As horrible as the Philadelphia 76ers are, they’re on the right track now in their rebuild. They won’t be making the playoffs any time soon, but they do have some nice pieces in place. They’re building something, and with the soft underbelly of the NBA Eastern conference, it won’t be long before the Sixers are back in postseason contention.
Yes, they are started 0-17, and they’re 8-34 right now, so by no means are we saying they’re going to be respectable overnight. We’re just saying that the 76ers are not as awful as they may first appear.
Drafting Evan Turner #2 overall turned out to be a huge mistake for the 76ers. Turner has developed some game, and he had finally arrived as a decent scorer for the 76ers, but Philly had to trade him. The fact that he had to go, and now struggles to find a new identity with a new team in the league verifies that he wasn’t ever destined to be a true franchise player.
Then again, there are a ton of former #2 overall picks who have been much bigger, and I mean much bigger busts than Evan Turner.
This year, the 76ers have two guys who will be NBA All rookie team. The NBA Rookie of the Year race is between the Chicago Bulls Nikola Mirotic and the Minnesota Timberwolves Andrew Wiggins. A rung below them are the Sixers’ Nerlens Noel and K.J. McDaniels.
Noel, the 6th pick overall in 2013, sat out last season to rehabilitate his knee. He spent the year working on his offensive game and fundamentals. He’s still raw, and got off to a rough start this year. Noel has played much better lately though and his rebounding, blocked shots and steals numbers are impressive enough.
Small Forward K.J. McDaniels was drafted out of Clemson in the second round. He came in with a reputation for defense, and he’s lived up to it. He’s also become the 76ers top rookie this season.
Bruce Bernstein is the Coordinating Producer for ESPN’s NBA shows that are based in Bristol: NBA Coast to Coast and NBA Tonight. He was gracious enough to sit down with me for an interview on one of the NBA’s busiest days, MLK day to talk Chicago Bulls fatalism, Jim Boeheim and Syracuse Orange, Philadelphia 76ers and more.
The podcast is below with the 76ers talk beginning around the 6:oo mark.
“Their record is not really representative of where they are because they drafted Joel Embiid with the number one pick in the draft this year,” said Bernstein of the 76ers.
“And they knew he probably wasn’t going to play this year and they knew it was probably going to be another lose season. Between that guy coming online next year, and whoever they draft this year. And the guys we mentioned, Noel, McDaniels, Michael Carter-Williams, a Syracuse guy one of the top rookies last year, Tony Wrotten, who is kind of a nobody but has put up some good numbers…not saying they’re going to make the playoffs next year, but they’re going to pass up some teams.”
“Had they drafted Wiggins instead of Embiid, they’d probably have a much better record this year because Embiid has given them nothing,” Bernstein concluded.
Paul M. Banks owns, operates and writes The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with Fox Sports Digital, eBay, Google News and CBS Interactive Inc. You can read Banks’ feature stories in the Chicago Tribune RedEye newspaper and listen to him on KOZN 1620 The Zone. Follow him on Twitter (@paulmbanks)