Simmons Trade Aside, The Sixers Have Blown The Offseason
They simply failed to work the margins in any real way.
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All throughout this summer, I’ve been hesitant to come to a definitive assessment of the Sixers’ offseason, given that the major domino -- a Ben Simmons trade -- has yet to fall.
In some senses, I still feel that way; whatever beef I have with the rest of the offseason, a strong return for Simmons negates all of that. While I wonder if the neverending waiting game will bring that type of return, I do have a prevailing curiosity that prevents me from saying that it is a mistake. I see a smart GM making a high stakes gamble and can’t help but feel like it’s the right thing to do.
However, the area where I do feel comfortable making a strong condemnation is, well, everything else. This has been a thoroughly unimaginative and underwhelming offseason, and the Simmons saga has distracted everyone from that fact. The Sixers have not added one single thing of long term value this offseason aside from perhaps their draft choices in July.
Sure, those players (Jaden Springer, Charles Bassey, and Filip Petrusev) could turn into contributors. Sure, re-signing Danny Green and Furkan Korkmaz is nice. Sure, locking up Joel Embiid to the supermax was the right move. But none of those things required the slightest bit of imagination, and one could argue that all of them fell into the Sixers’ lap.
Much like offseasons of Sixers past, there weren’t any decidedly terrible moves. They simply failed to work the margins in any real way. Minus the Simmons stuff, this has felt a lot like the 2018 offseason -- they brought back their core players, bet on young players developing, and added nothing on the margins.
In 2018, everyone left the Celtics season clamoring for more wings, and the Sixers not only traded away Mikal Bridges on draft night, but also added no other wings aside from the corpse of Wilson Chandler. They failed to improve the backup center spot, opting to bring back Amir Johnson, and also added some shooting to the front court by signing Mike Muscala.
There parallels there are obvious: the Sixers did not add anyone of value in their biggest area of need (in 2018 it was wings, in 2021 it is shot creation), they fumbled the backup center addition (Johnson in 2018, Andre Drummond in 2021), and thought that adding a one-way power forward to their bench would make a difference (Muscala in 2018, Georges Niang in 2021). On the brighter side, they did manage in both cases to bring back their veteran starting shooting guard (JJ Redick in 2018, Danny Green in 2021).
Much like in 2018, the retort to these criticisms will likely be “what else could they have done?”, and while I admit that the answer is not obvious, I do think that it is Daryl Morey’s job to come up with that.
In Houston, Morey was able to provide value in creative ways on the margins damn near every year -- sometimes in massive ways, other times in small ways. He acquired Luis Scola for a second round pick in 2007. He traded a first round pick for Metta World-Peace in 2008. He traded Aaron Brooks for Goran Dragic and a first round pick in 2011. He plucked Patrick Beverley out of Europe in 2012. He traded Omir Asik and Omri Casspi for Trevor Ariza and a first round pick in 2014.
The list goes on and on, but the point is that Morey repeatedly turned nothing into something almost every single offseason. It sounds like a completely insane expectation to say that Morey should’ve acquired a good player for next to nothing this offseason, but it was a staple of his time in Houston. As for why none of that has manifested this offseason, I have no idea.
I am by no means suggesting that the Sixers’ future is bleak; I’m more perplexed than concerned. They will get improvement from their existing young players, and perhaps one of their draftees will pop in an unexpected way this year. But I’m still left wondering if there was any concrete plan for improving the team in ways beyond Ben Simmons trades this offseason, and if there was, why didn’t it manifest? The Sixers lost a massively embarrassing playoff series 3 months ago, and Simmons wasn’t the only reason for that -- and yet, their roster looks exactly the same.
On top of not being imaginative, there were some flat out strange decisions made this offseason that were indisputably a poor use of resources. Why did they waive George Hill after trading three second round picks for him a few months ago? Why did they let the trade exception from the Al Horford trade expire without using it? Of all of the backup centers in the world, why did they bring in Andre Drummond, who proved unplayable in last year’s playoffs, and has previously beefed with the franchise centerpiece?
In 2018, the inability to sure up their weaknesses and acquire a useful backup center proved damning. It caused them to get off to a slow start, feel the pressure of not meeting expectations, and feel the need to make the Jimmy Butler trade -- which snowballed into the Tobias Harris trade, which snowballed into many other mistakes. In 2021, it’s hard to say what the impact of missing on the margins will ultimately be. Winning a Simmons trade would negate whatever negative impact they had, but that doesn’t excuse the process behind them. The Sixers haven’t added a single thing that improves their long term future this offseason, and who knows what the net impact of trading Simmons will be in that department.