So... Is the Sixers' Off-Season Over?
MOC looks at the sum total of our summer haul and asks: "Is that all there is?"
With the exception of the Quentin Grimes signing — which by all accounts, the Sixers still intend on completing — it appears as if the Sixers’ off-season is just about over. According to a report from Tony Jones of The Athletic, the Sixers are “essentially done” with their summer moves. So, it appears we are about to enter into a very, very long August as we await the start of training camp.
I expected the Sixers to be pretty quiet this summer, but this is a step shy of what I thought they would do. While I approve of the Edgecombe pick and I like some of their moves around the edges, I think it’s worth discussing the fact that yet another off-season has come and gone without the Sixers A) adequately addressing their biggest needs, or B) making a marginal trade that helps their future outlook in some way. The Sixers, in fact, have not made a single trade this off-season.
They are obviously limited to a considerable degree by Quentin Grimes’ restricted free agency, but I can’t help but notice that they once again sat back as other teams took advantage of the opportunity to add cheap, young talent in buy-low situations that the Sixers could theoretically have jumped in on – Cam Whitmore and Jay Huff were traded for peanuts this summer, and both would have filled a need (to varying degrees) for the Sixers.
Now, are Jay Huff and Cam Whitmore going to become high level rotation players on winning teams? Probably not. But if you practically never take chances on players like these, you never give yourself the opportunity to find cheap, young depth, and find yourself in a scenario similar to last off-season, where the Sixers’ depth at key positions was so poor that they had to give multi-year deals to washed veterans like Andre Drummond and Eric Gordon. The same could be said of the P.J. Tucker and Danuel House, Jr. signings before them.
This cycle of rarely taking buy-low chances on young players or establishing cheap depth at key positions, and then panicking and overpaying washed veterans, has plagued the Sixers for, frankly, the entire Embiid era. It just frustrates me to no end that the Sixers are never the team trading for the Jay Huffs of the world; they are in fact the team that gives away players like Isaiah Joe, and then wonders two years later why they have no shooting off the bench, and proceeds to trade for Buddy Hield and then give a two-year deal to Eric Gordon.
As always, I have to caveat this by saying that Morey and co. have done some really good stuff on the margins, like drafting Jared McCain, signing Justin Edwards, etc. etc. Even trading for Jared Butler last winter could, I suppose, qualify as the type of move I’m talking about. But even then, the Sixers let him walk in part so that they retain Kyle Lowry, who is completely unplayable at this point in his career. If McCain and Maxey ever both miss a game at any point this season, and the Sixers find themselves unable to dribble the ball across half court, they won’t have to wonder how the roster got to that point.
One of my repeated criticisms of Daryl Morey throughout his tenure has been the fact that most of his wins have come through simply making the obviously correct decision that any competent general manager would make, and that there has been a real absence of stringing together marginal wins that sneakily set the team up well for the future. This summer was no exception. They knew they had a gaping, catastrophically big hole at power forward, and they filled it with one minimum contract (Watford), one questionable-looking second round pick (Johni Broome), and two two-way players (Jabari Walker and Dominick Barlowe).
Again, I like Watford, and there’s a chance that he renders all of these concerns about the roster irrelevant. But even in the event that that happens, I still think my criticisms about not taking enough bites at the apple – or at least, enough appropriately sized bites at the apple – would stand true.
Watford and Walker are not totally unknown commodities. Walker has played over 3000 NBA minutes, and couldn’t land a full NBA contract on the open market. Still, maybe a breakout will come for one of them. Or, maybe we’ll be sitting here next off-season in the exact same spot, with the Sixers still desperately needing a true starting power forward, as they proceed to give the full MLE to some 36-year-old in order to patch a hole that they should have been taking real swings on for multiple years prior.
All in all, this off-season feels quite a bit like 2018, 2021, and 2023 – which is to say, they didn’t really do anything! I shudder to think of how I’d be feeling right now had they lost the pick in the draft lottery and not been able to draft Edgecombe.
To be clear, I’m not trying to crush Morey or accuse the front office of any gross incompetence.
Perhaps the best defense of the Sixers’ lack of moves is the fact that the team has no idea what they will get from Joel Embiid in terms of his health. Embiid, by the way, has reportedly yet to resume on-court activities, which is startling considering that arthroscopic surgeries like the one he had tend to have 6-week recovery timelines. Additionally, one could make the case that if the Sixers feel that next year’s team is worth investing in, they could fill their power forward spot pretty easily during the season via trade – someone like Dorian Finney-Smith, for example, is a starter-level player and was traded for three second round picks last December.
Still, I think the power forward hole will impact this team more severely than many are anticipating. If one of their minimum or two-way signings doesn’t pop, you won’t even have the chance to fairly evaluate whether this team is worth investing in, because its flaws could end up being so severe that it’d be impossible to judge what they could be without them. Even aside from just winning games, I’d love for the young backcourt rotation to be able to play for a realistically sized basketball team, and not have to be demoralized and forced to play unnatural roles because of the team’s inability to rebound or protect the rim. I’d like for V.J. Edgecombe’s early development to take place with him playing his natural role, rather than in comically small lineups where he is playing small forward next to a 6’8” power forward and a 6’9” center.
Oh well. I feel like I write this same column nearly every off-season and trade deadline – it’s not like they made any terrible mistakes, I just don’t think they succeeded on the margins. I don’t mean to keep repeating myself; I blame the Sixers for continually repeating themselves. If they get extremely lucky with their signings this summer, or pull off an in-season rotation depth trade, I’ll happily eat my words. But that hasn’t happened yet, so I feel like I should be safe to start planning out my “Well the Sixers Stood Pat Again” trade deadline column.
Mike O’Connor is the best O’Connor in basketball writing. Previously of The Athletic, you can find Mike on Twitter @MOConnor_NBA. Mike’s writing is brought to you by Body Bio, supplements based on science, focusing on your gut and brain health.
Letting Jared Butler walk after getting him on the cheap is mystifying, especially in the wake of the equally mystifying Eric Gordon opt-out-re-sign maneuver, not to mention the decision to use a roster spot on an assistant coach. The only explanation is that, like the Isaiah Joe blunder, it was demanded by Josh Harris, who is obsessed with avoiding a dollar of luxury tax (and having the opportunity to rake from the tax pool) but can nevertheless afford to buy one of the most valuable assets in the entire entertainment industry, an NFL franchise.
TBF to Morey, all decisions are obvious after we see how they actually play out IRL.