Sixth Man DeMar DeRozan Is the Missing Piece

All I want at the trade deadline is DeMar DeRozan coming off the bench.

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. 

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Last week I argued that Joel Embiid being healthy (LOOOOOL) and regular-season-productive was the only thing that really mattered for the Sixers when it came to contending for a title this season. If they got that, I posited, it ultimately wouldn't make much difference which upgrades they made at the trade deadline, if any. 

I still believe that, though the point Mike made on the podcast on Sunday that the margins are thin enough in the playoffs that you may as well fortify your roster as much as possible is also true. (And yeah, I wrote this article before the Golden State game, so contemplating the non-Joel parts of the roster still seemed a little more urgent.) Regardless, lord knows that even with Embiid at 5000% percent the Sixers still do not currently have either a perfect or totally maximized roster just yet; there are upgrades enough to potentially be made before this trade deadline that while I think discussion of the whole thing ultimately has a taking-five-minutes-to-make-your-12th-round-fantasy-pick vibe to it, I can't disregard it in totality. 

So fine, let me make my case for the one guy I do kinda really want the Sixers to target this trade deadline: DeMar DeRozan. 

DeRozan wasn't ranked by Spike or Mike as a top trade deadline priority, nor have most other Sixers prognosticators I've seen -- though he's also been an even bigger pet cause for FOTB Jason Lipshutz (welcome back from paternity leave Jason we missed you!!) for some time now. Personally, I can't think of another player conceivably available in the next week who would give us the combination of scoring and ball-handling that we could certainly use more of, nor one who has the experience and intelligence to be trustable in half-court late-game situations, nor one who would be as low-commitment for us in the long-term sense if we were to need to keep maximum flexibility open for next offseason. I've always been a fan; I've always strongly disliked playing against him. 

I understand the argument against targeting him, of course. There's two big reasons why I think DeRozan isn't particularly high on folks' lists -- well, three really, but I'll get to the third later -- and they're roughly summarized as such: 

1. He's not much of a three-point shooter or defender, so he's not a particularly ideal fit for an Embiid/Maxey-centered team

2. He's never won big or played particularly well in the playoffs (and his acquisition arguably violates the Ricky's avowed "no losers, no excuses" stance this season). 

Both very reasonable concerns, but I have the solution for both: Bring him off the bench.

I'm thinking of DeRozan essentially as a 20-25-minute a night player for our postseason rotation. He plays 4-5 minutes with Embiid in the first and third quarters as Maxey sits, giving him a far superior two-man-game co-star than he currently has at his disposal among the Sixers' non-Maxey options. He plays another 4-5 minutes with Maxey in the second and fourth quarters as Embiid gets his breather, and allows Tyrese to do a little off-ball roaming and the spot-up shooting Mike has been craving, and generally fulfill more of his early-prophesied Kyle Lowry destiny alongside DeRozan. Then he plays a final 4-5 minutes alongside both Embiid and Maxey at the end of each half -- or not, depending on the matchup and what the Sixers most need down the stretch. He fills in when and where we most need him, and he mostly gets out of the way besides that. 

Getting a guy as our big deadline acquisition to play (at most) half the available minutes during the playoffs might not sound like a particularly huge win -- to either the Sixers or DeRozan -- but in reality, that's all we really need or want, at least if Joel is mostly right. Despite the prevailing wisdom on Sixers Twitter about Tobias Harris, we have no real reason to believe our starting five requires an upgrade: not when it's been by far the most successful five-man unit in the league, miles ahead of any other lineup with anywhere near their minutes played. What needs juicing is our bench, with our reserve-heavy lineups greatly suffering for playmaking spark when the core two-man game of Maxey and Embiid is severed. He could make beautiful music in the pick-and-roll with Joel, and he could be the playmaking release valve who ensures defenses pay for doubling and/or trapping Maxey 30 feet from the basket while Jo sits. 

DeRozan would also help provide major insurance for further games without Maxey or Embiid in the regular season -- something that demands much stronger consideration now that Joel is out until ???? and the Sixers are at risk of getting locked into the 4/5 seed and the Celtics' side of the playoff bracket, if not slipping even lower. And, yes, he could potentially close playoff games over Tobias if Daddy Touch Time isn't going good through the first 42. (Perhaps just as importantly, he would also mitigate our need to rely on the offense of Kelly Oubre Jr. -- really, our need to play him at all -- which is increasingly looking like crucial flexibility for us to have as the games get more important.)  

