May 10, 2012. Trailing 78-77 with seven seconds remaining, the Sixers fouled Bulls’ center Omer Asik in hopes to extend the game.

I was at that game in Wells Fargo Center. Basketball was already a core part of my life. The Sixers? Not as much.

Sure, I had a jersey and would keep track of the team’s progress through each season. I’d seen the incredible Lou Williams’ game winner against the Big 3 Heat the year before. But I didn’t live and die with the team game after game. An 82-game schedule filled with 8 p.m. tip-off times on weekdays doesn’t exactly fit into the daily schedule of an elementary school kid. I wanted them to win games, but I couldn’t say at that point they were an integral part of my life.

Then Asik missed both free throws. Andre Iguodala grabbed the rebound, took it the length of the court, and drew two free throws of his own, both of which he made despite shooting just 61.7% from the charity stripe that season. Moments later CJ Watson’s full-court heave hit the back of the rim and bounced wide. Wells Fargo erupted into euphoria as Iggy jumped on the scorer’s table. The eight-seeded Sixers had knocked off the one-seeded Chicago Bulls.

That moment changed me from a kid who liked basketball and just happened to be a Sixers fan, to a basketball fanatic who loved the Sixers. I could talk for hours about everything I remember from following the team for the next decade. Obviously there were a lot of big moments that almost any fan could tell you, but it’s the less-discussed instances that I cherish more for whatever reason. I remember watching the Sixers lose to the Mavericks so badly during the 2014-15 opener that they were down 73-29 in the third quarter, producing an all-time-underrated funny screenshot. I remember staying up late after my own basketball game to watch Joel Embiid announce himself as a superstar on the national level by dropping 46 points on the pre-LeBron Lakers. I remember sitting in my college gym’s lobby for three hours straight because I got distracted watching Shake Milton drop 39 points on the Clippers. For better or for worse, the Sixers were now a part of my identity.

In 2020, I got my first chance to write about the Sixers for an audience thanks to the good folks at Liberty Ballers. As nerdy as it sounds, it blew my mind that there were actually some people who cared about the things I wrote, that I wasn’t just spewing off my insane thoughts about basketball into the void. But I’d never talked to anyone working for the Sixers. I’d only ever been to a few games in-person as a fan, and there’s only so much you can know watching through a TV screen hundreds of miles away.

That changed in November of 2023. I messaged Spike what was probably a way-too-long rambling and incoherent email asking him to let me write for The Ricky. I thought it was a long shot. It’s hard to imagine a podcast you listened to on the regular for years just letting you join their operation, let alone the NBA’s most famous team-specific podcast by a country mile. Plenty of people talk about their favorite teams into a microphone, but how many have enough standing to start Retweet Armageddon and ring the bell in front of 20,000 people before a game?

To my surprise, Spike actually responded. Even more surprisingly, he actually wanted me for the job. It was one of the happier moments of my life, full stop.

Once again, there’s so many incredible moments I’ll remember from the last two years. From covering my first ever Sixers game as credentialed media, to making 36 out of 50 free throws to save my job, to witnessing Embiid’s 70-point masterpiece just a few rows away from the court, to hearing Madison Square Garden go silent after Tyrese Maxey’s season-saving shot in Game 5. I’ll never forget any of it.

But truthfully, like my time watching the Sixers when I was just a fan instead of a writer, it’s the smaller things that honestly mean more to me. Like every time Spike or AU reached out to me to let me know that they particularly liked one of my articles, or any time any of you reading this article commented to let me know that I’d done a good job.

Putting yourself out there online can be pretty stressful. I know I constantly worried about whether people liked the work I was doing. The fear that people might not like you and that you’re not good enough to have a legit audience and platform is real. But every time someone on Substack, Twitter, Bluesky, or even on the RTRS Reddit told me they appreciated what I wrote, it brought a gigantic smile to my face. It sounds cheesy, but all those comments really did mean the world to me.

As most of you know, this is my last post for RTRS, and probably the last bit of writing you’ll see from me anywhere for a while. It was a lot of fun, and the fact that it all happened still feels like a dream come true, even as I’m moving on to a different chapter in my own life.

Of course, when it comes to thanking people, the wonderful people here at The Ricky are those I have to thank the most.

Spike – who took a chance on a kid who probably came off with way too much weird energy asking for the job, yet believe in me anyways. I admire so much about Spike, particularly his confidence in himself and the confidence he puts in everyone working for him. Without question the best boss I’ve ever had.

Mike – who put up with me randomly messaging him at weird times about my favorite second-round draft prospects and somehow always had his own thoughts to contribute no matter how niche a basketball player I mentioned to him.

AU — not just one of the nicest people I’ve worked with, but one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. A person who treated me with kindness in every situation and consistently made me a better writer despite having to put up with rough drafts that were probably 1,000 words longer than they should be.

CJ – who put up with me sending him random videos all the time and never once complained about it despite me asking some pretty unreasonable things. An amazing person who does an amazing job.

MOC – a true ball knower and a person who was nice enough to encourage me in the way I wrote and confidently talk about basketball. Additionally, one of the few people I know who publicly supported my enthusiasm for Derik Queen. That’s a true friend right there.

Zo – one of the few Sixers fans I know who was willing to chop it up with me about college football. I’ll never forget us simultaneously predicting that the Michael Penix Washington team would beat Oregon in the final Pac-12 Championship game despite being huge underdogs.

Abbie – who supported my love for Pokemon even when most Sixers fans and Ricky readers probably had no clue what I was talking about whenever I referenced it in a tweet.

Ahmed – Short lived as it was, The Draft Council was a blast and I loved talking to someone each week who knew so much about basketball at every level of the sport. A great guy and one who I’d highly recommend all of you keep following for more incredible ball knowledge.

The list could go on for so much longer. Obviously a huge shoutout to Adam Ksebe for sponsoring The Danny the past two years. Shoutout to all the people on the Sixers beat who helped me out the past two years during games at Wells Fargo, and to everyone on the communications staff for the Sixers, who were awesome to work with and kind enough to credential me for games from Philly to Las Vegas.

None of this happens if Asik makes one of those two free throws, or if Iguodala misses one of his. I probably would have gone on just being a relatively normal Sixers fan instead of an obsessive one, and I wouldn’t have had the passion I needed to make this team a part of my identity and write about them for nearly a half-decade. The Sixers have meant so much to me and always will. But even more than that, The Ricky has meant so much to me, and always will.

Subscribe now

Daniel Olinger is a writer for the Rights To Ricky Sanchez, and author of “The Danny” column, even though he refuses to be called that in person. He can be followed on X @dan_olinger.

“The Danny” is brought to you by the Official Realtor Of The Process, Adam Ksebe.

It’s August 12, 2020, inside the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida. Approximately five months earlier, the NBA and most everything else in the world was put on pause for the COVID-19 pandemic. Right then and there, the Miami Heat lead the Oklahoma City Thunder 115-113 with 11.6 seconds left in the game, and almost every single Sixers fan is absolutely locked in.

You all probably know what happens next:

Today marks the fifth anniversary of the one, the only, THE Mike Muscala shot.

Even Sixers fans who aren’t terminally online likely understand the significance of this three-pointer by now. The team itself thanked Muscala during a timeout in 2024 at Wells Fargo when he returned as an opposing player. It’s the shot that gave the Sixers Tyrese Maxey, and breathed life into the franchise at a time when it was desperately needed.

However, saying this shot alone put Maxey in Philadelphia is misleading. Rather, this fateful three from Muscala was the climax of a series of nearly improbable events that all had to break in one exact specific way for Maxey being a Sixer to be the end result.

The full story actually starts way back on Nov. 1, 2016, when the Thunder traded Ersan Illyasova and their fateful top-20 protected 2020 first-round pick for the Sixers’ Jerami Grant. That pick would be in Philadelphia’s possession for less than a year, when the team traded it to the Orlando Magic during the 2017 NBA trade as a part of a package to move up in the first round and select Latvia’s Anzejs Pasecniks with the 25th overall pick — who still to this day has never played a game in a Sixers’ uniform.

OKC’s 2020 protected first-round pick would belong to Orlando until the 2019 trade deadline, when the Sixers again made a deal with the Magic that sent Markelle Fultz their way, and that very same top-20 protected pick (as well as Jonathon Simmons) back to Philly once again. A full 20 months before Maxey even heard his name called on draft night, the Sixers had already acquired, then distributed, then reacquired the very pick he would be taken with.

On top of all of this, it was still far from a guarantee that the pick would convey from OKC back to Philly that year. Sam Presti had just dealt both Russell Westbrook and Paul George in the summer of 2019, and OKC was projected to finish 11th in the Western Conference and land in the lottery, wherein they would hang on to the protected 2020 pick they dealt for Jerami Grant back in 2016. Unlike other protected firsts that often convey to the subsequent year if they land within the protected range, this OKC first would turn into a far less desirable pair of second-round picks if it didn’t go to the Sixers in 2020. This is why when the Sixers traded Fultz to the Magic for a first-round pick, many wanted to use air quotes when discussing the pick.

But thanks to the sheer spite of a then-recently acquired 34-year-old Chris Paul wanting to prove everyone wrong, and second-year Shai Gilgeous-Alexander being much better than anyone predicted, the Thunder were lights out during the first half of the 2019-20 season. They raced out to a 40-24 record that put them as one of the top 10 teams in the NBA when the season halted mid-March, meaning that if the league were to terminate play right then and there due to the pandemic, the Sixers would have received the 21st overall pick in the draft and perhaps still wound up with Maxey.

Of course, that’s not how things transpired. Basketball returned in late July when the NBA invited 22 teams to the Disney bubble to finish what they started. Instead of hopping straight into postseason action, each team played eight games to reacclimate themselves to game action while also finishing out regular season positioning.

Through two weeks of bubble play (a sentence that still doesn’t feel real even five years later), the Thunder were now 43-27 and were just ever so slightly holding onto a top-10 record in the league. Just ahead of them at 44-27 was the Miami Heat squad they were set to face on Aug. 12, while the Pacers and Jazz sat just behind them with identical 43-28 records. With only two games left to play and OKC already locked into a seed from 4-6 in the West, there wasn’t much incentive for them to push to close out the regular season. There was no homecourt advantage in the bubble, and they’d already avoided first-round matchups with both the Lakers and the Clippers, the two clear top teams in the West through most of that season. A loss to Miami that night would guarantee that the Heat finished ahead of them in the overall standings while also giving ample leeway for the Jazz and Pacers to pass them in the final record, bumping the projected pick down to the dreaded 20-slot and costing the Sixers the asset altogether.

It would be extra salt in the wound to what had been, prior to 2025, the most unfortunate season of the Embiid era. Much like keeping the third-overall pick in this past year’s draft was absolutely needed as a silver lining to a dismal year, the Sixers and their fans needed to keep this pick if serious playoff contention wasn’t on the table.

This is all prelude to the game itself — which, for those who don’t remember, was clinically insane. Both Miami and OKC started their normal players in the first half, and the Heat raced out to a huge lead thanks to five threes from Duncan Robinson. The second half was when the benches took over, and the Sixers’ hopes hinged on an OKC rotation of Muscala, Darius Bazley, Abdel Nader, Nerlens Noel, Terrance Ferguson, Devon Hall, and Hamidou Diallo (amazing that four out of those seven have played for the Sixers).

It didn’t look good through three quarters, as the Heat led 100-82 and were almost certainly cruising to a blowout win. That’s when a hero stepped to the floor — and no it was not Muscala. The man donning the cape for the next 11 minutes of that game was actually Bazley, who played one of the best games of his entire life.

Bazley was just a rookie at the time, and though he’d shown considerable talent as a defensive player, his offense was still largely a work in progress. But not that night, as he scored an improbable sixteen points in the fourth quarter alone that night, almost single handedly willing the Thunder back into the game.

Bazley has played 237 total games in his NBA career, and that night he made five threes, setting a single-game career best that he is yet to surpass. As a matter of fact, he’s only had 20 games in his career where he’s made multiple threes. Yet that day he couldn’t miss. All of Bazley’s prior heroics set up the play that everyone actually remembers.

Funnily enough, Muscala had not scored a single point through the first 47 minutes of the game. By his normal standards, he was having an awful night, not the game he’d be best remembered for when he retired.

But that all changed with 40 seconds left on the clock, when he first got a rebound, kicked the ball back out, then relocated to the left corner for the first of his two ever important threes. A Solomon Hill layup put Miami back in front, but left just enough time for Muscala to leak out to the right wing for his famous three with just over five seconds remaining.

(Again, shoutout to Bazley for maybe the best pass of his career on this play).

A missed three from Tyler Herro ended the game, giving OKC the win, and sending Sixers fans into a celebratory joy they had rarely experienced that season (including Mike himself). With the dub, the Thunder were guaranteed to finish no lower than 10th in the NBA’s overall standings, guaranteeing the pick to land outside the top-20 of the draft and convey to the Sixers after all that time. OKC would go on to lose its final regular season against the Clippers, making it so that the win over Miami was absolutely necessary for the pick to make its way to Philly.

(Sixers Adam actually reminded me that the Sixers’ themselves actually could’ve prevented this outcome by winning more games in the bubble themselves, as they’d given up the right to their own pick in the Tobias Harris trade a year prior. If they’d gone 3-1 in their last four games, they would have passed OKC and lost their potential pick. Instead, the Sixers crashed down the stretch with a three-game losing streak before blowing out the Rockets in a final game that didn’t matter at all).

This isn’t even the end of all the unlikely events that transpired for the Sixers to wind up with Maxey. Twenty teams still needed to pass on him in the draft for him to fall all the way to Philadelphia, which seemed like pretty wishful thinking with how highly he was regarded as a prospect by some, often appearing in the top 15 of Big Boards. Not to mention, in a world where the pandemic doesn’t prematurely end the college basketball season, does Maxey go on a crazy tournament run for Kentucky in March and boost his draft stock well outside the Sixers’ range?

Over the past decade, there have been so many different oddities to befall the Sixers that seem almost impossible. Like every single unlucky break that needed to happen, happened. From the entire Fultz saga, to Zhaire Smith, to even everything that’s happened with Embiid’s health since January 2024, it’s felt like the Sixers are constantly living with the bleakest possible outcome.

But not so with Maxey. It’s the rare instance where the Sixers were fortunate to a degree that seems comical. Every single thing needed to bounce in the exact right way for the team to wind up with the 21st overall pick in 2020, and for the Kentucky point guard to still be on the board.

To again bring this article back to a reference that made more sense in 2020, it feels like there were 14,000,605 possible timelines, and we’re living in the one where Maxey plays for the Sixers.

Five years removed from the shot, Muscala has only grown in popularity amongst Sixers’ fans. From semi-joking remarks that his number should be raised to the rafters in Wells Fargo, to his jersey actually being retired at Live Ricky V, to people actively congratulating him in 2025 on his new role as an assistant coach with the Phoenix Suns, “Moose” has one of the highest approval ratings in the city. That’s the reputation you get when fans loved your shot enough to set it to Titanic music.

It’s wild to think we’re already five years into the Maxey era. In the NBA, it’s impossible to predict who will be on what team even a year from now, but most if not all fans would want Maxey to still be hooping in Philadelphia in 2030 and beyond. And I’m sure there will still be people celebrating the 10th and maybe even 15th anniversary of Muscala’s shot down the line, just to remember an absurdly improbable time when everything actually broke in the exact perfect way the Sixers needed it to.

Subscribe now

Daniel Olinger is a writer for the Rights To Ricky Sanchez, and author of “The Danny” column, even though he refuses to be called that in person. He can be followed on X @dan_olinger.

“The Danny” is brought to you by the Official Realtor Of The Process, Adam Ksebe.

Jared McCain is an unusual spot going into year two of his NBA career.

He was, without doubt, the best performing rookie of the 2024-25 season. After having a relatively slow start through the first two weeks of the season, McCain scored 18 points and hit four threes in a loss against the Lakers, then subsequently blitzed opponents for an entire month straight. Over the course of 13 games, he averaged 21.7 points while shooting 39.8% from three on 8.3 attempts per game, capped off by a 24-point performance in Orlando against one of the best defensive teams in the NBA.

Those would be very good stats for nearly any NBA player, let alone a rookie guard who measured in at just 6-foot-2 at the draft combine. He was nothing short of outstanding.

Of course, this was all short-lived. McCain played just 23 games before tearing his meniscus during a loss to Indiana in mid-December. He saw the court for just 592 total minutes last season, a number that was eclipsed by 34 different 2024-25 NBA rookies.

It makes his standing entering his sophomore season uncommon, though not unique. Funnily enough, the player he most resembles in this situation is Joel Embiid, who once upon a time entered the 2017-18 NBA season as the league’s most exciting sophomore despite only playing 31 games as a rookie. Embiid put together some of the best all-around rookie performances the league had ever seen, but he was still largely an unproven mystery doubted by many (even though most of those doubts were specific to whether or not he could stay healthy, not whether he was a good player).

