I Love Dominick Barlow

AU on his new Guy on the Sixers.

One of the true cruelties of this Sixers season is that we finally have close to the perfect team around Joel Embiid, only to not really have Joel anymore. Obviously Tyrese Maxey has grown into the perfect co-star, and when he’s been around, Paul George has been a fairly ideal two-way third banana (as has Kelly Oubre, Jr. for that matter). There’s plenty of secondary ball-handling and shooting with Quentin Grimes and an increasingly healthy Jared McCain, and between Adem Bona, Andre Drummond and Jabari Walker, we have the most intriguing and versatile rotation of backup bigs to offer behind Embiid that we’ve ever had. Put 2022 Joel on this team and I dunno if we’re really making the Thunder sweat, but I’ll certainly take my chances against the fucking Pistons or Raptors or whoever else in the East is supposedly actually good this year.

And I haven’t even mentioned the guy who I’ve fallen for hardest this season: Our new two-way frontcourt dynamo Dominick Barlow, who’s opening up all sorts of shit for this team I barely thought possible.

I don’t remember the Sixers — or many other teams — ever having a player quite like Barlow before. On paper there should be a dozen dudes like him available on the league’s scrap heap at any point in time: long, athletic, but kinda positionless and rawer than Fergie’s “Glamorous” drive-thru. But though the profile is eminently recognizable with Dominick, the specifics are really pretty far from what I expected.

First off, there’s long and then there’s lengthy. Barlow is only 6’9, but with a 7’3” wingspan and Inspector Gadget springs; when he’s patrolling the paint he basically looks like Victor Wembanyama to me. Part of it is undoubtedly the comparison to watching Joel these past couple years, where he seems like he’s wearing the Face/Off prison boots whenever he tries to jump or make quick movements around the basket. But when Barlow is our last line of defense at the hoop, I’m absolutely terrified on the other team’s behalf. He’s only averaging about a block a game, but I still trust him a little more as a rim-protector than the much swattier Bona; like prime Jo, the shots that Barlow alters or dissuades in the first place are probably close to incalculable.

And the positionlessness part seems to mostly be a good thing for him, especially in a universe where Joel still routinely exists. He’s not the kind of player I’d ever have envisioned as a starting four for this team — for so long in This Modern NBA, a four was supposed to basically just be a three who you can pretend is kinda big and tall if you squint a certain way; the priorities were shooting and spacing, especially around a centrifugal force like Prime Embiid. That’s obviously not Barlow, but in an NBA increasingly friendly to two-big lineups, he’s still kind of an ideal frontcourt partner for Joel. He’s fast enough to get around the court in a blink, and he’s long and hoppy enough to offer last-minute relief at the rim on a moment’s notice. He’s quick to loose balls and rebounds, and he just gets in the way a lot when the other team is trying to do stuff.

Basically, he can do all the things that Joel can’t really anymore. Jo is still a deterrent of some sort at the rim, and if he has time to establish position and react to plays as they develop rather than having to play catchup, he can still provide fairly stout defense. But when things go awry and he’s gotta think and move on his feet — with second-jump rebounding, running out to suddenly open shooters or last-second shot-erasing — he’s pretty goddamn compromised. And at that point, it’s great to have Barlow and his young bones ready to bound around and plug all the leaks as they start springing up. In the few minutes they’ve played together this season, he’s basically been Joel’s intern, doing all the annoying, tedious junior-position stuff that Jo probably feels he should have long graduated from having to do. It’s been nice to see him get that kind of relief for the first time.

Offense, obviously, is more of the struggle area for Barlow as a fit. If you want to see him as a stretch four, you have to do whatever the opposite of squinting is — he’s had some OK games as a shooter, but he’s 5-19 from three for the season, and all five makes have felt like tiny miracles; when he shoots, you can feel him loading and calibrating like a kicker in Madden. The lineups he’s played in alongside Adem Bona in particular have often felt like playing 3-on-5; our guards are skilled and versatile to make up for a lot in the half-court, but playing at a two-man deficit is gonna strangle any offense eventually.

This Is When Things Get Dangerous

That said, there is something to be said for a guy on offense who’s cool just kinda staying out of the way. One of the first things I noticed and really liked about Barlow was that he was OK playing absolutely zero role in the half-court offense. He doesn’t need touches or shots, and he is more than chill to just stand in the corner providing some semblance of a three-point threat, then zoom in for an offensive rebound or a loose ball or to set a late pick to spring Tyrese Maxey or Quentin Grimes for a shot-clock-beating look if needed. He’s like P.J. Tucker if P.J. Tucker actually did stuff ever.

And in truth... Barlow’s really not quite as raw as he seems like he should be. There have been possessions, more in recent games, where everything breaks down and the ball swings to him, and he’s gotta make something out of nothing with a last-second post-up. And when he’s been called on to do so, the results have been... fine? He’s a pretty good driver, he’s got some OK moves, and he’s even got a little touch. Compare him to Drummond, who 14 years in will just try a pump-fake or spin or two and then kinda toss the ball in the rim’s general direction, and he already seems way more developed. He’ll probably never be a focus of the offense, but he’s found his way to double-digit scoring in each of the Sixers’ last four games, which is really quite impressive for a half-court janitor.

Is he the permanent solution at the four for the Sixers? I dunno just yet, but he’s definitely my favorite of our options so far, and he’s just the guy I’ve been the most overjoyed with on the team in general. I can’t imagine how we got him bargain-bin shopping like this; don’t other teams generally like dudes with 7’3” wingspans and some semblance of real skills? Dunno, but he’s ours now, and I have to imagine he will be for a pretty long time. Credit to Daryl Morey; when you’re spending over $100 mil annually on two guys, you better be able to find some real advantages on the margins, and that’s exactly what he did with Dominick. Now if those $100 mil worth of guys could ever find their way to the lineup on a semi-regular basis, we might actually have something with this team.

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Andrew Unterberger writes for The Rights To Ricky Sanchez, as part of the ‘If Not, Pick Will Convey as Two Second-Rounders’ section of the site. You can follow Andrew on Twitter @AUGetoffmygold and can also read him at Billboard.