For DeRozan... yeah, it might be a big ask for a guy who was in the MVP conversation just two seasons ago (and still averaging a decently efficient 22 a game this year) to sacrifice a third of his minutes and his starting spot for essentially the first time in his career. But he's also 34, nearly a decade and a half into his career, and has been to the conference finals only once more than Embiid has. What's more, since being traded for Kawhi Leonard in 2018, he's never made it past the first round -- and only even made it to the playoffs at all twice. And he’ll get to play more when the team is shorthanded, which figures to be the majority of the remaining season. Besides, he's on a Bulls team going nowhere. He's got six All-Star appearances and nearly 23,000 career points, but folks still talk about him like he's an outside shot at best to make the Hall of Fame. He needs a real playoff run to finish off his resume, and he could get that here. He might be ready to make that his lone objective. 

About all that playoff losing, though: Yes, I know that should be a red flag, the same thing that's scaring us away from LaVine and Murray and other high-volume producers who've yet to prove themselves in the postseason. But that's part of the beauty of the Sixth Man plan: It clearly puts him as third in the pecking order under Embiid and Maxey when they’re both around, mitigating his influence over the team's identity and character. We've never seen DeRozan in the playoffs as a third option, or really anything but a first option; if he didn't always have to be his team's closest thing to a LeBron equivalent, who knows how his postseason career could've gone for its first decade? 

And while DeRozan has done his fair share of playoff losing, I don't think there's any reason to think he profiles as a Born Loser: From all indications, he's a good locker room vet and a real competitor. (And unlike Embiid's two co-stars before Maxey -- or DeMar's own partner on the wing in Chicago -- he's never once publicly quit on his team.) Worst comes to worst, he's on an expiring deal: If he does prove a poor team fit for whatever reason, you don't need to engineer your entire summer around getting rid of him, you just drive him to the airport and wish him well in Houston or Indiana or wherever. Then it's right back to Cap Space Plan A for the offseason.  

Before that, though... there will be times when we will need DeRozan late in games. Picture the Sixers with the ball down one to the Bucks, with 10 seconds to go in a Game Five or Six. All they need is a bucket or a foul. Nick Nurse calls for a high pick-and-roll with Embiid (or Marcus Morris Sr., depending). Who would you rather have in the handler spot: Maxey or DeRozan? Hopefully if he's been scorching all game or all series, you can say Maxey and feel comfortable with that. But we have seen our guy be a little shaky in such spots some games this year, and understandably so -- he's only 23, still on his rookie contract, and playing this role for the first time in his career. He's also just not such a magician in the mid-range yet; he's more effective from deep or at the basket, but those shots aren't always available (or advisable) in those late-game moments. 

DeRozan, on the other hand, is never less than terrifying in this exact scenario -- it seems like he can get a high-percentage two or draw a foul in the half court pretty much any time he wants to. If I was an opposing defense, there's no question that I'd rather deal with Maxey making the final calls in those situations -- just search "DeMar DeRozan game-winner" on YouTube sometime for a sampling of his extensive work in the field. I don't think it's handicapping or no-faithing Tyrese to say that there might be a game or two where it'd be preferable to have the ball in DeRozan's hands late; it's just realistic about the limitations of a player this young and (relatively) inexperienced. 

So what about that third reason why not that I alluded to earlier? Well that's the one that's out of both the Sixers' and DeRozan's hands: The fact that the Bulls are fucking nuts when it comes to evaluating their personnel and planning for their future, and might ask for a superstar's ransom for an aging not-quite-All-Star playing out the final year of his contract on a sub-.500 team. DeRozan for Morris, Robert Covington, Jaden Springer and a future first-round pick may sound imminently reasonable to us and to Daryl Morey, but the Bulls could see that and see it as being at least one first-rounder short. They might ask for De'Anthony Melton or BBall Paul instead of Covington. They might want all our future second rounders (we still have any of those?). They might decide he’s untouchable. It's impossible to say for sure, but the likely difficulties in engaging the Bulls in good faith on such a player might end up making this deal something of a non-starter.

If so, fair enough: We don't need to make our All-In move trading the crux of our remaining assets for a 34-year-old who's gonna play 20-25 minutes a night and might not even be here next year. Hell, we don't need to do anything at all: Despite the last week of painful Sixers losing as our IR sees more bodies pile up than a season of True Detective, we still have every reason to believe that at full strength (and at full-ish Embiid), this team can go toe-to-toe with anyone as currently constructed. But I would trade a good amount -- maybe even a little more than is reasonable -- for the chance to plug the biggest hole this team does currently have: the secondary scorer and playmaker who bolsters our bench units and provides some Maxey insurance. That's Sixth Man DeMar DeRozan. Let's get it done, Daryl. Do it for Phoebe Rose Lipshutz.