His second season lived up to the hype, to say the least. As an NBA sophomore, Embiid made second-team All-NBA, finished second in the Defensive Player of the Year voting, and even received four fifth-place votes for MVP. Before he’d even played 100 regular season games, he was rather comfortably one of the 15 best basketball players in the world.

As good as McCain was last year, no one would quite expect an Embiid-esque sophomore season from him in 2025-26. Not only is the Cameroonian center a generational talent, he was also already 23 at the time due to missing what should have been the first two seasons of his career with injury, while McCain will not be turning 22 until February. Additionally, coming off a big knee injury altogether could slow down McCain’s next season as he attempts to reintegrate himself into the NBA for the first time in nearly a year, though there’s reason to be optimistic since he didn’t rush himself back to play and has had plenty of time to rest and recover.

Offensively, McCain already answered most of the questions anyone might have had for him entering the NBA. He stepped up as an on-ball creator for a Sixers team suffering from myriad injuries and shined not just as a three-point shooter, but also getting to the rim and hitting tough mid-range buckets in big moments. He even emerged as one of the team’s best pure passers by a wide margin, and the inheritor of Nico Batum’s title as the designated post entry expert.

It’s all the more encouraging that McCain looked solid even during the season’s earliest stretch, when his triples weren’t falling. As much as his high volume deadeye marksmanship is valued, it’s also not something he always needs to have to be a positive player on the court.

There isn’t really one obvious area on offense where McCain needs to improve his game in year two. Simply asking him to turn his two-month sample size into a seven-month stint this time around should be enough. The only potential nitpick might be just his overall mesh with the other heavy hitters on the team in Embiid, Tyrese Maxey, and Paul George. The quartet only shared the court for three total games together, the first of which George left midway through with an injury, and the last of which featured McCain’s season-ending meniscus tear. McCain looked at his very best when he had chances to dominate the ball and possessions ran around his own activity, which would obviously not be the case as often while sharing the court with those high-usage players.

That’s not to say he isn’t helpful off-ball, as an S-tier off-ball shooter who’s eager to relocate and fire off the move is almost exclusively a good thing. But at his peak value, he was the primary focal point of the offense. Finding ways to improve his chemistry with the other members of the core four so that they all accentuate one another on the court is the biggest ask for McCain next season.

Defensively is where more of the real year-two questions might lie. McCain’s considered a poor defender right now, though that’s pretty much the norm for a rookie guard. Just think about how much better Maxey is at defense now than he was in 2021. Still, finding ways to hold up on the non-scoring end of the court — particularly when a backcourt partnership between him and Maxey would be one of the smallest in the entire NBA — is crucial to McCain’s sophomore season.

He had a few standout moments as a rookie on that side of the ball, most notably his game-saving defense in iso against LaMelo Ball and the Charlotte Hornets that helped the Sixers finally get their second win of the season after a 1-7 start. His shot contests are never going to be ideal with wingspan under 6-foot-4, making it easier for opponents to get shots off well above his hand, so it’s of the utmost importance that he masters the footwork required to guard on the ball in the NBA.

With Maxey and newcomer V.J. Edgecombe both possessing the footspeed and arm length necessary to pester the NBA’s quickest creators at the point of attack, McCain could form a solid defensive role for himself guarding up against small forwards, and maybe just even the occasional power forward (though that one might be a bit of a strength). He never looked overwhelmed battling against bigger bodies in the post, as McCain is pretty muscular and solidly built, giving him room to fight back and not give up easy looks. There’s even the literal perfect role model for this defensive archetype on his team already in Kyle Lowry.

McCain certainly looked more stressed defending the T.J. McConnells of the world, whose quick-twitch burst often put Jared on his backfoot and trailing. Other players might be able to recover in these scenarios, but he just doesn't have the physical tools necessary for that specific talent.

Obviously, the best possible outcome for the Sixers would be McCain vastly improving his on-ball quickness on defense so that he can oscillate between guarding quick jitterbug guards and battling beefier forwards who try to post him up. But asking for so much from someone who might not have reached 50 NBA regular season games by 2026 feels like a bit much.

The team needs McCain to not be a liability on defense, and solidify a consistent, productive role for himself on that end of the court. Any flaws of his as a defender last year weren’t harped on too much, since he was a rookie already carrying his team’s offense — and likewise, the rest of the available Sixers weren’t playing too great on defense themselves.

While there have been plenty of superstar leaps to occur in a player’s sophomore season, that should not necessarily be the expectation for McCain. That’s not to say it’s impossible he becomes a year-two All-Star and emerges as one of the league’s best players (the East has been weakened enough that there should be several new All-Stars in the conference). But rather, if he doesn’t reach All-Star status in 2026, it shouldn’t be labeled as a disappointment, or him failing to reach the level he should have.

If this next season features McCain putting up similar stats to what he did in his 13-game tear a year ago, but this time for a full 82 games, everyone should be over the moon excited about what his future holds. Even in a less optimistic outcome where he averages somewhere between 15-17 points while his three-point accuracy dips ever so slightly, that’s still pretty amazing for a second-year player drafted outside of the lottery. So long as he doesn’t simultaneously crater out of nowhere as an offensive player while being a hindrance to team success on the defensive end of the floor, McCain’s 2026 should be a reassuring watch for any and all Sixers’ fans who believe in him as a franchise cornerstone moving forward.

Subscribe now

Daniel Olinger is a writer for the Rights To Ricky Sanchez, and author of “The Danny” column, even though he refuses to be called that in person. He can be followed on X @dan_olinger.

“The Danny” is brought to you by the Official Realtor Of The Process, Adam Ksebe.

Who’s going to play power forward for the Philadelphia 76ers?

It was the main concern for the team entering the 2024-25 season, as the departure of Nico Batum left a gaping hole in what otherwise appeared to be a star-studded starting lineup. Paul George prefers to slide toward smaller positions like shooting guard rather than to try his hand at power forward, double big lineups with Joel Embiid have rarely worked, and though Caleb Martin had experience playing the 4 in Miami, asking the 6-foot-5 forward to do it for a whole season quickly proved to be asking for too much. The ‘25 Sixers had many issues, to be clear. But in terms of roster construction, it was the most glaring problem.

The ideal 4 in modern basketball is the de facto problem solver to any lineup issue. Guards aren’t the greatest playmakers in the world? The 4 steps in to handle the ball and get sets going when needed. Have a center who struggles in the short roll? Move him to the dunker spot and have the 4 set the majority of the ball screens. Need size to defend the other team’s star scorer? Sounds like a job for a 4.

The Sixers ended up having more gaps than they originally imagined last season, and thus, the lack of a gap-filling power forward grew more painful as the year wore on.

Though the Sixers did not spend their third overall pick on a player who projects to ever play the 4, nor did they make a huge trade acquisition, they do seem to have reached an arguably palatable solution — power forward by committee.

Just over a week into July, the Sixers signed Trendon Watford, Jabari Walker, and Dominick Barlow, who are all power forward-sized individuals. Additionally, with the 35th overall pick the team got back after dealing Martin at the deadline, Daryl Morey and Co. drafted Johni Broome, who floats somewhere in between the power forward and center spot on the positional spectrum.

None of these four players were acquired with priority assets. Watford received just a two-year, $5.3 million deal, while Walker and Barlow are on two-way contracts, and Broome obviously wasn’t selected until day two of the NBA Draft. A team as capped-out as the Sixers has limited resources, and those were spent throwing low-stakes darts at the board, hoping one hits as the Sixers’ ideal power forward for the 2026 season.

Watford should be the de facto leader for the starting spot given he’s being paid the most of the quartet, and additionally has the most experience of the bunch, having played 217 combined games for the Trail Blazers and the Nets over the past four seasons. He’s not an athlete who jumps out of the gym — and in general, through his young career, his defense has been regarded as a weakness — but his offensive skill is quite good for a 6-foot-9 player being paid less than the majority of the league. He has a knack for hitting floaters with a high degree of difficulty, either beating his own man off the bounce or pouncing on advantageous short roll. He provides a lot more self-creation than one would expect from a nominal power forward.

Additionally, he’s a capable passer from a live dribble, meaning that running actions through him (like a ball screen in the middle of the court) is not off the table. He has a particular fondness for overhead whip passes with his dominant right hand, and his ambitious playmaking could pair quite well with someone like Adem Bona in reserve minutes.

Walker, on the other hand, doesn’t bring the same level of offensive skill and refinement, but brings a touch of energy and power. Taking a swing on him with a two-way contract is much more a bet on his defensive versatility and activity, while hoping that he can improve enough on offense to contribute positively to a good NBA team’s rotation.

He shot an impressive 38.9% from three last season on 72 total attempts, which could make him an attractive floor spacing option next to Embiid. However, in his three-year career, he’s shot just 31.8% in total from behind the arc, and it’s yet to be seen if his shooting in 2024-25 was a real improvement, or just a spike for what otherwise has been an inconsistent shooter.

He does have some interesting driving skill, due to his power and determination once he puts his head down and attacks, though no one would ever mistake him as one of the more graceful slashers in the association.

Barlow is more similar to Walker than to Watford in play style (which makes sense given those are the two with identical contract situations). He had an impressive showing in his two Summer League games, something that should be expected of a player with real NBA experience over the past three seasons. Of the entire quartet, he probably has the smallest upside as a long-distance shooter, having connected on just 10 of 40 total three-point attempts in his career (25%). Barlow’s appeal will rest more in his defensive acumen, playmaking flashes, and the potential he showed as an offensive rebounder in Vegas.

Broome has already been written about here as one of the players it made sense for the Sixers to draft in the second round. He’s somewhat struggled in Summer League action, and though that’s far from unusual for any rookie, it's slightly more concerning for a player in Broome who is already older than both Walker and Barlow (given, he’s just 11 days older than Walker).

Then again, he did wrap up his time in Vegas with a 22-point, 14-rebound outing, so things could be on the up-and-up for his trajectory as well.

None of these four players on the surface stand out as a clear answer when asking who can fill the Sixers’ most pressing need. Watford definitely has the edge and would make sense as the Day One starter come October. Watch the right three minutes of his highlights, and he looks like one of the most skilled bigs in the league. However, if he was an easy and obvious solution to the starting 4 spot, it’s likely another NBA team would have offered him more than $2.65 million per year.

Overall, it’s not rocket science to piece together what the Sixers are doing — they’ve signed four players that come at a low cost and therefore are low-risk roster options. Sure, one is more likely to stick as a full-time option in the rotation than the others, but none is an overwhelmingly certain bet. The team knew this was a legit problem. Maybe they would have preferred to trade for a more established veteran that’s already proven to be a quality starting 4 in the NBA, but perhaps the asking price proved too high for a team that’s already spent a lot of money and draft capital.

It’s not the most glamorous way to solve the power forward issue, but it is a work-around, and more of a plan than what the Sixers had going into last season.

Subscribe now

Daniel Olinger is a writer for the Rights To Ricky Sanchez, and author of “The Danny” column, even though he refuses to be called that in person. He can be followed on X @dan_olinger.

“The Danny” is brought to you by the Official Realtor Of The Process, Adam Ksebe.

Day Two of the NBA draft approaches, and though the biggest question about the Sixers’ draft has been answered with their selection of V.J. Edgecombe as the No. 3 overall pick last night, they still have another decision to make in the No. 35 spot tonight.

Here’s the five players still on the board who they should be looking at.

1. Rasheer Fleming (Forward, Saint Joseph’s)

Height w/o Shoes: 6-8 ¼ inches

Weight: 232.4 pounds

Wingspan: 7-5 ¼ inches

Age: 20.9 years-old

Of all the names still on the board for Thursday, Fleming’s might be the most surprising. He was ranked 25th overall on the Rookie Scale consensus big board that pulls in draft rankings from a wide variety of sources, and has prototypical NBA size and skills with a +9 wingspan and a 39% mark on threes last season at St. Joe’s.

He’s not the most fluid mover, especially on offense where he’s more of a “point and shoot” driver who only attacks closeouts in the initial direction he started from, but it’s very rare for someone this mobile and tall with long arms and a good shooting stroke to still be available on day two. It’s highly likely one of Minnesota, Boston or Charlotte scoop Fleming up before the Sixers can take a crack at it with pick 35, but if name still isn’t called by then, the Sixers should sprint the card to the floor as fast as they can.

2. Adou Thiero (Forward, Arkansas)

Height w/o Shoes: 6-6 ¼ inches

Weight: 218.4 pounds

Wingspan: 7-0

Age: 21.1 years-old

The Sixers need someone who can do the dirty work on defense that is required of a modern 4 in the NBA, while also bringing connective skills for their multiple superstar talents on offense.

Enter Thiero, a twitchy and explosive wing who played for John Calipari at both Kentucky and Arkansas. He consistently makes winning plays on both ends of the floor, and though not quite as tall as one would want an NBA power forward to be, Thiero can play up a position due to his incredible vertical bounce and high level of activity. His only real major weaknesses are his three-point shooting (25.6% last season) and lack of a handle, but those aren’t as big of a setback when looking for positive role players in the draft’s second round.

3. Johni Broome (Forward, Auburn)

Height w/o Shoes: 6-9 ¼ inches

Weight: 249.4 pounds

Wingspan: 7-0 ¼ inches

Age: 22.9 years-old

Though his raw athletic attributes leave a bit to be desired, few have proven as much as Broome, who won the 2024-25 SEC Player of the Year and just barely lost out on the Naismith Player of the Year award to Cooper Flagg.

The lefty big often scored on offense through post-ups and pick-and-pop threes (with the occasional roll into floater range mixed in) while also anchoring Auburn’s defense through his raw strength and unmatched hand accuracy as a rim protector. Questions about whether he’s mobile enough to play the 4 in the NBA are reasonable, but given how insanely productive he was over the last two seasons of college basketball, it’s hard to believe he couldn’t craft a contributing role with the Sixers if given the chance.

4. Noah Penda (Forward, Le Mans Sarthe Basket)

Height w/o Shoes: 6-7 ¼ inches

Weight: 241.8 pounds

Wingspan: 6-11 ½ inches

Age: 20.5 years-old

Penda is a French forward with NBA-size and remarkably impressive movement skills who’s already contributed positively to a professional basketball team’s defense as a 19 year-old. His shooting leaves a bit to be desired (30.4% from three on 3.2 attempts per game while also shooting 69.3% on free throws), but his defensive success should get him on the floor early in his career and give him avenues toward improving his offense to the point it reaches the level of an NBA rotation player.

With his young age and athletic tools, Penda is one of the highest upside bets the Sixers could make with the 35th pick in the draft.

5. Alex Toohey (Forward, Sydney Kings)

Height w/o Shoes: 6-7 ¾ inches

Weight: 222.8 pounds

Wingspan: 6-10 ¾ inches

Age: 20.1 years-old

Honorable mention here goes to Florida State’s Jamir Watkins, who just barely loses out to Toohey here due to the latter being nearly three inches taller and nearly three years younger.

Toohey is a ferocious attacker in transition, getting out and running at the turn of a possession better than almost any player in the draft class, and he brings an intriguing set of on-ball creation skills rarely seen in a second-round wing. Defensively, while not a red flag, he isn’t quite as potent or impactful as the four players listed above, and it can be a little harder to envision a world where he’s playing 4 for the Sixers.

Still, for the 35th overall pick in the draft, Toohey would immediately inject a lot of energy and driving skill into any Sixers’ lineup.

Subscribe now

Daniel Olinger is a writer for the Rights To Ricky Sanchez, and author of “The Danny” column, even though he refuses to be called that in person. He can be followed on X @dan_olinger.

“The Danny” is brought to you by the Official Realtor Of The Process, Adam Ksebe.

At long last, the NBA Finals are over, and the NBA Draft is here.

And though Sixers fans might not have expected it at the beginning of the 2024-25 season, the latter ended up being far more relevant than the former to the team this year. With Philly holding both the No. 3 and No. 35 overall picks both a generational prospect and several players flying up the board as others return to college, there’s a lot to dissect and break down.

Thus, a full 2025 NBA Draft Guide is in order — with statistical and physical information on nearly every player who could hear their name called on either Wednesday or Thursday night, as well as some more in-depth breakdowns on what each guy does best.

Starting on with the biggest piece of the guide, the overview table with information on 97 players in the draft class, a few notes:

• On both desktop and mobile, it is sortable, so by clicking on the column title, you can sort the list of 97 NBA Draft prospects by height, weight, BPM, or whatever you prefer.

• The “search in table” function can:

  • Immediately pull up a prospect’s row in isolation by typing their name into the search bar

  • Be used to filter out just a couple of basic things. (i.e. Typing in “left” will make it so that only left-handed prospects are visible. Likewise, typing in a certain school/team will show all the prospects available from that specific school/team.)

• Height is what prospects were recorded as without shoes during the NBA Draft Combine (players lower down the board could have less accurate measurements, since theirs are harder to track down).

• Rookie Scale compiles a consensus NBA Draft Big Board each season, which is extremely helpful, and was used for base rankings in this table.

• Every player who did not make the top 85 of the Rookie Scale consensus board is listed as 86 for simplicity’s sake.

