NBA Trade Grades: Philadelphia 76ers add Alec Burks, Glenn Robinson III
By Phil Watson
NBA Trade Grades: Philadelphia 76ers
For the Philadelphia 76ers, this deal represents a big boost to a second unit that has ranked 28th in the NBA in bench scoring this season at just 29.1 points per game.
The 76ers have not been good with the starters off the floor, with the reserves shooting just 42.8 percent overall (24th in the NBA) and averaging 12.5 rebounds (29th) and 5.7 assists (27th).
Philadelphia’s leading bench scorer this season has been Furkan Korkmaz, who has averaged 8.6 points per game in 39 appearances as a reserve. He’s also made 11 starts, averaging 9.3 points per game in those contests.
Alec Burks is an experienced reserve who will play for his fifth team in the last two seasons. After spending his first seven-plus seasons with the Utah Jazz, Burks has quickly shuffled from the Cleveland Cavaliers to the Sacramento Kings to the Warriors and now to Philadelphia.
His 16.1 points per game this season is a career-high and he’s also putting up 4,7 rebounds, 3.1 assists and 1.0 steals in 29.0 minutes per game, appearing in 48 games and starting 18 for the Warriors.
He’s shooting 40.6 percent overall and 37.5 percent on a career-high 4.7 3-point attempts per game. Burks has also been outstanding from the foul line, hitting a career-best 89.7 percent — 11th in the NBA — on 4.7 attempts a night.
Burks is a wing at 6’6″ and 214 pounds. The 28-year-old has made just 85 starts over his first nine NBA seasons, so he is well-accustomed to providing a spark off the bench.
Glenn Robinson III will be returning to a bench role with Philadelphia after starting all 48 games in which he’s appeared this season. A second-round pick out of Michigan in 2014, Robinson spent three seasons with the Indiana Pacers before playing last year with the Detroit Pistons.
He’s had a career year for the Warriors, averaging 12.9 points and 4.7 rebounds in 31.6 minutes per game, shooting 48.1 percent overall and 40.0 percent on 3.5 deep tries a night.
This will be Robinson’s second stint with the 76ers, having played 10 games with the Process-era Sixers as a rookie in 2014-15 after being claimed off waivers from the Minnesota Timberwolves in March 2015.
His father, former All-Star Glenn Robinson Jr., spent the 2003-04 season with Philadelphia as well.
Without some additional deals, the 76ers will have to cut two players as the addition of Burks and Robinson pushes the roster to 17 players — two over the NBA maximum. Both newcomers are on one-year veteran’s minimum contracts this season — $1.62 million. That gives the 76ers six veteran’s minimum deals, with five set to expire at the end of the season.
The other expiring minimum deals belong to Kyle O’Quinn, Raul Neto and Trey Burke. Korkmaz is also on a minimum deal this season with a non-guaranteed $1.76 million on the books for 2020-21.
Provided Burks and Robinson — who have a combined 25 playoff appearances and 266 postseason minutes in their respective careers — can adjust from getting big minutes for the NBA’s worst team to playing key reserve time for a contender, this could be the shot in the arm the 76ers desperately needed as are just 8-7 since the calendar flipped to 2020.