coaching and mentality. If Brand and Odom received help outside of Maggette and Richardson, Los Angeles wouldn’t have been lottery staples for the next decade.
Like the Clippers previously, the Sixers have an influx of talent expected to join the organization with multiple first-round picks, Joel Embiid and Dario Saric, both of whom have yet to play a minute in the NBA. A blockbuster trade in upcoming seasons has been circulated throughout the 215 area code once Philadelphia acquires an abundance of pieces and has assets to offer in a deal.
Piecing everything together is essential for Hinkie and the Sixers to avoid pitfalls like red flags and roster flux.
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Seattle SuperSonics/Oklahoma City Thunder: 2007-10
Call it luck or Sam Presti’s genius on display, but the Thunder aced three straight drafts in selecting possible Hall of Famers with their first picks. Kevin Durant is arguably the NBA’s most dangerous offensive talent, Russell Westbrook is a two-way dynamo at the point with a fervor for winning, and James Harden is a southpaw assassin who could have won the MVP last season.
Factor in defensive stalwart Serge Ibaka and the Thunder’s gauge on talent was legendary during the three-year period.
It’s unprecedented how rapid and calculated Oklahoma City’s quest for the Western Conference elite turned out to be. Anyone could grasp the superstar-esque aura Durant exuded his rookie season. Westbrook and Harden both had question marks coming out of college that they shed their first year’s in the Association.
Westbrook’s talent was solely based on athleticism and Harden lacked the aforementioned trait. Unlike the Clippers’ and Bobcats’ issues, Oklahoma City built a foundation eager to improve.
The Westbrook-Harden-Durant combo got the Thunder into a ridiculously stacked playoff gauntlet and pushed the Lakers to six games in 2010. Philadelphia’s goal since the start of the rebuild has been to avoid the eighth seed and mediocrity, but getting there with a core of young talent filled with potential wouldn’t be a detriment.
Scott Brooks, at the time, was a young, crafty head coach who was on the verge of excellence with his group. Presti put the premier pieces in place through the draft and hired a coach whose W-L record still is elite.
The likelihood to match OKC’s mastery of finding a trio necessary to expedite the rebuild isn’t high, but high lottery selections give Philadelphia a chance of building through studs rather than stones. You don’t want to relive drafts in hindsight realizing you blew a pick on a career role-player and instead could have taken your franchise rock who’d get you out of the lottery and into the playoff conversation.
Despite letting Harden go, Oklahoma City’s mainstay among Western Conference heavyweights is continuous due to Westbrook and Durant encapsulating star qualities and clutch tendencies. Westbrook, in the 2014-15 season, showed his tenacity and ability to step up and take over a team solely due to his abilities.
He might have attempted the most shots in the entire league (1,471), but there was no doubting his penchant to lead and create off the dribble. With Durant back, the pressure slides off Westbrook and dissipates. That’s the beauty of two superstars to lean on for the Thunder.
The Sixers currently are searching for one and hoping for multiple. Embiid displayed similarities to Hakeem Olajuwon and Okafor’s offensive repertoire and footwork reminded media of a young Tim Duncan. Ceilings are a desired outcome for players and management, but expectations have to be tempered for Philadelphia’s budding stars.
Both Okafor and Embiid have yet to play a regular season game. The argument for superstardom is palpable on both sides for the gargantuan duo, but with a cache of picks and talent overseas, the options aren’t limited for the Sixers to find their ideal trio.
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