• Most of the listed stats (Points per game, 3PT%, FT%, TS%) are self-explanatory, but Box Plus-Minus (BPM) is also there since it’s probably the best all-in-one metric that can be tracked for college basketball players. Unfortunately, it’s not available for players in overseas leagues + the G-League, so that column is blank for those players.

Alright, that’s enough bullet points. Here’s the draft table:

If you’re looking for something more in-the-weeds than just the basic numbers and data shown up above, look no further than the eight different scouting reports I’ve written for the Ricky this calendar year on several different draft prospects. Some are very possibly going to be wearing a Sixers’ uniform, while the others are more just fascinating players to take a look at.

All of those are linked here down below:

Scouting Report Articles

• Cooper Flagg

• Dylan Harper

• VJ Edgecombe

• Tre Johnson

• Kon Knueppel

• Derik Queen

• Rasheer Fleming + Adou Thiero

• Khaman Maluach + Asa Newell

Additionally, for anyone wanting to read about Ace Bailey, MOC wrote on the case for and against him being the Sixers’ pick at No. 3 overall back in May. You can read his breakdown of the Rutgers’ wing with this link right here.

Last but not least (actually the complete opposite of that), here are some draft superlatives, with rankings of which prospects are the absolute best at a certain skill in this 2025 NBA Draft class, along with some honorable mentions.

Draft Superlatives

Best Prospect: Cooper Flagg (Forward, Duke)

Surprise, surprise. Flagg came into the draft cycle head and shoulders above the rest, and has only risen further above during his lone college season. The questions about him were less whether he should be picked first overall and more about whether he was the best freshman in college basketball since Anthony Davis.

He’s somehow all of this while also being by far the youngest player in the class, as he won’t turn 19 till late December.

All of the hype is real, he really is that good.

Best Shooter: Koby Brea (Guard, Kentucky)

Simply put, Brea’s consistency as a three-point shooter over a long timespan is unmatched. He shot 43.4% on 730 total attempts over five college seasons at Dayton and Kentucky, including an insane campaign in 2023-24 where he shot a near NCAA-best 49.8% from three. He’s a sharpshooter, plain and simple.

This isn’t to say Brea is without flaws as a prospect. He’ll already be turning 23 in November, and is one of just two prospects in that above table that measured in with a wingspan shorter than his height without shoes. Still, for any team looking to add a deadeye marksman in the second round, it’s hard to argue there are many better choices than Brea.

Honorable mention for best shooter includes star freshmen Tre Johnson, Kon Knueppel, and Jase Richardson, as well as Yale’s John Poulakidas (the best lefty shooter in the class), and Villanova’s Eric Dixon, who is the tallest of the sharpshooters at nearly 6-foot-6.

Best Defender: Cooper Flagg (Forward, Duke)

It’s still Flagg. He’s that good. However, there are some closer options for second here, including his own teammate in Khaman Maluach who projects as a phenomenal rim protector at the next level.

Other honorable mentions here include South Carolina’s Collin Murray-Boyles, who probably has the strongest defensive hands in the class, and Arizona’s Carter Bryant, who flashed incredible mobility at while standing at nearly 6-foot-7 without shoes despite only playing 19.3 minutes per game for the Wildcats.

Best Dunker: VJ Edgecombe (Guard, Baylor)

While this was a pretty tough category to decide on, this monster poster from Edgecombe really seals the deal:

There are some very understandable concerns about Edgecombe’s offense in the halfcourt, but give him a running start and there are few more dangerous players in basketball. Additional candidates for this superlative included, of course, Flagg — as well as Arkansas’s Adou Thiero, and Florida State’s Jamir Watkins.

Here are three of their best dunks if you’re interested:

Best Passer: Kasparas Jakucionis (Guard, Illinois)

This was by far the hardest one to decide on. So much of passing is also tied into how defenses react to a player’s scoring threat, and how much they’re actually able to capitalize on their passing skill in reaction to how opponents try to guard them.

BYU’s Egor Demin has incredible passing skill, maybe the best in the class, yet also struggled to fully access it later in the season once defenses got more physical with him and forced him more and more to his weaker left hand. Flagg and Knueppel both honestly have a case here as the most reliable and successful pick and roll decision makers among their peers (though that was also helped by how successful Duke was in general).

Michigan’s Danny Wolf shredded defenses all season with the 4-5 pick and roll he ran next to teammate and fellow potential draftee Vlad Goldin. Ben Saraf of Ratiopharm Ulm is an extremely creative lefty ball handler who was never afraid to go for home run passes with high degrees of difficulty. Likewise, Colorado State’s Nique Clifford should enter as one of the most NBA-ready prospects in the class and is a very creative jump passer while standing over 6-foot-5 without shoes.

Ultimately, I gave the title to Illinois point guard Kasparas Jakucionis, who’s both a creative and ambitious decision maker, while also a decently steady hand in pick and roll action. Regardless, this is by far the most tightly contested category amongst the prospects.

Best Wingspan: Cedric Coward (Forward, Washington State) and Rasheer Fleming (Forward, Saint Joseph’s)

This one is factual rather than subjective. Both Coward and Fleming measured with wingspans that eclipsed their height by nine inches, fitting for two wings who have both risen a great deal throughout the draft process.

Honorable mention goes to Georgetown’s Thomas Sorber with a +8.75 wingspan, as well as too Mohamed Diawara and Oumar Ballo, who might not hear their names called on draft night, but measured in with remarkable +7.75 wingspans.

Best Potential Options for the Sixers at Pick 35:

• Adou Thiero (Wing, Arkansas)

• Drake Powell (Wing, UNC)

• Alex Toohey (Wing, Sydney Kings)

• Jamir Watkins (Wing, Florida State)

• Johni Broome (Forward/Center, Auburn)

This one is obviously very specific. The Sixers seem set to take a guard or smaller wing with their lottery pick, meaning that a bigger wing who can play the 4 would be the desirable option at 35.

Thiero is an incredible athlete and defender who might be available in the second round, and if so should be a prime candidate for the Sixers. Likewise, UNC’s Drake Powell could be scooped up before 35, but is also a potential high-outcome player that’s rarely available so late in the draft. He entered the college season as a high RCSI prospect projected to go much earlier in the first round before a rough statistical year with the Tar Heels hurt his stock, yet the talent is still very visible when studying his tape.

Alex Toohey has spent two seasons with the Sydney Kings in Australia’s NBL and has performed quite well. He’s monstrous force in transition, getting out and running at every opportunity, and has one of my favorite highlights of the entire draft cycle:

He’s a big wing who makes a ton of intuitive and high-energy plays that could greatly strengthen any five-man lineup for an NBA team.

Watkins, as shown earlier with his dunk, is a strong and explosive athlete who could come in ready for the physicality and speed of the NBA on day one.

Johni Broome didn’t wow anyone with his physical testing at the draft combine, yet has been one of if not the best player in college basketball over the past two seasons, and has prototypical power forward size at over 6-foot-9 without shoes.

Subscribe now

Daniel Olinger is a writer for the Rights To Ricky Sanchez, and author of “The Danny” column, even though he refuses to be called that in person. He can be followed on X @dan_olinger.

“The Danny” is brought to you by the Official Realtor Of The Process, Adam Ksebe.

A lot of the big names in the 2025 NBA Draft have been at the top for quite a while.

Cooper Flagg’s NBA arrival has been awaited for nearly a half-decade. Guys like Ace Bailey and Dylan Harper were often put as the second and third prospects on the pedestal right behind him. VJ Edgecombe made a huge name for himself with his play in the 2024 Olympic Qualifying Tournament — on and on the list goes.

However, there’s one guy who might have entered the college season as a fringe first-round option in consensus public opinion who nonetheless very quickly emerged as one of the best prospects in the class, and that’s none other than Kon Knueppel.

The 6-foot-5 guard from Milwaukee averaged 14.4 points per game on 48-41-91 shooting splits for a Duke team that went 35-4 and was a final-minute collapse away from playing in the national championship and quite possibly winning it all. The hyper-efficient 64.2 TS% he posted is almost unheard of for a freshman guard, and unsurprisingly his shooting stroke is the first thing that’s mentioned when the option of drafting him comes up. Of the lottery-level prospects, he’s only rivaled by Tre Johnson for the title of best shooter.

However, unlike most prospects heralded for their shooting prowess, Knueppel is built like a tank and utilizes his strength constantly when he’s out on the floor. Any defender trying to stay in front of him is liable to get a shoulder bump to the chest knocking them out of his way. He uses his physicality and power to compensate for his lack of an elite first step, and while he’s not a terrible leaper, he does require a rather long load time to get off the floor and reach the apex of his jump, meaning he’s not usually soaring over defenders at the rim. Knueppel instead is a big fan of using up-fakes and crafty step-throughs to get people off balance and find openings in the paint. There might be no prospect in the class who plays with better patience and body positioning in a crowd than him.

Additionally, like his teammate Flagg, Knueppel accels at using his weak hand at the basket, an underrated important skill for a young basketball player to have. So many rookies enter the NBA and can be funneled toward a direction where they’re less comfortable. That will not be the case for Knueppel, who again has great touch to finish his left, and rarely gets knocked off his spot while going to his weak side thanks to his amazing strength.

Pointing even further toward Knueppel’s underlying star upside is that he’s not just an off-ball shooter and play finisher. Duke had multiple creators within their offense, and Knueppel was one of the primary pick and roll distributors on many occasions. He’s excellent at putting his defenders in jail behind him after using a ball screen, once again using his bulky build to his advantage, and his near 2:1 assist-to-turnover ratio shows how trustworthy he was a decision maker.

Knueppel rarely makes bad decisions while also not being afraid to attempt home run passes that lead to incredibly valuable shot opportunities for his teammates. Specifically, Knueppel shined as a lob passer to his teammate Khaman Maluach. His accuracy, touch, and anticipation to find the 7-foot-1 big rolling to the basket were all excellent, and the two connected very frequently throughout their 39-game season.

Though bigger, stronger body types like Knueppel don’t always profile as movement shooters, he showed plenty of comfort and willingness to let threes fire after catching them on the run, and to turn corners and attack when put in off-ball action. He’s a very fluid and adaptable offensive player who can scale up or scale down in on-ball usage as his team needs.

Though he won’t be sprinting and turning around corners at blinding speeds whenever he has a pindown set for him, he’s more than just a deadeye standstill shooter who has to continually spot up in the corner for threes. He’s a capable movement shooter with gravity that can bend a defense.

Of course, if Knueppel was a perfect prospect, it wouldn’t be a surprising move for the Sixers to take him with the third pick. While he is a very flexible player who can handle pick and rolls and primary playmaking responsibility from time to time, Knueppel is not the most dynamic self-creator in the world. His weakness with his first step and needed load time to get off the floor come into play here, as he can struggle to generate space when trying to get looks for himself off the dribble, particularly if he hasn’t managed to get his way to the rim where his footwork and strength can take over and finish the job.

Per Synergy, Knueppel shot 77-for-178 on catch-and-shoot threes this season, good for a blistering 43.1%. However, he in turn shot just 3-for-21 on off-the-dribble threes, which comes in at a paltry 14.3%, though he also shot an encouraging 16-for-37 on off-the-dribble two-point jumpers (43.2%).

He’s not one to catch a defender with a step back or get five feet of open space because of a deadly crossover. While most 19 year-old guards aren’t expected to be developed off-the-dribble scoring threats, this is the third overall pick, and it’s understandable to want more superstar equity when thinking of how to use that good of a pick.

Knueppel’s defensive tape at Duke was not bad and does not make him look like a huge liability, but he was also the fourth or fifth-best defender in the Blue Devils’ starting lineup depending on one’s opinion of Tyrese Proctor. His strength and height meant that he couldn’t be bullied inside by bigs who caught him on a switch, but his lacking footspeed did at times make him vulnerable against quick-twitch guards who could take him off the dribble and find space. Additionally, his wingspan measured in at just over 6-foot-6, barely eclipsing his height, and his lack of length does hurt his ability to contest shots by getting his outstretched hands in a shooter’s eyeline.

He won’t fall in the draft because he can’t be trusted on defense, but his defense also is far from the reason he’s been considered a top-ten if not top-five talent for the past few months.

Knueppel becomes such a tricky evaluation because of the context he’s coming out of, which is not one might expect from a Duke Blue Devil. Going purely off how they performed during their lone college seasons, it can be argued that the only top-tier freshman who was better than Knueppel was his own teammate in Flagg.

Harper and Bailey’s Rutgers team had a losing record, Edgecombe’s Baylor squad disappointed, and other highly touted freshmen gradually slid down the pecking order. Meanwhile, Knueppel spent the season being the second-best player on the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament. He was an excellent player for an excellent team.

On the other hand, it’s hard to argue any other prospect was put in a more perfect situation than Knueppel. His teammates were the best freshman since Anthony Davis, the best lob threat in college basketball by a mile in Maluach, and two upperclassmen guards who could both ease the creation burden on Knueppel while also insulating his defensive shortcomings with their own stellar play. Though it would have looked much different in style, put any of Harper, Bailey, or Edgecombe in Knueppel’s spot for Duke, and their tape probably would have looked a lot more impressive.

But that’s also not entirely fair to Knueppel, who was partially responsible for creating that awesome environment he benefited from. He chose the right college to go to and performed well with the opportunity he was given.

When thinking about how he might translate to the NBA, it’s hard to envision Knueppel flat out failing on offense at the next level. The shooting, passing, and overall craft is good enough that he would need to be at the absolute bottom of the league in quickness and vertical to not have legit equity on that end of the floor. Not to mention he’s doing all this at a level of height and strength that could even let him occasionally play the 3 in the NBA in the right matchup.

The high floor of Knueppel seems easy to understand, but the ceiling is where the proposition is trickier. To reach a star-level outcome, he would either need to become a more consistent off-the-dribble shooter (particularly from behind the three-point line), or one has to believe so much in his passing out of the pick and roll game that he can leverage that into being the true focal point of a good NBA offense. It’s not impossible to see the vision, but it’s also far from a certainty.

For the Sixers specifically, Knueppel fits the theme that’s been tagged to each of the other prospects in this range — it would probably feel better to trade down and draft him in the 5-8 range than it would to just go ahead and pick him at No. 3. Not to mention, he’s similar to both Edgecombe and Johnson in that his height and skillset give him more positional overlap with Tyrese Maxey and Jared McCain than would be ideal. If he was the pick, it’s reasonable to bet on him being in the top seven or eight of the Sixers’ rotation next year and contributing well, but would he just top out as one of those seven while a guy picked after him becomes an All-Star?

The NBA Draft is far from a perfect science, and though Knueppel shouldn’t be the runaway favorite for the third overall pick, he is more than deserving for consideration at the spot.

Subscribe now

Daniel Olinger is a writer for the Rights To Ricky Sanchez, and author of “The Danny” column, even though he refuses to be called that in person. He can be followed on X @dan_olinger.

“The Danny” is brought to you by the Official Realtor Of The Process, Adam Ksebe.

“Just has a knack for putting the ball in the basket.”

“As natural a scorer as comes in this class.”

“The best pure scorer to sign with the Longhorns since Kevin Durant.”

This was the word out on Tre Johnson, not after his lone season of college basketball, but before he ever arrived at Texas. This is what was written about him coming out of Link Academy – and while other prospects sometimes change the perception of their games during college play, Johnson solidified it. He’s an incredible bucket-getter with NBA size, and has gradually emerged as an option for the Sixers with the third overall pick in the draft.

At first glance, drafting a score-first guard doesn’t seem like a logical move for the Sixers with Tyrese Maxey and Jared McCain already locked in as franchise cornerstones. But Johnson becomes a more understandable option when looking at just how impressive his numbers were for a 19 year-old guard, and how his measurements — nearly 6-foot-5 without shoes and a 6-foot-10 wingspan — outclass other top tier guards like VJ Edgecombe and Kon Knueppel.

Outside of the consensus top-two players in the draft, no one has a better highlight reel than Johnson. His penchant for making difficult, hand-in-your-face jumpers off the dribble is already at near -ll-Star level for an NBA player. He shot 39.7% from deep at Texas while launching 6.8 attempts per game, very few of which were just routine catch-and-shoots. He doesn’t always create a ton of space when separating from his defenders, but he is quick and confident in his moves, and has a real special ability to hit jumpers after throwing a behind-the-back cross at whoever’s guarding him.

Likewise, his off-the-dribble shot making also translates to movement shooting. Texas ran Johnson out of empty corner pindowns and staggered screens to get him extra space from his defender when catching the ball, and Johnson was talented enough to hit threes when he wasn’t fully set with his feet. McCain was at times used in a similar way at Duke, and being comfortable hitting jumpers while running at high speed and turning at sharp angles is a good way to find early playing time in the NBA. It’s a difficult skill that’s in high demand but comes in short supply.

Again, like those quotes at the beginning of the story, Johnson’s jumper is always what’s said first about him. But a supremely underrated aspect of his game is just how impressive his passing chops are. He “only” averaged 2.7 assists per game at Texas, which doesn’t seem like a ton given that few players in college basketball were given the ball as much as him and spent as much time dribbling as him. Some of that was due to the construction of the Texas offense, and like many star players, his assist numbers may have gone up if more of his dimes were properly capitalized on by his teammates.

