Wednesday, May 13, 2015

A thought about the upcoming lottery selection day

Philly possesses the 1st round picks of the Lakers (top 5 protected) and the Heat (top 10 protected). Currently the Lakers sit at #4, the Heat at #10 and the Sixers would be left waiting til next year. But if the balls ping pong just right, the Sixers could end up with 3 of the top 11 picks.

I'd like to say its a game changer, that the Sixers could trade 2 of those picks and bring in a badass player (say, Al Horford) to go with Nerlens, Embiid, (presumably) D'Angelo Russell, and still have plenty of room to go grab another nice free agent (how would Monta Ellis look in a Sixer uni?).  They'd still be a raggedy crew but they'd have a real scoring punch to go with their solid young D and, man, they might be looking good in the East next year.  And next summer as the salary cap rises, they can bring over Dario Saric and pitch Kevin Durant a white picket fence dream home.  Sounds good, don't it?

They won't do that though.  They'll draft two European guys and tank next year trying to work another year of lottery.  They fetishize draft picks but a glut of them is actually kinda dangerous, that future potential needs to be re-invested into current capital expenditure (re: on-court production) or else you'll have a bumper crop of rookies dying on the vine.  If the Sixers end up with 3 lottery picks this year, then now is the time to spend money because 4 new rookies next year is not gonna get it done even in the East.

No comments: