Sixers need to upgrade bench as trade deadline nears, but that doesn't mean Corey Brewer should go

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The Sixers could use some help.

The bench has been a glaring weakness since the Jimmy Butler trade, and Thursday night’s win over the two-time defending champion Warriors didn’t magically erase that long-standing concern.

With the trade deadline approaching, general manager Elton Brand is “doing aggressive work behind the scenes” to try to upgrade the team’s depth (see story).

Without Wilson Chandler (out for two to three weeks with a right quad strain) and JJ Redick (rest), the Sixers’ bench of Corey Brewer, Shake Milton, Furkan Korkmaz, T.J. McConnell and Jonah Bolden was outscored by the Kings’ bench Saturday night, 32-17. The Sixers dropped the final game of their West Coast road trip, 115-108 (see observations).

But the Sixers do already have a veteran bench player with playoff experience, an athletic wing with a reputation for being a pest to opposing stars. 

We’re talking, of course, about Brewer. 

The 32-year-old’s second 10-day contract is coming to an end, which means the Sixers will need to decide whether to release him or sign him for the rest of the season. The team would be smart to keep Brewer while also pursuing outside help.

In Saturday night’s loss, Brewer played only five first-half minutes. Even Korkmaz, on the outer bubble of the rotation the last three weeks, got time in the second half over Brewer.

Perhaps head coach Brett Brown thought, because the Sixers were struggling from three-point range (7 for 33 on the night), that Korkmaz could provide a spark. Maybe Brown feels he knows what he has in Brewer and wanted to give Korkmaz another chance to earn minutes.

Either way, it was an odd decision — Milton, who was a team-best plus-10 in his 20 minutes, would also have been a better option. Korkmaz didn’t have much of a positive impact in his three minutes, missing a fast-break layup that was as low on the degree of difficulty scale as you could imagine in an NBA game.

Brewer’s level of play has dipped since his dogged defensive performances against James Harden and DeMar DeRozan and his 20-point night in Denver. Since then, he’s shot 4 for 13, 0 for 5 from three-point range. He had three really good games that caused a lot of fans to think he was the solution to the Sixers’ bench woes followed by three subpar games. The reality of what Brewer brings to the table is somewhere in the middle. 

He has a poor track record as a three-point shooter — he’s 28.3 percent from long distance for his career. And his “Drunken Dribbler” nickname did not come out of thin air. But Brewer can give the Sixers productive minutes in the second half of the season and in the playoffs, if the team gives him the chance.

He’s still consistently one of the fastest players on any court he steps on, still a capable perimeter defender, still an always-smiling presence that his teammates like having around. If the Sixers release Brewer, you’d expect another contending team would pick him up.

It would be understandable if Brand releases Brewer and hopes to acquire a better player that can fill Brewer’s role, either via trade or buyout. Wesley Matthews could be an attractive name for the Sixers, as my teammate Paul Hudrick detailed. Still, keeping Brewer wouldn’t force the Sixers to be inert at the deadline or severely limit their options.

Brewer isn’t the all-conquering hero he might have appeared to be last week, but he’s a good athlete who can play defense. The Sixers need more players who fit that description.

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