However, even going back to his days at Link Academy, Johnson is a better distributor than he’s given credit for. His ability to flick passes clean through tight windows off a live dribble surpasses that of almost any other player in the class. He has the acumen and the courage to throw high leverage passes, just not always the propensity to do so. Between his scoring and his high-leverage playmaking, there really are few — if any — prospects that’ll step into the NBA day one and have a better offensive skill set than Johnson.

However, there’s also a reason that all the strengths of Johnson highlighted thus far are on the offensive end of the floor. Despite having an impressive wingspan and real height for a combo guard, Johnson left a lot to be desired as a defender at Texas. He currently has a very slender build, weighing in at just 190.4 pounds at the combine, and his effort and willingness to be physical at the point of attack was often lacking. Blow-by drives on isolations can be found a decent bit on his tape, and given that he’s a guard, he already doesn’t offer that much in terms of off-ball activity and weak side rotations to protect the rim.

If the Sixers take Johnson at No. 3, the first question out of everyone’s mouths will be what the plan is for the team’s defense long-term. Though a five-man unit of Maxey, McCain, Johnson, Paul George, and Joel Embiid might be able to light up the scoreboard, it’s putting nearly the full brunt of the defensive responsibility on the franchise center who’s coming off another major injury. Johnson would likely need to add a solid 10-20 pounds and up his engagement as an on-ball stopper to ever move up to defending forwards and wings at the NBA level.

Johnson averaged just 0.9 steals and 0.3 blocks per game while playing nearly 35 minutes a night. He also didn’t finish off many possessions on the glass for his team, averaging just over three rebounds per game.

And though Johnson is more than just a tough-bucket getter on offense as seen from those passing clips, there is reason to worry about how easily he slides into an offense with other talented creators. A lot of his college and high school possessions featured him dribbling the ball for 10-15 seconds at a time while his teammates stood around and watched, and could often end with him firing off an ill-advised shot that wasn’t likely to go in, even for a shooter of his caliber. It’s why he posted a respectable but not elite 55.7 TS% at Texas after shooting 39.7% from three and 87.1% on free throws. Those mid-range misses add up eventually.

Additionally, his lack of physical strength showed up on the interior and on passes that went haywire. He couldn’t always operate in a mass of bodies inside, either throwing up shots with multiple contests around him, or trying jump passes where he didn’t have a clear plan of where he was going next.

Johnson is never going to be a super explosive leaper or a physical force that creates good looks and opportunities inside using strength and shoulder bumps. He doesn't have that devastating first step and go that someone like Maxey does. He operates a little more like McCain in having to use footwork, creativity, and craft to work around bigger, stronger defenders, though he has the advantage of long limbs to extend around foes and throw them off with arrhythmic steps before using his supreme touch to finish a tough shot.

In my own evaluation, Johnson is a supremely talented prospect, and is not out of place in that group of Ace Bailey, Edgecombe, Knueppel, and anyone else whose name is consistently thrown out as an option for the Sixers at pick No. 3. Depending on how one feels about Knueppel, he might be the best shooter in that group, and has the highest upside as a passer and playmaker for others. But his fit in Philadelphia is a bit more difficult to see than it is for the others.

There are probably three questions that need to be asked when drafting him — could he feasibly ever play the small forward position in an NBA lineup, could he ever become a better offensive player than Maxey or McCain, and — if the answer to both of the first two questions is no — is it worth it for the Sixers to draft a player who might cap out as a superstar sixth man with the third overall pick? The answer to question one probably depends a lot on one-on-one interviews and the background work the Sixers do on Johnson, while question two is just a hard one to say yes to given how incredible both Maxey and McCain are, which really makes question three the vital one.

It’s hard to envision a world where Johnson can’t find any footing on offense in the NBA. The scoring is too potent and versatile, and the passing should help him fit into an NBA offense attacking closeouts and making good decisions, while also being scaled up to a more primary creator role when called upon. Unless he’s way too inflexible with his role in an offense, or somehow can’t hit the baseline level of defense despite having adequate tools, he’s a rather safe bet to contribute at the next level.

The fit isn’t great, and while drafting for fit at No. 3 feels stupid at surface level, the Sixers aren’t a normal “drafting at No. 3 overall” team. George was signed to join Embiid and Maxey in pursuit of a championship. That’s still the end goal even if last season ended with a 24-58 record. In the immediate future, the Sixers are most set at the guard positions, and that’s not even factoring in the potential return of Quentin Grimes.

Johnson is a wonderful prospect, and his talent warrants serious consideration with the third overall pick. But does he surpass his competition in skill and talent enough for the Sixers to overlook the roster fit concerns and use the third overall pick on him? It’s a question that the team and fans will probably be asking themselves over and over again until that fateful day on June 25.

Subscribe now

Daniel Olinger is a writer for the Rights To Ricky Sanchez, and author of “The Danny” column, even though he refuses to be called that in person. He can be followed on X @dan_olinger.

“The Danny” is brought to you by the Official Realtor Of The Process, Adam Ksebe.

In early November, Baylor was down by 36 to Gonzaga with less than two minutes left in the game. Though the Zags’ subs had checked in, the Baylor starters remained, clearing the way for what quite possibly was the best dunk of the entire college basketball season.

That dunk came from Valdez Edgecombe Jr., better known as VJ Edgecombe. He’s a 6-foot-4 guard from The Bahamas with a 38.5-inch vertical, and one of the top contenders to be drafted with the third overall pick by the Philadelphia 76ers.

Edgecombe averaged 15.0 points, 5.6 rebounds, 3.2 assists and 2.1 steals per game for a Baylor squad that went 20-15 and fell in the second round of the NCAA Tournament to Duke. He entered the season as one of the top-ranked high school recruits, and was coming off a standout performance for the Bahamas national team at the 2024 Olympics qualifying tournament.

As one might have guessed from that first clip, Edgecombe primarily excels on offense as a downhill scoring threat, where he gets to tap into his incredible leaping ability and straight-line speed. Get him a running start going at the basket, and he’s liable to detonate on the rim and any defender in front of him. For a Sixers team that could use more juice to its transition offense, Edgecombe is an appealing option.

Additionally, though Edgecombe doesn’t quite have the scoring punch to consistently run an offense in the halfcourt and distribute to others, he is a talented passer. He’s great as a connector finding the next open man and accurately hitting interior looks (including the post entry passes so many fans often complain about players missing). He, like many other guards, has also taken after Tyrese Haliburton in showing folks that jump passes are good now, shoutout to Caitlin Cooper. Overall, he can help lift a scoring unit with good finds even if he’s rarely going to be running ball screens and controlling a halfcourt offense at the next level.

Yet, the most enticing portion of Edgecombe’s game occurs on the other side of the floor. He has some of the most impressive defensive clips of any prospect in the 2025 NBA Draft class, combining his explosive run-and-jump athleticism with great off-ball instincts to constantly make huge plays. His off-ball rim protection from the guard position is a true 99th percentile skill, matched only by someone like Derrick White in how he’s able to blow up at-rim attempts despite often being one of the shorter players on the court. His on-ball defensive playmaking isn’t quite as impressive as what he does rotating into space or chasing down layups in transition, but it’s certainly not a weakness.

He weighed in at under 200 pounds and measured at a +3.5-inch wingspan (solid, but not outlier by NBA standards) at the Draft Combine, and due to that slightly lacking size it could be somewhat more difficult for him to guard up a position at the NBA level, which a team like the Sixers might ask him to do given their current roster construction. Still, of Philly’s options with the third overall pick, it’s hard to see a non-center option with more defensive upside than Edgecombe.

There are flaws in his game, however, as there are for every prospect. When the game slows down in the halfcourt and Edgecombe can’t get a running start to create and attack as he catches the ball, his self-creation can be a little lacking. He doesn’t yet have the handle refinement, strength, or threat of a consistent pull-up jumper to get to his spots with regularity vs a set defense.

When attacking the rim, Edgecombe can often get pushed off of his driving line and away from the paint, leaving his layups short off the rim, as he’s just too far outside his ideal path to the basket. And though he is one of the best basketball leapers in the world right now when given a clear runway, he often jumps from too far out on his finishing attempts, trusting his athleticism too much and getting caught mid-air without a proper adjustment to the defense that’s met him at the rim.

Statistical evidence here can be a little shaky since BartTorvik and Synergy track at-rim attempts slightly differently. Taking out the 36 dunks Edgecombe attempted, BartTorvik tracked him as finishing 43-for-90 (47.8%) on his other at-rim shots, which would primarily be layups. As for Synergy, it had Edgecombe shooting 57-for-128 (44.5%) on layups this season at Baylor. Regardless of the exact number, finishing layups around the rim is definitely a current weakness in Edgecombe’s game.

That’s not to say that he is a totally inept finisher. He occasionally flashed some advanced techniques that should help him score amongst the trees at the next level. Two in particular that stood out were his large power hops through the paint that utilize his best athletic traits, as well as step-through moves that have been popularized by NBA stars like Jaylen Brown in recent years.

Edgecombe’s jumper, though not detrimentally bad by any means, certainly wasn’t up to the level most would have wanted during his lone season at Baylor. He shot 34% from three on 4.6 attempts per game, and per BartTorvik, made just 37 of his 96 non-rim two-point attempts (38.5%).

This is where concerns over his handle and play strength on the interior again lie, as Edgecombe doesn’t quite have a good mid-range counter yet in his bag, and can throw up some bad attempts when caught in that area of the court.

As a three-point shooter, Edgecombe had a season that’s common for many prospects. Per Synergy, he shot 36.3% from three on 124 catch-and-shoot attempts, but just 20% on 30 off-the-dribble three-point attempts. He’s much better-suited to be a tertiary option in an NBA offense than he is to be a primary at this point in time. Letting him shoot open spot-up threes and attack closeouts seems like a better plan for his early career performance rather than asking him to create shots and score off the bounce.

Though on a positive note, it’s worth mentioning that Edgecombe shot 39.1% from three on 274 attempts from 2022-24 in high school and FIBA play, according to Maurya Kumpatia (@TheFlareScreen) on Twitter/X.

So how might it work if Edgecombe were to be drafted by the Sixers? The fit isn’t the cleanest in the world given that he measured in at just 6-foot-4 and two of the Sixers’ franchise cornerstones in Tyrese Maxey and Jared McCain are small by NBA standards. Edgecombe is guard-sized, but currently plays much more like a wing, and how much a team believes he can play minutes at the 3 in the NBA successfully likely determines the slot in which he’s getting drafted.

For the Sixers specifically, there could be some logic behind drafting Edgecombe as an insurance option to the double-small backcourt of Maxey and McCain, as the Baylor guard in theory makes more sense as a defensive-focused 2 next to whichever of those two is playing the 1. However, it would also be worth asking whether Edgecombe will improve enough to be viable to a high-level NBA offense while playing the 2. It’s much easier for wings and bigs to get by as defense-only players in the NBA than it is for guards.

Similar to a number of prospects who will be available to the Sixers in the draft, Edgecombe would be greatly aided by Joel Embiid returning to a recognizable level of play next season. A setting where he can play alongside Maxey, McCain, Embiid, and Paul George and attack advantageous situations created by those offensive stars is an ideal one for him (even if that hypothetical Sixers’ starting lineup would be very undersized).

Edgecombe’s defensive acumen and open floor athleticism likely guarantee him a spot as a rotation player. He’s a clear NBA-level athlete through and through, and shouldn’t look overwhelmed by the speed of the immense talents opposing him. Where his ceiling lies is the more open-ended question. He should have pathways to development, getting on the floor early and often for his defense, but it’s just hard to say with certainty that his handle, his pull-up jumper, and his finishing craft will all improve to the degree one wants for a third overall pick.

Then again, that’s just the nature of this year’s NBA Draft and the Sixers’ unique position within it. The top two picks are as set in stone and agreed upon in the collective basketball consensus more than any draft we've had in at least the past half-decade. Picks 3-10 is where everything gets wild, with everyone having a different opinion on which players are the best, what each team should do, and how it’s going to all play out.

No one knows yet what decision Daryl Morey and Co. will make a month from now, but with his eye-popping athletic talent and projectable upside as an offensive player, VJ Edgecombe will most definitely be one of the most tantalizing options on the table.

Subscribe now

Daniel Olinger is a writer for the Rights To Ricky Sanchez, and author of “The Danny” column, even though he refuses to be called that in person. He can be followed on X @dan_olinger.

“The Danny” is brought to you by the Official Realtor Of The Process, Adam Ksebe.

It was the summer of 2023. I was busy with work, writing down notes as I scouted prospects for the eventual 2025 NBA Draft, when I saw a young big man throw one of the most impressive passes I’ve ever seen:

This is Derik Queen, the freshman forward out of Maryland, and the player I think the Sixers should draft with the third overall pick.

After heading down South to play high school ball in Florida next to Cooper Flagg, Queen returned to his home state for his lone college season and immediately emerged as the best player on a Maryland team that grabbed a 4-seed in the NCAA Tournament and made the Sweet Sixteen. He averaged 16.5 points and 9.0 rebounds, and won Big Ten Freshman of the Year over both Bailey and presumed No. 2 overall pick Dylan Harper.

A lot of other names have been floated for Philly at 3, from Rutgers’ Ace Bailey, to Baylor’s VJ Edgecombe, and even to Tre Johnson of Texas. Nothing in this article is meant as a specific argument against any of those players; each a fine prospect in their own right. Rather, this is about shining the spotlight on Queen, an incredibly talented big man who has not been talked about enough as an option for the Sixers with their first-round pick.

While his penchant for throwing high-degree-of-difficulty passes is what first drew me to Queen years ago, it was his absurd driving and slashing skills that stood out with the Terrapins. His finishing footwork is unmatched in this draft class, truly elite for a 20-year-old basketball player. He has Euro steps and spin moves, he loves to throw a defender off-balance by decelerating on his final two steps — and to top it all off, he’s a truly ambidextrous finisher around the rim, comfortable driving either right or left at a moment’s notice.

Additionally, for a Sixers team that needs to get bigger and stop getting bullied on the glass, adding Queen would be a huge boon to their rebounding prowess. At Maryland, his 24.5% defensive rebounding rate was first in the entire country among all Freshmen per BartTorvik, and his 9.0% offensive rebounding rate was nothing to scoff at either. Despite “only” measuring in at just over 6-foot-9 and with a wingspan just crossing 7-feet, Queen makes up for the supposed lack of length with ridiculous strength and soft hands that almost always catch the ball whenever it’s nearest to him.

If teams don’t land a good boxout on him, Queen is easily shoving them out of his way and scooping up the ball for two points on the putback.

The rebounding and the drives are great, but none of this answers the question most Sixers fans probably have about Queen — how does he fit next to Joel Embiid? On the surface, an undersized center who shot 7-for-35 from three in college doesn’t seem like a logical pairing next to the franchise center in Philly.

But this is where Queen’s game (and what it means to play next to a center in the NBA) is misunderstood. Sure, if Queen had shot better on threes in college, projecting his transition to the NBA would be a lot smoother, no argument there. He did shoot a respectable 76.6% on free throws, and flashed impressive shotmaking with floaters and the occasional mid-range. His shot form itself could use some work, but the hints of shooting touch are there.

Moreover, Queen can play the 4 and play alongside centers at the next level not because he’s an obvious 38% three-point shooter hiding in plain sight, but because defenses have to be worried about making decisions with the ball in his hands. When teams feel like they can ignore a player on the perimeter is when their offense becomes inhibitive to the team, and though the lack of a respectable jumper can often lead to that, it’s not a perfect correlation. Queen is too terrifying building up steam and driving downhill at the basket for defenses to disrespect him. He’s willing to attack and score at every opportunity given. If a defense tried to play off against him and hide a roaming rim protector on him, Queen will take shots and find ways into the paint to make the defense non-viable.

Not to mention, his passing skill makes him even more versatile on the perimeter. While his passing numbers look bad on the surface (67 assists to 85 turnovers in 36 games played), the tape tells a different story. This is a prospect who is capable of making complex decisions in dynamic situations on the court. He loves his lefty skip passes, his outlet passing is ambitious, but can lead to high-end outcomes, and he’s deadly attacking bent defense in the short roll.

Admittedly, his ambition as a passer is a double-edged sword. For every no-look dime he breaks out to find a cutter, there’s also a clip where he threw the ball five feet out of bounds trying to throw a full-court baseball pass to a teammate. What you think of his passing depends on how risk-averse you like your basketball players. Queen is someone who is willing to try anything and everything on the court, and while that increases his chances for the occasional blunder, it also accelerates his growth rate with the number of high-leverage plays he can make.

On the other side of the floor, concerns over Queen’s defense are a fair gripe. Maryland often played a funky zone defense that morphed into man-to-man late in possessions, and often kept him close to the paint instead of forcing him to cover space on the perimeter.

Similar to the risks he takes on the offensive end of the floor, Queen is a bit of a home-run hitter on defense too. He averaged 1.1 steals and 1.1 blocks per game, showing good potential as a playmaker due to his incredible hands, desire to swipe at the ball, and surprisingly nimble feet for his build. Of course, constant swiping at the ball meant Queen was liable to get burned if he missed, and his play-to-play discipline needs work. There were too many clips of him standing upright and not hustling to rotate the correct spot at Maryland.

However, if in the NBA he can be fully engaged on that end of the floor, the potential for improvement is quite obviously there. He’s never getting bullied inside, fully capable of grappling with the strongest players in the NBA (which these playoffs have shown to be an important skill), and his creative footwork shows how he’s more capable of hanging on the perimeter than he’s given credit for. He’s even got crafty old-man tricks already in his bag, like pulling the chair on a post-up as he does in the first clip here below.

AU would be the first to tell you I’m not one to hand out player comps to potential draft picks unless I really believe it, but Queen is one of those guys where I feel comfortable putting my neck out. Naz Reid went undrafted in 2019 before signing with the Minnesota Timberwolves, largely (in my estimation) because he was an odd player. You could probably count on one hand how many NBA big men there are whose primary talent is beating dudes off the dribble and finishing creatively at the rim. The Wolves got a steal because his abnormal archetype wasn’t appreciated, and when I watch Queen, I see a new take on Reid.

He might have a lower floor as a shooter (though worth noting Reid “only” shot 33% on not the highest volume of three-point attempts in college before improving in the NBA), but Queen is even more dangerous as a driver, possessing a devastating amount of raw strength and force that Reid didn’t quite have the moment he entered the league six years ago. Reid is one of the most important players on a team that’s now made back-to-back trips to the Western Conference Finals, and Queen — with his cross-section of size and driving acumen — can be an even more potent version of one of the most offensively versatile big men in the entire NBA.

While Queen isn’t a prospect without a chance of failure (Flagg is the only guy who fits that description this year), there’s good reason to believe in the big guy’s high-end outcomes. I’m confident in his ability to create good outcomes and results at the NBA level, attacking closeouts, running inverted pick and rolls, and isolating on the perimeter and in the post. And for the Sixers, a team that’s already littered with shorter guards and pure centers, Queen can fill the void at the 4 spot that the team so often faced last season. He’s big enough to give the team size where it’s needed, and he’s both quick enough and skilled enough to survive and thrive on the perimeter in the modern NBA.

And at the end of the day, who doesn’t want to draft the guy who hit arguably the most iconic shot of this year’s March Madness tournament?

Believe in Derik Queen.

Subscribe now

Daniel Olinger is a writer for the Rights To Ricky Sanchez, and author of “The Danny” column, even though he refuses to be called that in person. He can be followed on X @dan_olinger.

“The Danny” is brought to you by the Official Realtor Of The Process, Adam Ksebe.

In just four days, we’ll finally know whether it was all worth it.

The Sixers closed the 2024-25 campaign on a 4-29 tear to finish with their worst regular season record since they went 10-72 in 2016, all for the sake of keeping their top-six protected pick. Every draft is different, with this 2025’s in particular being touted as higher caliber than the year previous, and having a crown jewel prospect at the top in Cooper Flagg. Yet, year-over-year different feelings have been attached to each of the individual slots at the top of the draft. No. 1 overall picks are almost always expected to be franchise-defining superstars, while the No. 2 overall spot has at times been viewed as snakebitten, with the selecting team passing up on incredible players far more often than they’d like.

Thus, I decided to look into the Sixers’ history whenever they’ve received a top-six pick and see just how well they draft in each slot:

No. 1 Overall Picks — Markelle Fultz (2017), Ben Simmons (2016), Allen Iverson (1996), Doug Collins (1973)

Four very memorable picks, all for very different reasons.

Allen Iverson is obviously the cream of the crop here, but Doug Collins and even Ben Simmons are far from the worst first overall picks in league history, despite what recent NBA discourse might tell you regarding the latter. Those two combined for seven total All-Star selections in Philadelphia, despite neither becoming the face of the franchise like Iverson was. Markelle Fultz is the only true whiff on the list, and this article would need to be 4,000 words longer to properly explain every reason why that pick didn’t work out.

Unfortunately, the 1986 debacle has to be mentioned, wherein the Sixers traded the first overall pick in the draft to the Cleveland Cavaliers for Roy Hinson and cash. On the rare chance that someone younger than me reads this, Hinson never made an All-Star team in his eight-year career, while Brad Daugherty — the North Carolina center that Cleveland took at No. 1 overall — was selected to five All-Star games in his own eight-year career before injuries cut his NBA playing life short.

That same day, the team dealt 3-time NBA MVP and 1983 Finals MVP Moses Malone, as well as two first-round picks, to the Washington Bullets for Cliff Robinson and Jeff Ruland. Even though the team was coming off a 54-28 campaign in the 1985-86 season, the idea at the time was that Malone might be on his last legs, and that the Sixers needed to get younger to keep competing. Instead, the trio of Hinson, Ruland, and Robinson failed to make an All-Star game in Philadelphia and were all off the team by 1990, while Malone made three more All-Star appearances through 1989 and didn’t retire until the 1995 season.

All that to say, the Sixers don’t have a great history with the first overall pick, as Iverson is really the one that truly worked out to be the perennial franchise cornerstone that most fans expect to get with the top overall pick. Here’s hoping that trend would change with Flagg in town.

No. 2 Overall Picks — Evan Turner (2010), Keith Van Horn (1997, traded to the Nets immediately), Shawn Bradley (1993)

Even more so than the first, second-overall draft picks have not worked out great for the Sixers. I loved watching Evan Turner in college, so I was ultimately more fine with the selection than most fans of the team (granted, I was nine years-old), but given DeMarcus Cousins went just three picks later, while ET was with a new team by 2014, that one was most definitely a miss.

Same for the 7-foot-6 Shawn Bradley, who was infamously selected after Chris Webber and before Penny Hardaway, and is more remembered for his longer run in Dallas than his relatively short tenure Philly. Keith Van Horn found his way back to the Sixers by 2002, but out the gate he was dealt for Jim Jackson, Eric Montross, Anthony Parker, and Tim Thomas after being selected with the second pick.

Can’t say the Sixers’ history of draft-day trades looks stellar heading into Monday night.

No. 3 Overall Picks — Jahlil Okafor (2015), Joel Embiid (2014), Jerry Stackhouse (1995)

The Joel Embiid and Jahlil Okafor picks speak for themselves, but what about Stack? Sure, he wasn’t a franchise-changing talent, but he was an undeniably great scorer who went on to make two All-Star games and play a whopping 18 seasons in the association.

Stackhouse unfortunately can’t be a “hit” for the Sixers considering that the two picks immediately after him were Rasheed Wallace and Kevin Garnett, but he was far the worst top-five pick in his own draft (apologies to Joe Smith), and his 29.8 points per game average in 2001 was only topped by his former teammate in Iverson. Stack was traded to Detroit in 1997 for Theo Ratliff and Aaron McKie, both of whom would play major roles in the Sixers’ 2001 run to the NBA Finals, making this a pretty solid draft pick for the Sixers, even if an all-time great was selected just two spots later.

So the third-overall picks — not a perfect record for the Sixers, but not terrible either.

No. 4 Overall Picks — Luke Jackson (1964)

Luke Jackson made the All-Star team as a rookie and spent all eight of his NBA seasons in Philadelphia, but outside of that, I couldn’t tell you much about him. This is definitely the slot with the smallest data set in Sixers’ history.

No. 5 Overall Picks — Charles Barkley (1984), Darryl Dawkins (1975), Freddie Boyd (1972), Len Chappell (1962), Lee Shaffer (1960), Dick Barnett (1959), Joe Holup (1956), John McConathy (1951)

A lot of names here, most of whom have not stood the test of time, but the ones that stand above the rest are Charles Barkley, Darryl Dawkins, and Dick Barnett (though Barnett achieved his Hall of Fame status outside of the Syracuse/Philadelphia franchise).

The Sixers didn’t achieve much team success with Barkley outside of a conference finals run in his rookie year (after that, they also kept falling just short in the second round). But man, he was one of the most entertaining watches in league history. Truly a one-of–a-kind force in transition and attacking the basket, a very underrated passer historically, and just a frightening blend of athleticism and aggression that opponents were unsure of how to handle. If not for Michael Jordan and Hakeem Olajuwon going just ahead of him, 1984 would’ve been remembered as the Charles Barkley draft.

Dawkins never made an All-Star team, but will be remembered for a number of other things, from his never-ending thirst to destroy backboards, to being a part of the Moses Malone trade that brought the Sixers the 1983 title, to having one of the longest nickname pages on all of Basketball Reference.

Safe to say the Sixers have had some worthwhile picks at fifth overall.

No. 6 Overall Picks — Sharone Wright (1994), Hersey Hawkins (1988, via trade), Ben Warley (1961), Connie Dierking (1958), Red Kerr (1954)

Not a lot to take note of here outside of Red Kerr, who played for the 1955 NBA Champion Syracuse Nationals team that accounts for one-third of the franchise’s banners, and Hersey Hawkins, who was an extremely cool player who hopefully does not get lost in the history of the sport.

Hawkins made just one All-Star team in 1990-91, but averaged between 14 to 22 points per game in each of the first seven seasons of his career, and later went on to contribute to some truly great SuperSonics teams in the late 90s. Not to mention, his 1987-88 senior year at Bradley gets my vote as the most underrated great college season of all-time, as Hawkins averaged more than 36.3 points per game for the Braves while shooting 39.4% from three and recording nearly three steals a night.

Additionally, though it wasn’t a pick the Sixers received in the top six, the team of course traded Jrue Holiday to the New Orleans Pelicans for then-No. 6 pick Nerlens Noel in 2013, as well as a pick in the 2014 Draft that the Sixers gradually turned into Dario Saric. Though it seemed like a bounty at the time, it feels like a pretty underwhelming return in exchange for Holiday, who has now been a starter on two different championship teams for Eastern Conference rivals. However, bottoming out with that team the year after was necessary toward landing Embiid in 2014, so it was ultimately the right choice in the end.

Like most NBA franchises, the Sixers have missed on more top-of-the-line picks than one would hope, but have ultimately only had no luck when it comes to picks 2 and 4. And of course, doing all this historical digging only makes it more likely that the pick falls to No. 7 on Monday.

Subscribe now

Daniel Olinger is a writer for the Rights To Ricky Sanchez, and author of “The Danny” column, even though he refuses to be called that in person. He can be followed on X @dan_olinger.

“The Danny” is brought to you by the Official Realtor Of The Process, Adam Ksebe.

It’s pretty clear what the Sixers will need in the NBA Draft.

Two of the franchise cornerstones are small guards under the age of 25 (and potentially a third depending on whether Quentin Grimes stays in town), and the team’s structure has been based around a center in Joel Embiid since 2017. Even barring the worst-case scenarios for Embiid’s health, he’s still under contract through 2029 – not to mention, the Sixers just drafted a backup center option in Adem Bona, and will likely still roster Andre Drummond entering the next season.

All that to say — this team is probably going to prioritize wings and forwards in this upcoming draft. If you can play the 3 or the 4 in the NBA, best believe the Sixers will be taking a look at you come June. Vaulting up to the number one overall pick and selecting Cooper Flagg is obviously the best solution, but what if that plan doesn’t come to pass? There are other wing options in the top six in Ace Bailey and VJ Edgecombe (who might have their own articles on this site in the coming month), but past them the projected top picks are filled with bigs and guards.

However, while the Sixers keeping a top-six pick still depends on the fateful day of May 12, the 35th overall pick of the draft is in their possession no matter what, as the Sixers received both Quentin Grimes and re-possession of their second-round pick in exchange for Caleb Martin at the trade deadline. Grimes for Martin was already a good trade, and it has the potential to get even sweeter with this year’s class having several intriguing forward bets who could be available in the early second round two months from now.

Here are three different forwards from the college ranks the Sixers should have their eye on as the draft approaches:

Adou Thiero — Arkansas

After two years at Kentucky, Thiero followed coach John Calipari to Arkansas in 2024 and saw a massive jump in his offensive production that shot him up draft boards. However, it’s Thiero’s defense that makes him a truly desirable prospect, as the Razorback wing is a gifted athlete, both in lateral quickness and vertical prowess, and uses both to great effect on that end of the floor.

Thiero profiles more as a 3 than as a 4, as he’s listed at 6-foot-8 by Arkansas’s team website, but only at 6-foot-6 by databases like BartTorvik and CBB Reference, and whether or not his shooting stroke develops is the biggest question he’ll face entering the NBA.

Over three college seasons, Thiero shot just 28.4% from three on 74 attempts. Likewise, his 71.1% mark on 263 career free throw attempts isn’t disastrous, but also doesn’t indicate stellar shooting touch. Right now his best offensive skill might be his passing acumen, as Thiero has flashed good reads both as an off-ball connector and in his limited pick and roll opportunities.

Hitting open threes and capably attacking off the dribble is practically necessary to be a wing in the NBA, but Thiero’s ability to read the floor and make smart decisions should help him be viable on that end of the floor while racking up great positive value on the defensive end. And as MOC wrote last week, he’d certainly help the Sixers fill the massive need they have more better size and athleticism on the roster.

Rasheer Fleming — St. Joe’s

It’s worth noting that Fleming falling out of the first round is a seemingly less likely proposition than Thiero based on recently published mock drafts. The 6-foot-9 wing out of St. Joe’s was on draft radars entering the 2024-25 season due to his impressive physical traits, and has only improved his standing following a massive shooting leap in his junior season.

Fleming shot 29.4% and 32.7% from three during his first two college seasons before shooting 39% on 4.5 three-point attempts per game this past year. Not only that, but the versatility and difficulty of Fleming’s attempts improved, as he became a de facto movement shooter in St. Joe’s offense.

Fleming is also an absolute monster on the glass, finishing his junior season with a 22.8 DREB% and averaging 8.5 rebounds per game. Given he’s 6-foot-9 with a rumored 7-foot-5 wingspan, it makes sense that he snares just about every loose ball that comes his way.

He projects as a valuable play finisher at the next level. Per Bart Torvik, Fleming was the only player in all of college basketball last season to finish with more than 40 dunks and more than 50 made threes. He knows how to put the ball in the basket.

Understandably, Fleming’s movement skills are a tad worse than someone like Thiero’s due to how much larger he is. The St. Joe’s product isn’t slow in a straight line, but his lateral quickness and change of direction aren’t always up to snuff. He’s what I’d call a “point-and-shoot driver”. Whatever direction he’s initially headed toward when he puts the ball on the floor is where he’s going to end up, and that predictability as a mover can be inhibiting on both offense and defense at the NBA level.

Still, it’s more of a nitpick on Fleming’s tape than any sort of red flag. At the end of the day, he posted a 64 TS% for an entire season of college hoops while having physical traits that far surpassed his peers, making him an extremely worthy target for the Sixers.

Darrion Williams — Texas Tech

Just going by mainstream boards, Williams is the most likely to still be available for the Sixers at pick 35 (given, that’s if he stays in the draft altogether instead of withdrawing and returning to college before the June 15 deadline).

Williams is a big-bodied forward, listed at 6-foot-6 and 210 pounds, and combines his strength with a well-developed handle and a versatile offensive skillset. At Texas Tech, he scored out of everything from post-ups and pick and rolls, to isolations for pull-up threes.

He only shot 34% from three this past season for the Red Raiders, though he made up for it with good volume (4.1 attempts per game) and decent variety (more than 25% of his attempts came off the dribble). Williams doesn’t have the quick twitch burst of Thiero, nor the sheer height and length of Fleming, but he makes up for it with just how refined his game is in a halfcourt offensive setting after three seasons of college ball.

His passing numbers are the best of the trio, having finished his junior season at Texas Tech with a near 2:1 assist-to-turnover ratio. He can be trusted to create good results when given an opportunity with the ball.

Texas Tech made a run all the way to the Elite Eight and finished in the top 10 of KenPom ratings, and Williams was one of the biggest drivers behind their massive success. If he decides that he’s ready to make the leap to the next level, he’d be a great fit for the Sixers with the 35th overall pick.

Subscribe now

Daniel Olinger is a writer for the Rights To Ricky Sanchez, and author of “The Danny” column, even though he refuses to be called that in person. He can be followed on X @dan_olinger.

“The Danny” is brought to you by the Official Realtor Of The Process, Adam Ksebe.

In a Sixers season filled with horrible and disappointing turns, there may have been no bigger bummer than the announcement of Jared McCain’s season-ending injury in mid-December.

The first two months of the season were already a calamity, with the team 7-16 (fun fact the Sixers were never once in the top ten of the East during the regular season) and stars in and out of the lineup with injury. The shining bright spot through it all had been McCain, who was running away with Rookie of the Year and put together a pretty incredible stretch of offensive basketball, short as it may have been. Over a seven-game span in November, he averaged 26.1 points on 66.8 TS% while also shooting an outstanding 45.6% from three. The fact that a meniscus tear cut his season short at 23 games is just deeply unfair.

