The Philadelphia 76ers have stockpiled young talent through trades and the past two NBA drafts. That trend is expected to continue, especially considering their part in the rumored Kevin Love to Cleveland deal: sending Thaddeus Young, their leader in scoring and rebounds from last season, to Minnesota to receive Cleveland’s Anthony Bennett, who has been called a bust after just his rookie season.
This lose now, win later strategy that the Sixers are employing has been one of the most talked about tanking campaigns in recent NBA history. Additionally, it’s happening at a time when league commissioner Adam Silver is proposing changes to the Draft Lottery system in order to discourage teams from losing to increase their NBA Draft odds. The proposed changes would improve competition (or at least, competing to win) in a league that already struggles with competitive balance: the NBA has had just seven different champions since 1996, compared to twelve in the NFL, nine in the MLB, eleven in the NHL, and nine in the MLS. Improved balance would likely increase the league’s profitability. In order to determine the effectiveness of tanking and rebuilding in the NBA, I’ll use a retrospective analysis of draft history to show what the Sixers could look like down the road and compare this to how this year’s best NBA teams were built.
In a few years, Philadelphia’s roster is expected to include Anthony Bennett, Nerlens Noel, Michael Carter-Williams, Joel Embiid, Dario Saric, as well as future draft picks. For the sake of this article, let’s assume that the Sixers wind up with the fourth pick in 2015. That roster would then include 2013’s first, sixth, and eleventh picks, 2014’s third and twelfth picks, and 2015’s fourth, respectively. If we take that sequence of picks from drafts dating back to when the NBA changed it’s draft eligibility age to 19 as part of the 2005 Collective Bargaining Agreement, we can see what the Sixers might look like when their current players are further into their careers.
We’ll start by pretending that the 2006 Draft (three years after Kevin Love’s teammate-to-be LeBron James was drafted out of high school) is when the Sixers started to build their roster, and continue building rosters with each draft until we’re back to the present. Here are the resulting rosters:
Draft Year |
Pick Number |
Player |
2006 |
1 |
Andrea Bargnani |
2006 |
6 |
Brandon Roy |
2006 |
11 |
J.J. Redick |
2007 |
3 |
Al Horford |
2007 |
12 |
Thaddeus Young |
2008 |
4 |
Russell Westbrook |
2007 |
1 |
Greg Oden |
2007 |
6 |
Yi Jianlian |
2007 |
11 |
Acie Law |
2008 |
3 |
O.J. Mayo |
2008 |
12 |
Jason Thompson |
2009 |
4 |
Tyreke Evans |
2008 |
1 |
Derrick Rose |
2008 |
6 |
Danilo Gallinari |
2008 |
11 |
Jerryd Bayless |
2009 |
3 |
James Harden |
2009 |
12 |
Gerald Henderson |
2010 |
4 |
Wesley Johnson |
2009 |
1 |
Blake Griffin |
2009 |
6 |
Jonny Flynn |
2009 |
11 |
Terrence Williams |
2010 |
3 |
Derrick Favors |
2010 |
12 |
Xavier Henry |
2011 |
4 |
Tristan Thompson |
2010 |
1 |
John Wall |
2010 |
6 |
Ekpe Udoh |
2010 |
11 |
Cole Aldrich |
2011 |
3 |
Enes Kanter |
2011 |
12 |
Alec Burks |
2012 |
4 |
Dion Waiters |
2011 |
1 |
Kyrie Irving |
2011 |
6 |
Jan Vesely |
2011 |
11 |
Klay Thompson |
2012 |
3 |
Bradley Beal |
2012 |
12 |
Jeremy Lamb |
2013 |
4 |
Cody Zeller |
2012 |
1 |
Anthony Davis |
2012 |
6 |
Damian Lillard |
2012 |
11 |
Meyers Leonard |
2013 |
3 |
Otto Porter |
2013 |
12 |
Kelly Olynyk |
2014 |
4 |
Aaron Gordon |
2013 |
1 |
Anthony Bennett |
2013 |
6 |
Nerlens Noel |
2013 |
11 |
Michael Carter-Williams |
2014 |
3 |
Joel Embiid |
2014 |
12 |
Dario Saric |
2015 |
4 |
? |
Those lineups are less impressive than you may expect and shows how hard it is to assemble a great NBA lineup. It's very difficult to build a good team through the draft alone. If you took the best player in each individual draft position above you could probably create a dynasty with Blake Griffin, a healthy Brandon Roy, Michael Carter-Williams, James Harden, Thaddeus Young, and Russell Westbrook. However, you could also take the worst and end up with a roster that includes Greg Oden and a bunch of no-names. More importantly, none of the above roster arrangements look anything like a championship team, but they may boast enough talent to attract free agents and become one.
Let’s call the four teams that made it to the conference finals this year the championship-caliber that NBA team owners strive to achieve. The San Antonio Spurs, Miami Heat, Oklahoma City Thunder, and Indiana Pacers combined have accounted for twelve of the last sixteen total appearances made by teams in the NBA’s final four in the past four years. The core of each of these teams leveraged free agency and trades but have their roots in the draft. The Spurs’ big three includes top draft pick Tim Duncan, along with late picks Tony Parker, and Manu Ginobili. The 2014 Heat’s big three included draft pick Dwayne Wade, who re-signed as a free agent along with Chris Bosh and LeBron James. The Thunders’ roster once included draft picks Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, Serge Ibaka, and James Harden. The 2014 Pacers’ roster included draft picks Paul George and Lance Stevenson along with free agent signing David West and trade-acquired Roy Hibbert. Of course, these teams all added other key pieces along the way, but it’s nice to see the the Heat are an outlier by building their team primarily through free agency.
Most often, championship teams are rooted in their draft picks and they find free agents along the way to ultimately reach a level of greatness. While the Sixers are amassing talent through draft picks, the question remains as to whether they will succeed in attracting the right free agents when the time is right. In the meantime, Sixers fans will watch another losing season while the Cavaliers try to prove that their second King James era, created by losing without Lebron, landing top draft picks, signing Lebron as a free agent, and trading some of their young talent for All-Star Kevin Love, can make them a championship team. We’ll have to wait at least a few years to see how it works out for the Sixers and how the NBA reacts with changes to the Draft Lottery system.