After tanking once again, the Philadelphia 76ers are in line for a top-five pick in June’s NBA Draft. We’ll find out exactly where the Sixers will draft after Tuesday night’s lottery.
If the ping-pong balls fall as expected, Philadelphia will have the fourth pick, which is still great in this year’s deep draft. Point guards Markelle Fultz (Washington) and Lonzo Ball (UCLA) and small forward Josh Jackson (Kansas) are widely considered the three best talents available, but even at No. 4 the Sixers could get a potential All-Star point guard like De’Aaron Fox (Kentucky), or a lethal scorer like forward Jayson Tatum (Duke) or shooting guard Malik Monk (Kentucky).
In addition to their own pick, the 76ers will get the Lakers’ pick if Los Angeles falls out of the top three.
On Monday, Sixers head coach Brett Brown appeared on 94WIP’s “Carlin & Reese” and said the team will prioritize fit with the current roster over taking the best available player when drafting next month.
Brett Brown tells us that the Sixers will NOT be going best player available in the draft.
"We need some fits."
— 94WIP Afternoons (@AfternoonsWIP) May 15, 2017
This is good news for Sixers fans. In the past three drafts, Philadelphia has selected 7-foot center Joel Embiid, 6’11” center Jahlil Okafor and 6’10” point-forward Ben Simmons with its top pick. They used an additional 2014 lottery pick on 6’10” power forward Dario Saric.
Even with Okafor’s struggles and Embiid’s injury problems, those have been pretty good picks. Except that the frontcourt is extremely crowded while the backcourt sports the likes of T.J. McConnell, Gerald Henderson, Sergio Rodriguez and Nik Stauskas. No offense to those guys, but no team starting those guys will ever amount to anything serious.
So Brown’s comments from Monday suggest that the Sixers’ draft strategy this year aims to solve the backcourt problem. Fortunately for Philadelphia, this draft pool has plenty of solid guard options. If they get lucky and move into the top three, they could have a chance for Fultz or Ball, who appear destined for NBA stardom after monster freshman seasons in college. If the lottery is not as kind to the 76ers, they could still wind up with Fox, Monk or even 6’3″ guard Dennis Smith out of NC State, who would be getting much more attention if this class was not so strong at the top.
What Brown is suggesting is Philadelphia may pass on a player like Jackson, Tatum or Florida State product Jonathan Isaac to make sure they get one of those guys. And if you really want to read closely, Brown’s comments could mean the 76ers are more interested in a scorer like Monk or Smith than a playmaker like any of the true point guards. Brown has said multiple times he plans to use Simmons as the team’s point guard.
But probably it just means they don’t want to draft another center.