With the regular season concluded, awards ballots have been flowing in from media members. Obviously the Sixers’ young guard isn’t eligible to win anything, having played just 25% of the available games, but it got me thinking — where would Jared McCain go in a re-draft of the 2024 class?

Rookie of the Year is seemingly a three-way fight amongst San Antonio’s Stephon Castle, Atlanta’s Zaccharie Risacher, and Memphis’s Jaylen Wells, but that award isn’t always reflective of how decision makers in the NBA would re-do things if given to draft from the same crop of players again. There are numerous examples in NBA history when the guy who was the best right out of the gate didn’t end up being the best long-term value bet in the draft class.

To answer this question, I polled 23 different people who all work in and/or cover basketball in one way or another, asking them what their big board for the 2024 Draft class would be after having a year’s worth of NBA play to go off of (big board meaning that specific team fit of which team was picking in each spot last year was NOT taken into account).

In order to get the final “consensus” re-draft board, players were given points in reciprocal order of the pick they were selected, i.e. being picked first overall in someone’s poll earned that player 10 points, being picked second overall earned nine points, all the way down to pick 10, which was worth just a single point. Here were the results:

2024 NBA Re-Draft Poll

1. Jared McCain (167 points, 5 first-place votes)

2. Alex Sarr (140 points, 5 first-place votes)

3. Matas Buzelis (139 points, 3 first-place votes)

4. Stephon Castle (138 points, 1 first-place vote)

5. Zaccharie Risacher (132 points, 3 first-place votes)

6. Donovan Clingan (101 points, 1 first-place vote)

7. Ron Holland (85 points, 3 first-place votes)

8. Kel’el Ware (82 points, 1 first-place vote)

9. Zach Edey (52 points)

10. Reed Sheppard (43 points)

11. Jaylen Wells (42 points)

12. Nikola Topic (25 points, 1 first-place vote)

Also receiving top 10 votes: Bub Carrington, Ajay Mitchell, Devin Carter, Yves Missi, Kyle Filipowski, Isaiah Collier

A group of 23 people coming up with nine different answers for “who should have been drafted first overall?” tells you a lot about this particular class, but McCain did separate himself as the top choice. With this points system in particular, McCain benefitted from the sheer consistency of how highly he rated in the poll, as 19 out of the 23 polls placed him in the top five of the re-draft. The only player who came close to his consistency as a top five selection was Castle, who finished in the top five on 17 ballots.

A clear top five formed in McCain, Sarr, Buzelis, Castle, and Risacher, a quintet who all managed to produce on the court as rookies while also showing tantalizing upside (and yes, I know Sarr’s shooting splits were pretty bad). After that, the trio of Clingan, Holland and Ware had their fans who viewed them as top re-draft picks, but they were also well outside the top five on many ballots. Finally, the last four notables included two players in Edey and Wells that have solidified themselves as at least capable NBA players for the foreseeable future, and two in Sheppard and Topic whose NBA production is almost all theoretical to this point. However, both Sheppard and Topic had many fans pre-draft who understandably still have faith that they’ll pay off in the long-run. Beyond the top 12, no other rookie really garnered enough points to be worth discussing in further detail.

An exercise like this can be approached in multiple ways, as was born out in the results. Some may base their rankings entirely on what the young players have done in the NBA thus far and disregard what they were doing at the lower levels of the sport in the years prior. Others may still be extremely confident in their pre-draft priors and evaluations, trusting that the predictions they had coming into June of 2024 will come to fruition in the NBA, and that one single season as a rookie in the hardest league in the world isn’t yet enough to move them off those beliefs. There is no right or wrong approach, but what’s important from a Sixers’ perspective is that McCain garnered high remarks across the differing approaches one might have when evaluating young players and their developmental curves in the NBA.

A blogger-conducted poll is far from a flawless scientific method, however it does reinforce just how special McCain’s early season stretch was. This wasn’t just Sixers fans overreacting to their brand new player going on a hot streak, it was a fanbase properly reacting to a special level of play that caught the attention of many others around the NBA. As one anonymous voter referenced, McCain finished 6th in VORP — a cumulative season-long metric that calculates value over replacement player — among all rookies despite playing in far fewer games than his peers. (Knocking on the biggest piece of wood that’s humanly conceivable) So long as McCain stays healthy moving forward, the rough consensus is that the Sixers got quite possibly the best player in the 2024 NBA Draft.

In a season as unrelentingly brutal as the 2024-25 campaign was, that’s something everyone around the Sixers can and should hold onto.

Subscribe now

Daniel Olinger is a writer for the Rights To Ricky Sanchez, and author of “The Danny” column, even though he refuses to be called that in person. He can be followed on X @dan_olinger.

“The Danny” is brought to you by the Official Realtor Of The Process, Adam Ksebe.

The Sixers are 3–24 in their last 27 games.

That’s pretty bad. Worst in the NBA for any team over their last 27 games, for a matter of fact. But the Sixers are far from alone. Over the same timespan, the Jazz are 4-23, and the Hornets are 7-20. TL;DR — a few of the same teams having been losing a lot of games the past couple of months, and the powers that be in the NBA seem to be taking notice.

ESPN recently reported several ideas pitched from around the league, including a further flattening of the lottery odds for the 14 non-playoff teams, counting wins instead of losses following the All-Star break, and having lottery odds determined by the 14 teams’ records against each other.

This is six years after the last round of draft lottery changes, which made it so that the three teams with the worst records would each have the same 14% chance of landing the first overall pick, in theory disincentivizing franchises from bottoming their records all the way out to be the worst of the worst. In one sense, these changes have succeeded, since the team with the worst record in the NBA has not landed the first overall pick since 2018. However, this change clearly hasn’t stopped or even really slowed tanking over the past six seasons. Just because the odds are worse doesn’t mean that people left the casino.

While tanking isn’t exclusive to basketball in American men’s sports, it’s certainly the sport where it’s most prominently discussed. Tankathon itself was founded by a basketball fan 12 years ago who wanted his favorite team to lose games in order to secure a better draft pick, and to this day, the NBA’s draft lottery simulator is the default homepage for the website. The NFL just hands the top pick to the team with the fewest wins each season. The MLB and NHL have draft lotteries, but they don’t drum up annual thinkpieces calling for reform.

The reason for this is simple — one player can change everything for an NBA franchise more than it can change things for any team in the other three leagues. Plenty of highly touted quarterbacks drafted with premium picks have wallowed on middling teams while lacking adequate support. The Los Angeles Angels famously failed to make the playoffs a single time from 2018-23 despite rostering two of the best players in the history of the sport. (This is where I would say something about the NHL, but I admittedly have almost zero knowledge of hockey).

The NFL has 53 players active on each roster and 11 on the field for each team every snap. Baseball cycles through 162 regular season games each season and waves upon waves of players waiting in the farm system. In basketball there are only 15 standard contracts given out per roster, and of course only five players on the court for each team. There's a good reason so few champions in history don’t include at least one player who made first team All-NBA. The most reliably consistent way to get one of those players is a high draft pick. The Rockets and the Bulls won titles in the 90s because they lost enough games in the 80s to pick Hakeem Olajuwon and Michael Jordan. The Cavaliers went from 17-65 in 2003 to winning the Eastern Conference in 2007 almost solely because those 65 losses brought them LeBron James. The strategy clearly has merit.

This is all a long way of saying that so long as losing improves a team’s draft position, tanking will always exist. Even in the proposed “wins after the all-star break count as losses” scenario, would a team not eventually try to tank the first 50 games of the season in order to knock themselves out of playoff contention, only to ratchet things up post All-Star break in hopes of getting the best lottery odds possible? Gaming the system is simply worth it given the incredible potential payoff.

The only way to truly get rid of tanking is to fully sever the tie between losing games and getting a top draft pick. Flatten the odds – and not just so that all non-playoff teams have the exact same chance of getting the first overall pick. Instead, get rid of the notion that losing can bring a team closer to future success. All 30 first round picks should be decided completely by random chance, making it a lottery in the truest sense of the word.

Under this system, there would understandably be a ton of complaints any year a team coming off a deep playoff run vaulted up to the first overall pick. Additionally, franchises would need to re-think how they’ve handled pick protections and pick swaps in prior trades, and in the hypothetical world where this proposal goes into place, the NBA would have to let teams know when the change was coming years in advance so as to avoid potentially reckless trades. And of course, it would make getting out from the basement of the NBA more difficult than ever.

This isn’t a proposal designed to make everyone happy. It’s a solution with tons of flaws and reasonable objections. But it would get rid of tanking in basketball. There would be zero connection between losing basketball games and getting a chance to pick, no more reason for a fanbase or for a franchise’s decision makers to ever want a loss more than a win.

There are some slight tweaks that can be made so that it wouldn’t just be a purely random 1-30 draw. It’s pretty safe to say that any team that makes the second round of the playoffs would much rather advance to the final four than they would have odds at acquiring a good draft pick, thus locking in the final four teams at spots 27-30 in the draft order wouldn’t change this hypothetically tank-free world. It’s hard to imagine a team trading a 1-in-8 chance of winning a ring for a 3.85% chance of drafting the class’s top prospect.

If there’s an insistence on having some form of safeguard for the teams that lose the most games, inspiration from the current system could be taken, with the 26 remaining teams only drawing lots for picks 1-10 each year. After those spots have been decided, the next 16 picks could be ordered by record. That still incentives losing games to a small degree, but it’s a far less desirable incentive than what’s currently in place. Losing the most games in the NBA right now guarantees a top-five pick. In this system, that guarantee goes down to pick No. 11. Still a good pick, but one that on average is far less likely to be franchise-altering.

Whatever permutation it takes, it’ll definitely be a drastic option – but it really is the only way to guarantee an end to tanking. Any minor tweaks to the way the first overall pick is decided will just lead to minor tweaks in how teams plan out their tanking operations. If this solution is seen as a step too far in the other direction, that’s okay. But then everyone needs to be okay with tanking and accept it as the best path forward for a solid number of NBA franchises in a given year. Losing games is not fun, not for the players and the coaching staff, and not for the passionate fans who want to watch their teams win games. Wanting to lose is antithetical to the athletic experience so many people have grown to love, either as participating athletes themselves, or as spectators from the stands. It’s just hard to argue that it’s the wrong decision given the way the current draft system is structured.

So long as there is a benefit to losing games, tanking is always going to be a thing. Getting rid of all benefits is the only way to permanently solve the problem.

Subscribe now

Daniel Olinger is a writer for the Rights To Ricky Sanchez, and author of “The Danny” column, even though he refuses to be called that in person. He can be followed on X @dan_olinger.

“The Danny” is brought to you by the Official Realtor Of The Process, Adam Ksebe.

Specifically, there’s nothing better than the first round of March Madness. Five straight days of (almost) non-stop basketball, every game holding incredible stakes, and an annual guarantee that something insane is going to happen. If you’re like me, you’re planning on blowing off as many responsibilities as possible Thursday through Monday to binge watch college basketball to an unhealthy degree.

Here are five March Madness games you need to make time for this week (just in case the Quentin Grimes scoring explosion in Philly isn’t enough for you right now):

(8) Louisville vs (9) Creighton, Thursday, 12:15 p.m.

This is a matchup a lot of people have circled, after Louisville went 27-7, nearly won the ACC Championship, and finished both No. 13 in the AP Poll and No. 23 in KenPom, leading most to believe they should’ve been rewarded with better than an eight-seed. Likewise, Creighton is a deep, experienced team that’s 15-4 in its last 19 games and finished second in the Big East. All in all, these are two very good teams that should produce high-quality basketball in the opening match for the Round of 64.

Louisville is one of the more fascinating teams in the sport, having brought in a whopping 13 transfers last offseason under first-year head coach Pat Kelsey. They’re led by backcourt duo of Terrence Edwards and Chucky Hepburn, and though the Cardinals aren’t littered with high-profile NBA Draft prospects, they wield one of the biggest advantages a team can have in March — seniority, with at least 12 players on the roster already in their fourth year of college hoops (some are even in their fifth and sixth years).

Creighton, on the other side, is enjoying their fifth straight tournament appearance under head coach Greg McDermott. The Bluejays are led by fifth-year players Ryan Kalkbrenner and Steven Ashworth, the former being a seven-footer and a four-time Big East Defensive Player of the Year, and the latter a six-foot guard who specializes in post-entry passes and taking threes from well beyond the arc.

On the surface, these are two squads that are way too good to be playing in an 8 vs. 9 matchup. Should be a great game.

(6) Missouri vs (11) Drake, Thursday, 7:35 p.m.

This matchup features two teams with guards who have shot up into potential NBA Draft status throughout the season (though it’s possible neither ends up declaring this season).

For Mizzou, Anthony Robinsson went from coming off the bench a year ago to becoming one of the best defenders in the entire country. On Drake’s side, guard Bennett Stirtz followed his coach Ben McCollum up from D-II and has put together a one-of-a-kind season statistically. Stirtz averaged 19.1 points, 5.7 assists, and — most remarkably — 39.3 minutes per game. Mind you, college basketball is an endeavor with only 40 regulation minutes; he only subbed out at any point during 11 of the Bulldogs’ 33 games, going the distance in the other 22.

Watch for some great basketball, and two guards you should be impressed by for very different reasons.

(4) Maryland vs (13) Grand Canyon, Friday, 4:35 p.m.

In case you missed my article last week, Maryland’s freshman Derik Queen is as entertaining a player as there is in the sport. He’s coming into the tournament off a season-high 31-point performance against Michigan, and is as likely as anyone to go on a crazy run through March.

And if for some reason Queen’s funky excellence isn’t enough for you, take joy in the fact that the Maryland starters go by the moniker, “The Crab Five,” an East Coast take on the Fab Five name that was made famous by Michigan in the early 90s. The four other starters together with Queen have accounted for 85.6% of the team’s total points scored this season, making them well worthy of the distinction.

The WAC’s Grand Canyon is a good 13-seed, having pulled off a first-round upset as a 12-seed just last year, while five of their seven regular season losses were decided by fewer than 10 points. They’re coached by Bryce Drew (yes, that Bryce Drew), and the story of how Tyon Grant-Foster got to where he is now playing basketball at GCU is worth taking the time to read.

Maryland is going to be a popular pick to make a deep run in the tournament with just how talented their starting five is, but Grand Canyon poses a tough test straight off the bat.

(7) Marquette vs (10) New Mexico, Friday, 7:25 p.m.

Marquette has one of the best players in the country in point guard Kam Jones, absolutely sick blue-and-yellow uniforms that always look great on television, and a delightful five-out offense that’s quite aesthetically pleasing if you’re a basketball nerd.

New Mexico likewise has one of the best guards in the country in Donovan Dent, just wrapped up its best regular season since the days of Cameron Bairstow (shoutout if you remember), and should pose a good foil to Marquette’s high-powered attack, with a defense that’s top 20 in adjusted defensive efficiency, per KenPom.

(1) USC vs (16) UNC Greensboro, Saturday, 3:00 p.m.

While the men’s tournament kicks off early Thursday, the first round of the women’s tournament gets going on Friday and takes us all the way into the start of next week, and there’s no better player to watch than Naismith Player of the Year frontrunner JuJu Watkins.

Watkins is appointment viewing every time she steps foot on the basketball court. She averaged 25-7-4 as a 19 year-old sophomore for a team that could very well be cutting down the nets in Tampa a few weeks from now.

Box scores Watkins has recorded this season include:

• 38 points, 11 rebounds, 8 blocks, and 5 steals in a 71-60 win over No. 1 seed and arch rival UCLA

• 35 points on 15 shots (she also had 11 rebounds and 5 steals in that game)

• A near 5-by-5 performance with 21 points, 9 assists, 6 steals, 4 rebounds, 3 assists

Additionally, Kiki Iriafen is an incredible forward averaging a near double-double, and she’ll hear her name called in April during the WNBA Draft. Watch special athletes whenever you get the chance.

Those are five matchups I’d highly recommend, but the more important thing is this — watch as much basketball as you possibly can this week.

Subscribe now

Daniel Olinger is a writer for the Rights To Ricky Sanchez, and author of “The Danny” column, even though he refuses to be called that in person. He can be followed on X @dan_olinger.

“The Danny” is brought to you by the Official Realtor Of The Process, Adam Ksebe.

It’s been a full decade since the last time the Sixers used a first-round pick on a center.

Ever since drafting Jahlil Okafor third overall in 2015 — the third straight center the Sixers had picked in the lottery up to that point — the team has used its first round-capital to acquire Ben Simmons, Timothe Luwawu-Cabbarot, Furkan Korkmaz, Markelle Fultz, Zhaire Smith, Landry Shamet, Matisse Thybulle, Tyrese Maxey, Jaden Springer and Jared McCain. That’s 10 different players, almost all of whom are guards in some form or another.

It made sense given that the franchise’s future was oriented around a center in their 2014 pick, Joel Embiid. Once he showed what he could be during his rookie season in 2017, centers were all but off-the-table as first-round picks. Why spend an extremely valuable pick on someone who probably can’t be on the floor at the same time as your best player?

