So many hot takes. So many breathless debates. It’s been like this for years. It will be this way for the foreseeable future. That’s The Problem with The Process. It’s open ended. It invites disagreement because there’s no one way to define whether it’s truly working or failing, which creates ground for the anti-Process people to dig in on one side and the pro-Process people to dig in on the other.
When Joshua Harris shocked everyone and hired Jerry Colangelo, he said he was eager to move The Process forward to the next phase. That might be the only thing both factions in the Sixers Civil War agree on. Forget about resolution. Move it forward and at least there will be something new to argue over.
This offseason is critical for The Process. The Sixers and Sam Hinkie think it represents “a big opportunity.” The detractors no doubt believe it will further sink the Sixers. Either way. Movement.
“We think it’ll be a big opportunity,” Hinkie said the day after a quiet trade deadline for the Sixers. “One of the things we’ve tried hard to do is to give ourselves a wide swath of options. [The trade deadline is] a moment when transactions happen. The summer is another moment when transactions happen that you can tack in lots of different directions. We will have a really wide set of options this summer from free agency to trade to draft to all of that in combination in whatever way we choose to sort of combine it. We do think it’ll be big.”
Free agency. Trade. Draft. Lots of variables. Lots of potential directions to plot into The Process GPS. Lots of decisions. We’ll take them in order.
Free agency
The NBA salary cap is set to jump significantly over the next two seasons with the league’s new television contract kicking in. The cap is estimated to be $89 million next season (an increase of $19 million from this year). Projections have the 2017-18 cap climbing to a robust $108 million.
Lots of teams are going to have lots of money to spend — but almost no one will have as much to offer on the free agent market as the Sixers. Early this season, the Sixers were one of just four teams estimated to have $50 million or more available in cap space (the Mavericks, Celtics and Lakers were the others). With some quick accounting, the Sixers could have something approaching $62 million to spend. That’s a ton. That’s the good news.
Now the bad news: The Sixers are still the Sixers. There will be some fans and maybe some misguided media members who implore the Sixers to throw a lot of money at big name stars. (If you feel like fantasizing, here’s SBNation’s list of the top 100 free agents.) Those people will say/think something along the lines of why not us? If you are one of those people: hello. Please push away from phone/computer for a moment and step outside. You could use some fresh air.
The Sixers aren’t getting Kevin Durant (unrestricted) or LeBron James (player option). They aren’t getting a top-15 (-20, -25?) difference maker. They aren’t. But there are oodles of other better-than-average options that will be looking for much-better-than-average pay considering the new TV deal and the attendant cap bloat. It will be fascinating to see which caliber of player the Sixers talk to and, beyond that, whether they can convince someone of value — someone ostensibly young(ish) and on the rise — to throw his lot in with the Sixers' ever-evolving core. Making that case will have a lot to do with the next two categories.
Trades
Rumors are fun. There were two good ones around the trade deadline.
The first report had the Sixers sending Jahlil Okafor to the Celtics for Brooklyn’s unprotected first-round pick in the upcoming 2016 draft. Hinkie, who didn’t (and wouldn’t) address any specific trade rumors, said the Sixers weren’t particularly close on any significant deals at the deadline. Boston general manager Danny Ainge had a slightly different take.
Either way, it wasn’t surprising that 1.) The Celtics (or other teams) were interested in Okafor or 2.) The Sixers chose not to unload him halfway through his rookie season. The Brooklyn pick could end up being really good, but until it’s slotted at the lottery it’s hard to justify moving Okafor in a straight-up swap.
The idea of moving Okafor isn’t new. The topic will likely hound us through the offseason while the Sixers decide whether he and Nerlens Noel can play together. Hinkie recently said he “feels good" about the way those two fit so far. That makes at least one of us. He also said he thinks they complement each other “particularly on defense.” That part was my favorite considering how bad the Sixers have lately looked at that end of the floor. But even if they really think Okafor and Noel make sense in tandem, what about when (if?) Joel Embiid returns from his Qatar rehab junket and he’s (maybe) ready to play again? Can they reasonably expect to feed all three bigs from the same frontcourt pie? It’s just hard to imagine them keeping all three. The gut feeling is that one of them gets moved, with Okafor being the most likely candidate.
The second rumor around the trade deadline had the Sixers interested in the Hawks’ Dennis Schroder. The reported swap had the Sixers sending “some combination of” Ish Smith, Nik Stauskas and a 2016 first-round pick to Atlanta for Schroder."
The 22-year-old point guard will be a restricted free agent next year. The Inquirer reported that the Sixers think Schroder could be worth max money. Other people we respect were less bullish about paying Schroder so much.
Again, with the cap going up over the next two seasons, lots of people are going to get paid lots of money. I like Schroder quite a bit, but he’s just one name you’re likely to hear this offseason. The Sixers have needs in the backcourt and a potential surplus in the frontcourt if Noel, Okafor and Embiid are joined by everyone’s favorite Croation Dario Saric. Something has to give. Pieces need to be moved around — especially considering the last phase Hinkie mentioned.
The draft
You know the deal. The Sixers could have as many as four first-round picks in the 2016 draft. They have their selection, along with potential picks from the Lakers (protected 1-3), Heat (protected 1-10) and Thunder (protected 1-15). They also have the right to swap their pick with the Kings (provided it lands in the top 10) and the right to swap either the Heat or Thunder pick with the Warriors’ pick.
If you like to play the which-picks-matter/which-picks-will-convey game, have at it. If you want to daydream about life with Ben Simmons or preemptively moan about what a disaster it will be if he lands somewhere else, go for it. Seems like a pointless exercise. Better to let it unfold and simply acknowledge there are lots of moving parts here, too.
These moving parts are in the same machine with the moving parts from the previous two sections (not to mention the development/stagnation/regression of players already on the roster). That machine will either start to come together or it might malfunction and break down, but either way the offseason overhaul is coming, and it represents the most important stretch for the organization since The Process started.