But times *could* be changing. Embiid returning from this recent run of injuries and playing at a dominant level should in no way be ruled out of the realm of possibility, but it’s also far from a guarantee. If the Sixers land a top six pick, there’s an argument for just going the best-player-available route and selecting a center if the guards and wings they’d want the most are already off the board.

Of course, the Sixers will already roster a few centers in 2025-26, with Adem Bona already drafted to be the backup center of the future, and Andre Drummond possibly picking up his player option in the summer. Still, with as rough a season as the Sixers have endured, anything and everything should be on the table come draft time. Here are four top-of-the-line centers the team could be eyeing in the coming months:

Khaman Maluach, Duke

Though Flagg is the main reason Duke has stormed to a 28-3 record, Khaman Maluach might be No. 2. The 7-foot-2 center from South Sudan is an imposing force who serves as an incredible defensive anchor, while also adding to the Blue Devils’ offense with his screening, rebounding and vertical spacing as a lob threat.

He averages just 20.6 minutes per game due to a) Duke having an excellent small-ball backup big in Maliq Brown, who does offer more perimeter skill than Maluach, and b) Duke bludgeoning teams so badly that they play all their reserves in the last 10 minutes of each game. Maluach still recorded 34 blocks in 31 games despite the small minute load, and he altered plenty of more shots. His technique both as a drop defender in the pick and roll and switching onto smaller players improved throughout the season, leading to several excellent sequences.

Offensively, Maluach fits the mold of a big who doesn’t seem to mind a lack of shots (at least from an outsider’s perspective). Of the 145 field goals he’s attempted, 117 have come at the rim, per BartTorvik. Almost all of his offense comes via a pick and roll lob from a teammate, or a putback following an offensive rebound, and he is elite in both of those avenues of scoring.

Maluach is understandably limited as a passer and dribbler, as he only started playing basketball in 2019. It speaks to his incredible potential and feel for the game that he very quickly improved at Duke and became a vital piece of an excellent team, owning the paint on both ends of the floor. He’s fifth in the entire country in Offensive Rebound Percentage (17.0%) and top ten in total dunks with 59.

A center who doesn’t try to do too much and excels on defense and the glass is usually the description of a low-ceiling, high-floor player, which might be fair for Maluach. Yet, I believe his ceiling to be much higher. He has every bit of real NBA size at the position. He moves surprisingly well in space for someone that tall. He shows good hands catching the ball in tight spaces. He gets physical fighting for position on the inside, and he won’t turn 19 till September.

Maluach still has room to develop into much more than he is right now, especially with a shooting stroke that isn’t hopeless. He occasionally flashed potential as a shooter prior to his time at Duke, and though he’s just 2-for-13 from three this season, he’s also shot 75% on 64 free throw attempts. The touch is there, even if the results from behind the arc haven’t shown up quite yet. A guy who is 7-foot-2, while still being very mobile, and has shown rapid improvements on both ends of the court at a young age, is hard to put any kind of ceiling on.

Derik Queen, Maryland

There’s little debate that Flagg is the best prospect in this class, but it’s his former high school teammate Derik Queen who might be the most fun to watch.

The Maryland center has a wild combination of strength, short-area quickness, hand-eye coordination, and a willingness to try just about anything on the court. He’ll speed past a defender and finish with finesse like Naz Reid, he’ll take one-legged step-backs modeled after Dirk Nowitzki and Nikola Jokic, and he’ll throw some extremely creative and ambitious passes at a moment’s notice. Every second he’s on the court, there’s a chance that something spectacular happens.

(I included two of his AAU passes in those highlights because those are two of my favorite passes any prospect has ever thrown).

Of course, Queen’s lack of fear on the hardwood does come with some risk. He’s recorded 61 assists in 31 games, but also 75 turnovers – and while he’s made a great deal of mid-range jumpers, he’s shot just 2-for-24 on three-point attempts. Additionally, though this might not matter to most, it’s worth noting that Queen is an older freshman who will be turning 21 during December of his rookie season.

Still, it’s extremely hard to find a big as skilled as Queen. At every level of basketball he’s played — High School, AAU, now College — he’s dominated his competition athletically. He’s too strong to stop inside or keep off the boards, and too quick and fluid with his first step to not be a threat driving from the perimeter.

Asa Newell, Georgia

It’s a little funny that Queen and Asa Newell were high school teammates at Monteverde, seeing as they’re diametrically opposed in play styles. Whereas Queen operates on an open canvas, Newell brings a very buttoned-up approach to the game. He competes hard on both ends of the floor, finishes plays with dunks and threes when asked, and rarely tries to color outside the lines of the team’s design in the halfcourt offense. He operates much more like Maluach than Queen, more often playing within his role instead than daring to venture outside of it.

Of the four centers mentioned in this article, Newell has the most attempts from three this past season, launching 82 triples and connecting on 24 of them (29.3%). Outside of that, it’s pretty much all at-rim for the Georgia big, who connected on 127 of his 176 attempts around the basket (72.2%), per Synergy.

With at least a somewhat-promising shooting stroke mixed in with decent defensive mobility, there’s a possibility that Newell could also moonlight as a 4 in the NBA, though his lack of off-the-dribble work hinders that belief. Newell rarely attempted jumpers that weren’t of the catch-and-shoot variety, and he averaged just under an assist per game. Both are similar limitations ascribed to Maluach, but unlike Maluach, Newell is closer to 6-foot-10 than he is to 7-foot-2, which makes a big difference.

Still, Newell projects as a very high-floor prospect who will likely stick in the NBA regardless of team context with his combination of plus athletic traits and play finishing acumen.

Alex Condon, Florida

While you likely won’t see Condon high on any mainstream mock drafts, he’s simply too talented to not mention in this article. The sophomore big has rocketed up big boards following an incredible season for a 27-4 Florida team that has a very real shot at winning the NCAA title.

The 6-foot-11 Australian big brings a wild combination of athleticism, playmaking feel, and shooting upside that’s hard to find at any level of basketball. According to Synergy, he’s shot 66.4% at the rim (81-for-122) and 34.9% from three (15-for-43), capable of skying for thunderous finishes and spacing the floor to make a hesitant defense pay.

(If you couldn’t tell from those highlights, his performance at Alabama a couple of weeks ago was one of the best games any prospect has played during this past season).

The more intriguing aspect of Condon’s game is his role as a DHO operating hub. Florida trusted him to run their offense on many occasions, and to great success. Condon sees cutters well and isn’t afraid to thread a pass through a tight window, finishing the regular season with 65 assists to just 32 turnovers.

Realistically, unless something big changes in public draft perception over the next few months, Condon won’t be picked in the top six. Even though anchoring bias shouldn’t matter, it’s still hard for someone who originally entered college as a three-star recruit to surpass the five-stars ahead of him in draft rankings, even if Condon has more than proven that original evaluation of him to be wrong. The world where the Sixers end up with him likely involves a trade-back or stealing him with an early second-round selection (in which case, everyone should be ecstatic). But he’s simply been too sensational this season to not mention in the article. A big man with his kind of upside should be on every team’s radar come June.

Subscribe now

Daniel Olinger is a writer for the Rights To Ricky Sanchez, and author of “The Danny” column, even though he refuses to be called that in person. He can be followed on X @dan_olinger.

“The Danny” is brought to you by the Official Realtor Of The Process, Adam Ksebe.

You all know the drill by now. This season has not gone well. The Sixers keep their pick for the 2025 NBA Draft if it lands in the top six. Anything after that, and it goes to the OKC Thunder.

Two weeks ago, I wrote about Cooper Flagg, who is as locked in to the No. 1 overall pick as any prospect in recent memory. He’s in the same tier as Wemby in 2023 and Anthony Davis in 2012. There is no debate what the Sixers would do if they win the lottery and get the top pick.

But what of the prospects after Flagg? That’s where the real debate begins for draftniks around the league, and the closest player that’s emerged as a consensus No. 2 is none other than Rutgers’ point guard Dylan Harper.

The son of five-time NBA champion Ron Harper, Dylan is a 6-foot-6 lefty who has long been considered one of the best prospects in this class, and would’ve had a shot at being the first pick had Flagg not skipped a year of high school. Through 27 games, he’s averaged 19.1 points, 4.4 rebounds, and 4.0 assists on 49-34-75 shooting splits for a Rutgers squad that does not have the prettiest record in the world (14-16 overall, 7-12 in conference).

Harper missed three games during the middle of the season, both due to an ankle injury and a nasty case of the flu that reportedly caused him to lose nine pounds. As one might imagine, it took the guard a few games to get back into playing shape after that, as his mid- and late-season numbers are a good tick below what he was doing early in the season. Harper's pinnacle came in November during the Players Era Festival in Las Vegas, when he scored 36 and 37 points in back-to-back nights against Notre Dame and Alabama, respectively.

Harper is a downhill driver who uses his size and strength at the guard position to bully smaller defenders out of the way, and his speed to blow past any bigger bodies matched up against him. Per BartTorvik, Harper has attempted 153 shots at the rim and converted on 69.3% of them while also drawing 5.6 free throw attempts per game. For reference, Tyrese Maxey only averaged 3.9 FTA/G as a college player at Kentucky, while Jared McCain was even lower at 2.4 FTA/G a season ago at Duke, i.e. Harper’s free throw rate is rather impressive for a guard his age. Since he’s a tall, lefty ball handler who wants to live at the rim, you’ll probably see Harper get compared to R.J. Barrett in the coming months, though Harper has shown more promise as a distributor than Barrett had by this point in their respective careers.

His 1.70 assist-to-turnover ratio isn’t anything extraordinary, but it’s well past the Mendoza line of what would be considered a red flag for a lead initiator at the college level. Harper’s passes are more functional than flashy. His tape isn’t littered with no-look dimes or one-handed live dribble passes that go flying to the opposite side. Rather, it’s littered with good reads, where Harper either collapses the defense and makes the easy pass to an open teammate, or capitalizes on an advantage a teammate created and whips the ball to wherever it needs to go next.

Ultimately, the driving and the passing aren’t going to be the questions that determine Harper’s NBA future. He’s plenty good enough at both skills for a 19 year-old guard who is physically built like most wings at the next level. The real on-court attribute to monitor for Harper is whether or not teams are going to respect his jumper.

Going back to his days playing high school hoops at Don Bosco in New Jersey, Harper has often hovered around the 32-35 percent range as a three-point shooter. Good enough that he can’t be ignored from behind the arc, but not elite enough opponents won’t go under screens to take away his drives.

During this season at Rutgers, he’s shot 21-for-55 on catch-and-shoot threes (38.2%) and 26-for-85 on off-the-dribble threes (30.6%) — again, not stellar marks, but also far from disastrous numbers. According to Synergy, he’s 15-for-47 on two-point jumpers (31.2%), which sounds bad on the surface, till you remember how few college players have an established and consistent pull-up mid-range game. The fact that he can even get those shots off with any level of regularity is a plus, even if the accuracy needs work.

Anecdotally, Harper’s pull-ups look better the more control he exerts on the rep itself. The shots where he deliberately attacks a defender’s top foot, then hops back with open space created look a lot cleaner than the reps where he rushes and settles for a pull-up just because his man wasn’t quite up in his air space.

Self-creation is the name of the game for NBA stars, and Harper’s burgeoning step-back craft is a sign that he might hit that level in the future. Compare those jumpers he’s actively creating to the ones where he rushes his footwork and just tries to get a shot up, and the results are night and day.

As strong and as quick as Harper is, he’s not the most vertically explosive prospect in the world. He can be a high quality NBA player on his slashing and distributing abilities alone, but true All-Star level equity down the line will probably be unlocked with a more consistent pull-up jumper, both in the mid-range and behind the three-point line. (Though this is not to say that Harper has a *bad* vertical or poor leaping ability around the rim, he’s just not in the S Tier of bounce).

Now one might be wondering why Rutgers is 14-16 if Harper is a deserving No. 2 overall pick, and one of the players competing with him for that spot is his own teammate Ace Bailey (who is probably getting his own article in the coming months). The most important thing to remember there is that team success at the college level and being a good future NBA player are two distinct things that aren’t always correlated. Anthony Edwards and Toumani Camara were both freshmen on a Georgia team that went 16-16. Before Jalen Johnson became a franchise cornerstone for the Atlanta Hawks, he also played for the only Duke team that missed the NCAA Tournament in the entire 21st century.

What makes Flagg so remarkable is that he’s breaking the age curve of the sport. The best, most productive college basketball player in the country isn’t supposed to be an 18 year-old freshman who might lead his team to a title. More often, freshman stars have seasons that look like Harper’s, filled with ups and downs that are worth inspecting.

Additionally, Harper’s midseason health issues are not something that should just be wiped away. It’s hard to return to the same level of play after losing weight due to something that unpredictable (just look at how Darius Garland’s broken jaw affected him last year). Finally, the reason Harper and Bailey both choosing Rutgers was so notable is that the school doesn’t often have ample NBA talent. The lefty guard was often seeing two defenders sent at him whenever he turned the corner on a ball screen. Defenses committed to getting the ball out of his hands more and more after his red hot start to the season.

Ultimately, the hypothetical decision the Sixers have to make with a pick that lands in the 2-6 range will be difficult. Harper is deservedly the consensus No. 2 prospect in the class, but he’s still a guard with a few questions who’d be going to a team whose two best under-25 players are guards themselves. Defensively, there’s fewer question marks about a Harper-Maxey-McCain fit, because at 6-foot-6, Harper really does have the size necessary to guard up and take on wings at the NBA level (though it’d still be asking quite a lot of a young ball handler to also handle that level of responsibility on the other end of the floor). His 1.4 steals and 0.5 blocks per game are nice, solid marks that indicate a knack for playmaking, but there are few things harder than projecting defensive translation to the next level unless a prospect looks like an absolute world beater on that end in the previous level.

Offensively, the potential fit may appear wonky on the surface. Harper understandably plays on-ball a lot, something Maxey also does quite a bit, and something Sixers fans probably want to see McCain experiment even more with in year two. But think about how basketball has evolved in the NBA the past few years. The OKC Thunder very well might win the title in a few months, and from a distance their overarching philosophy has been “draft every player who can run a pick and roll”. Loading up on creation and ball handling has paid massive dividends for teams like them and the Celtics, and could be the plan moving forward for the Sixers as they head into the late 2020s.

Spend enough time watching any prospect, and you can talk yourself into or out of them with ease. The no-brainer, no-doubt-about-it picks are hard to come by. Harper isn’t so far ahead of the rest of the top prospects that he can be locked in at No. 2 without a second thought, but he’s earned his spot there right now. That height, those handles, and those passing reads are enough to give him a high floor as an NBA talent, and if he can grow on the finer points of his game, he could very well be a home run pick for the Sixers come June.

Subscribe now

Daniel Olinger is a writer for the Rights To Ricky Sanchez, and author of “The Danny” column, even though he refuses to be called that in person. He can be followed on X @dan_olinger.

“The Danny” is brought to you by the Official Realtor Of The Process, Adam Ksebe.

There’s a solid chance Cooper Flagg first got on your radar last summer when stories of his incredible play for the U.S. select team against the country’s Olympic squad surfaced. The hype was understandable. It's not normal to have a star-studded performance against the best players in the world before you even play your first college game. But there was actually a moment years prior where Flagg truly announced himself to the basketball world, a performance that foretold just how special he was.

Playing for the USA Men’s U17 National Team at the 2022 FIBA U17 World Cup, Flagg had a championship game for the ages, posting a stat line with 10 points, 17 rebounds, 8 steals, and 4 blocks to secure the gold medal. Even more impressive — Flagg was only 15 years old when he did this, making him the second-youngest player on the floor for Team USA that day.

This has been a common theme throughout Flagg’s career — he plays up against opponents who are older than him, still manages to dominate statistically, and then his team wins most, if not all, of their games. In the same year he won gold, Flagg transferred to Montverde Academy, and immediately emerged as the high school juggernaut’s star player. There he was teammates with Derik Queen, Asa Newell, and Liam McNeeley — three players who very well might join Flagg in the draft lottery this year, and who are all a full year or even two older than him — and yet, there was no confusion in the pecking order at Monteverde. Flagg was the guy, and he always has been.

He began this college basketball season as one of the youngest players in the entire sport, not turning 18 until late December 2024. Despite that decided disadvantage, Flagg is averaging 19.7 points, 7.7 rebounds, 4.0 assists, 1.6 steals, and 1.2 blocks per game for a No. 3 ranked Duke team that could very well win the national title. He’s also got a real shot at winning National Player of the Year, an honor that has only gone to three freshmen ever in its 82-year history — Zion Williamson, Anthony Davis, and Kevin Durant. It’s pretty good company when the “worst” player in the trio is college Zion.

The only “flaw” anyone can point to with him is that in each of Duke’s three losses, Flagg has had the ball late in a close game and committed a turnover while falling down mid-spin move. That criticism of course ignores the fact that Flagg is the primary reason the Blue Devils have even had a chance to win in those three losses. Just look at what he did against Clemson two weeks ago during the home stretch of the game:

Performances like his recent outing against Clemson are fascinating given the jump shot was never supposed to be the selling point with Flagg – yet it’s slowly grown into another strength all the same. He’s shot 37.4% on 99 three-point attempts through 26 collegiate games, and an impressive 38.1% on off-the-dribble triples. He’s always had an imposing mid-range bag, getting to his spots and rising up over shorter defenders for solid looks roughly 12-17 feet away from the basket. Rather, it’s his aggression and physical nature driving toward the rim that puts the most fear into his opponents. Flagg is imposing with any amount of runway, looking stronger, faster, and more explosive than just about anyone he goes up against.

He’s not afraid to knock someone backward with his shoulders before finishing at the rim, nor does he show any discomfort finishing with his left hand. Duke has especially found great success with him as a roll man this season, having him set high ball screens out of Horns alignments before attacking a tilted defense with devastating effect.

He’s not just a bucket getter or play finisher on offense either, showing rather impressive passing chops, particularly in the pick and roll. No one would confuse him with a heliocentric James Harden acolyte, but Flagg can break down a defense when they overcommit their resources toward thwarting him. He’s particularly adept at hitting rolling big men for high value opportunities at the rim, a skill that would pair well with rim running bigs like the Sixers’ Adem Bona.

(Side note: the teammate Flagg is passing to in all those plays is Khaman Maluach, one of my other favorite prospects in this entire draft. The Sixers aren’t in the market for another big man, but you could defensibly put Maluach as high as No. 2 on an NBA Draft Big Board right now, and I wouldn’t disagree).

This is all precursor to the most enticing aspect of Flagg’s game though — his horrifyingly good defense. Duke ranks fourth nationally in adjusted defensive efficiency per KenPom, and a lot of that can be attributed to the remarkable playmaking of Flagg. He plays an opportunistic style of defense that Duke coach Jon Scheyer has leaned into this season, having the Blue Devils switch almost every single off-ball action. This allows Flagg to play up high on the floor compared to whomever he’s guarding (think the way Nico Batum was always denying/face-guarding offensive players off-ball with the way he positioned his feet).

It can occasionally bite him, as one of Flagg’s only weaknesses is that he’ll get caught ball watching as his man slips into open space. But with how incredible and game-changing his blocks and steals are, you live with the infrequent slip-ups every day of the week. He prowls around the court looking for the ball while also being keen to rotate to the rim and protect his teammates. Even the most momentary relaxation is enough for Flagg to pounce with his quickness and insane wingspan to snatch the ball away.

Comparing prospects to NBA players can often go overboard, lofting unfair star expectations on prospects from an early age. Yet, there’s nothing that seems too far-fetched for Flagg. The comparisons range from Anthony Davis to Kawhi Leonard to even Breanna Stewart, and none of them feel that impossible for him to reach with how amazing he’s looked despite — and I need to reiterate this — being a full year younger if not more than everyone he’s playing against. A theme with those three comparisons is their physical dominance on the court, which Flagg shows in spades. He’s completely overwhelming for normal college basketball players, simply too physical and too athletic for them to deal with. The only ones who can are future NBA players themselves who are already developed as the best upperclassmen in the sport. Even in those matchups, the best athletes of college basketball can only contain Flagg or slow him down momentarily, there’s no way to fully halt his impact. Every game you feel his presence on the court.

This brings us to the Sixers of it all. As most everyone knows, the team sits at 20-34, 11th in the Eastern Conference standings, and holding the sixth-worst record in the NBA (though they are tied with Brooklyn in all of those regards). The Sixers only retain their first-round pick if it stays in the top six of the draft. If the pick falls anywhere below that, it goes to the OKC Thunder, bringing their collective draft capital up to roughly 20,794 picks in total over the next five years.

According to Tankathon, the Sixers currently have an 8.3% chance to land the first overall pick in the 2025 NBA Draft. In total, they only have a 43.4% chance of holding onto the pick entirely. Those odds aren’t ideal on the surface, but consider the alternative.

The odds that the Sixers crack the top 10 in the East and make the Play-In are definitely better than 8.3%, and honestly maybe better than 43.4%. The conference is not that impressive, and all four teams directly in front of them (Chicago, Miami, Atlanta, Orlando) have losing records. Passing one or two of those teams is far from impossible. The chances the Sixers survive the Play-In, however, are a good bit lower. More importantly, the odds that the Sixers could upset one of the Cavs, the Celtics, or whoever they might play in a first-round series have grown increasingly worse as the season’s progressed. Even then, while upsetting one of those teams would fulfill the goal of the Sixers beating a good team in the playoffs during this era, it doesn’t even guarantee that they would make it past the second round and into the conference finals.

Deciding whether to keep pushing in the chips to try and win games during the final third of the season vs going all in on the tank comes down to one question: Do the Sixers have a better chance of accomplishing something meaningful during the 2025 postseason than they do of landing the first overall pick in the draft? It’s okay to think the first option is the more likely one. It’s also okay to prefer that the team put forward a more entertaining product over the final 28 regular season games rather than going all in on accumulating losses.

Personally, I find the Sixers landing the first overall pick and Cooper Flagg more realistic, even if there is only an 8.3% chance of it happening right now. Not only that, but acquiring Flagg is the most meaningful step the franchise could take toward making that oft-desired postseason run. He offers both the potential of being a superstar cornerstone in the future, and contributing to winning right away, seeing as his whole career he’s done nothing but win, even despite being the youngest guy on the court.

It’s felt like a lost Sixers season for quite a while now. Hanging onto that top-six pick would already make it feel a lot more worthwhile, and even more so if that pick turned into Flagg. He’s not just a good prospect worth looking at, he’s a historically great prospect who makes all the losses worth it.

He’s a prospect worth tanking for.

Subscribe now

Daniel Olinger is a writer for the Rights To Ricky Sanchez, and author of “The Danny” column, even though he refuses to be called that in person. He can be followed on X @dan_olinger.

“The Danny” is brought to you by the Official Realtor Of The Process, Adam Ksebe.

There’s a million different reasons to choose your favorite basketball players. It can be as simple as the best guy on your hometown team, to the guy who plays basketball with the style you’ve always wanted to play with yourself.

As you probably guessed from this post’s title, newly acquired Sixers point guard Jared Butler is one of my favorite basketball players ever, and it really comes down to a simple reason — he looked unbelievably cool when I watched him play at Baylor back in 2021.

Scouting the NBA Draft wasn’t so much a work obligation for me then as it was a hobby, and it didn’t take long for Butler’s games to feel like a relaxing treat more than anything else. Not too shocking considering he won a title at Baylor on a team that went 28-2 and had one of the most dominant tournament runs in NCAA history. Turns out good basketball is fun basketball.

But it was more than that watching Butler. He so often looked like the best player on the floor despite having some clear physical limitations compared to his peers, measuring just over 6-foot-2 at the draft combine and clocking in below 200 pounds. He arguably had the best handle in all of college basketball (particularly with his left-to-right cross, a move he still shreds defenders with now), but he didn’t have that John Wall or Tyrese Maxey tier of blink-and-you’ll-miss-it speed. Not a huge vertical leaper either, recording just five dunks in 94 career games played at Baylor.

Yet Butler still looked unstoppable more often than not. He was too slippery and crafty for defenders to keep him in front, with a 41.6% three-point shot and excellent passing vision to boot. He just always knew how to make the good plays. He knew how to get buckets, he knew how to make defenses pay for overcommitting their resources to him, he knew how to move off-ball, he knew how to survive on defense — which in total could be summed by saying he knew how to be a winning basketball player.

Of course, it hasn’t been all smooth sailing for Butler since then. As a freshman at Baylor, Butler was diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a rare genetic heart condition. Though he is asymptomatic, the condition did hurt his draft stock. NBA teams are already extremely hesitant to commit prime resources to small guards, much less so to ones with any health concerns. Thus, Butler slid all the way to pick 40, and is already on his fourth team in four seasons now.

He hasn’t truly stuck in a meaningful way as of yet, but it’s also clear that he’s as close as he’s ever been. The 7.0 points per game he’s averaging this season is a career high, and his 15-point performance on Tuesday was essentially the only positive during the Sixers’ dismal loss to the Raptors. Though it took him a long time to raise his level of play to the point where his style would work against NBA defenders, Butler is starting to look like his college self once more. His guile and tricky footwork is nearly unmatched, consistently throwing opponents off balance in order to scoot by them on his way to the rim.

He’s a brilliant actor, selling his moves with head fakes and shoulder faints while keeping his dribble alive at all times. Occasionally he’ll miss a contested look in the paint due to the limitations of his size and burst, but it’s no longer a weakness great enough to prevent him from getting on the court for meaningful minutes.

You can tell how much thought and practice goes into how Butler plays the game, how he’s always tinkering to perfect the edges and capitalize on the margins offered to him, and it’s why I enjoy watching him so much. Naturally, every guy who makes the NBA while standing at 6-foot-3 or shorter is absolutely insane in the most positive sense of the word. To hang in a league with athletes this explosive and tall, almost every “short” guy in the NBA has to be skilled beyond your wildest imagination. It’s why Steph Curry resonates with so many fans today, and why Allen Iverson did two decades ago. We inherently understand how difficult their jobs are and are blown away by their success.

Obviously, Butler isn’t on the historic level of a Curry or an Iverson. He’s coming off the bench for a 20-33 Sixers team. But on that much smaller scale, I still see the same thing — a small guard without an outlier athletic trait who continues to play great basketball because he understands the sport so well, and how he can best use his strengths in said sport. I can’t help but smile after each one of his crafty buckets. Even earlier this season when he lit the Sixers up while still a member of the Wizards, I couldn’t help but be elated watching Butler do his thing.

It’s easy to push back on all this Butler optimism by looking at his current contract situation. He’s still on a two-way deal and is in no way guaranteed to be on the team next year. Personally, I think he’s good enough to warrant consideration for a real NBA contract and to be a key part of the Sixers’ guard depth moving forward, but I’m also extremely biased in this situation. Trading Reggie Jackson was more likely about acquiring the four second-round picks than it was about acquiring Butler, which does not portend well to the chances he’s still wearing a Sixers uniform in 2026.

However, (and I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve written this) in a season that has pretty much been a worst case scenario for the Sixers, it’s important to celebrate all the positives you can find. Watching newcomers like Jared McCain, Justin Edwards, and Guerschon Yabusele all thrive and become fan favorites is necessary to keep the spirits up amidst everything else that’s gone wrong.

Jared Butler might not have the mass fan appeal of those three at the moment. He’s not a rookie, nor does he serve up poster dunks while being nicknamed The Dancing Bear. But he’s one of my favorite basketball players ever, and I’m really happy he’s on the Sixers.

Subscribe now

Daniel Olinger is a writer for the Rights To Ricky Sanchez, and author of “The Danny” column, even though he refuses to be called that in person. He can be followed on X @dan_olinger.

“The Danny” is brought to you by the Official Realtor Of The Process, Adam Ksebe.

Let me take you back to the most impressive moment of Quentin Grimes’ young career. It’s May of 2023, and the Miami Heat hold a 3-1 series lead over the New York Knicks. The Knicks have a six-point lead with just under two minutes left in Game 5, but the Heat are rallying behind Jimmy Butler. That’s when Grimes gets clipped hard by a Bam Adebayo screen, and immediately falls to the floor while holding his left leg.

He then gets up and makes a game-saving play:

On Tuesday, the Sixers traded for that very same Quentin Grimes, sending the Dallas Mavericks Caleb Martin in return. Additionally, the Sixers also had their 2025 second-round draft pick returned to their control, having originally given away said pick in their trade for George Hill all the way back in 2021.

Grimes is appropriately tagged with a label that’s bestowed on many NBA role players: He’s a 3-and-D guy. Through nearly four seasons, 67.8% of his total shot attempts have been three-pointers, while his ferocious on-ball defense is what originally got him minutes as a first- and second-year player with Tom Thibodeau’s Knicks.

He was traded to the Pistons midway through the 2023-24 season, and following an increasingly brutal stint in Detroit, he was quickly moved to Dallas in exchange for Tim Hardaway Jr. and three second-round picks. Grimes’ 47 games as a Maverick were some of the best of his career, as he’s averaging more than 10 points per game while shooting just under 40% from deep, and was insulating an offensively slanted Dallas backcourt with his defense.

He’s not much of a creator for others, as his handle and passing are just a bit too static for him to fully bend and manipulate a set defense. However, playing off advantage-creating superstars, like Kyrie Irving and somehow former Maverick Luka Doncic, Grimes can excel as a play finisher.

Grimes is a career 38.8% shooter on 874 catch-and-shoot three-point attempts, a significantly better mark than the 31.1% he’s shot on 193 career off-the-dribble three-point attempts, per Synergy. He’s got a quick release, and launches the ball from a high set point above his head, allowing him to nail some triples in spite of having a hand in his face.

Worth noting: This has been far and away the best off-the-dribble three-point shooting season of Grimes’ career. He was 35-for-140 (25%) on off-the-dribble entering the 2024-25 campaign, yet this year, is shooting a stellar 25-for-53 (47.2%) on the exact same type of shots. He’s still much more of a play finisher, who would sooner shoot than put the ball on the floor, but he’s started to show that he has more self-creation upside than most pundits originally thought.

Defensively, Grimes is a bit of a unique mover. He consistently chops his feet so hard that it’s almost as if he’s doing it for dramatic effect, and he takes the idea of getting your chest into someone very literally. It’s a physical, aggressive style that has served him well throughout his young NBA career.

None of this is to say Grimes is a perfect player. He’s susceptible to the same pitfalls other physical on-ball defenders face, where quicker opponents can take advantage of his aggression and burst past him to the rim if he guesses wrong on which way to slide. Not to mention, there’s a reason the 3-and-D label is more often given to wings than guards: Wings have more margin for error with their ample height. They aren’t punished as easily as guards are when they lack self-creation chops, and can instead just focus on taking open shots and playing defense (just like Justin Edwards has been doing the past month).

Still, Grimes is a solid piece, bringing a jolt of athleticism, shotmaking and youth to a Sixers team that could use all three of those attributes.

Of course, it’s not like the Sixers picked Grimes up for free. Losing Martin isn’t nothing. Following a rough start to the season where he was very clearly playing through a significant injury, Martin heated up to shoot 50% from three over his last 11 games with the team. Most notably, he solidified his reputation as a Celtics killer on Christmas day, with a 23-point performance that brought back memories of 1982 Andrew Toney.

Martin was probably one of the players who fans reasonably could’ve expected to stay put through the deadline. The Sixers made a hefty commitment to him with a four-year, $35 million contract last summer, giving him far more years of team control than other players who are often in trade rumors. Likewise, with Martin being a proven playoff performer, it was reasonable the Sixers would hang onto him for the following seasons when they might not be stricken with injuries from the jump.

Who the current better player is depends on who you ask; arguing in favor of Grimes or Martin surpassing the other is perfectly understandable in both directions. Those two are roughly the same caliber of player, especially based on their performances through the first half of this season. But when you add in that a) this trade was a financial boon for the Sixers, and b) the team got its second-round pick back, it makes a lot of sense from their side.

I’ll let someone smarter than me explain exactly how this trade impacted the Sixers from a salary cap perspective, but TLDR: The deal saved them money, and they’ve now ducked under the first apron tax. That’s significant in a new era where franchises are essentially sent to player acquisition jail for going over the apron a few too many times.

As for the draft (something that I both know and care more about), the return of the Sixers’ own second-rounder is quite nice, especially if you subscribe to the idea that the season is already lost, and that the Sixers might be better off punting things to next year. Instead of dealing with the whims of a second-round pick dependent on another team’s performance, the Sixers control where this new pick ends up, and how they’d like to use it once its position is finalized.

And if there’s one thing this front office has excelled at under Daryl Morey, it’s landing solid young players outside of the first round of the draft. Just in the past four years, Isaiah Joe, Paul Reed, Charles Bassey, Ricky Council, Adem Bona, and Justin Edwards were all acquired by this team either with a second-round pick or with a quick UDFA signing following the draft’s conclusion. Give the Sixers a pick in the 30-45 range, and odds are, they can find an NBA player.

Deciding which team won the trade is impossible right now: It won’t be clear until everyone sees how Martin looks in Dallas, as well as if the Sixers sign Grimes to a new deal next summer to keep him in Philly, and how Morey and Co. end up using the pick. But it’s a rational deal, with the Sixers taking a gamble on a younger player who might surpass what Martin has been in the NBA in due time, while also saving some cash and restocking the picks in the war chest. It’s not a seismic, landscape-shifting move, but it’s one that definitely matters for the future of the team, and one that has a good chance to turn out positively in the long term.

Subscribe now

Daniel Olinger is a writer for the Rights To Ricky Sanchez, and author of “The Danny” column, even though he refuses to be called that in person. He can be followed on X @dan_olinger.

“The Danny” is brought to you by the Official Realtor Of The Process, Adam Ksebe.