FanPost

Relationships? Ben Simmons and the rest of Rich Paul's Client List

I will continue to harp on Bryan Colangelo's supposed great relationships until they bear fruit.

Hinkie's weakness was supposed to be his relationships with agents and league front office personnel. But the idea that Sam had bad relationships with other GMs is belied be the numerous deals we engaged in to help other teams get out of bad cap situations.

The idea that Sam had bad relationships with player agents, then, is all that's left, and will also be proven specious if Bryan Claimjumper can't use his decades of backslapping to get us good players.

So assuming the Sixers take Ben Simmons with the #1 pick, I figured we should take a look at who Simmons chose as his agent, and whether Bryan can parlay that relationship into something nice for us.

I had been previously alerted that one of my favorite draft prospects, Dejounte Murray, also signed with Rich Paul. Dejounte Murray and Ben Simmons have been spotted hanging out together, presumably at Paul's expense.

The interesting thing about Dejounte Murray being Rich Paul's client is that Dejounte did not go to the NBA combine when everyone thought that he should. He had good numbers as a freshman at UW. But they certainly left a lot of questions, particularly about his shooting. There hasn't been much talk about him working out for teams.

Did Dejounte Murray parlay his relationship with Rich Paul and Ben Simmons into a "promise"? Did the Sixers promise Rich Paul that if DMurray shuts down his workout schedule that we promise to draft him with OKC or MIA's pick? Last year, the rumors that OKC promised to draft Cameron Payne proved true. Maybe Paul promised he'd be very encouraging to Ben Simmons about joining the Sixers if we also draft his stablemate, DMurray? I hope so.

A lot of people will probably complain about DMurray's fit with Ben Simmons, because they assume both of them can't shoot. I think that's overexaggerated for both. I wouldn't bet against either of these 19year olds becoming competent from deep by the time they hit age 22. Combined with the rest of their skills, each is a jumpshot away from stardom, in my opinion.

Their fit defensively would be fantastic, in my opinion. Dejounte has a longer wingspan than Kris Dunn.

It will also interest a lot of Sixers fans to know that Rich Paul also represents the Suns Eric Bledsoe. EBledsoe is a fantastic two way player when he's on the court. Problem is that hasn't been very often. And at age 26, it's hard to imagine that things will get better. A franchise that is recovering from the Andrew Bynum deal, one that is still dependent on the health of Joel Embiid, should be hesitant to trade valuable assets for an oft-injured guard.

I am more interested in the fact that Rich Paul represents Washington Wizards star John Wall!

If the Wizards bring Kevin Durant home to the DMV, then he Wall and Beal will make a fantastic threesome. There'd be no way to break that up.

But if relationships with agents are the crux of good team building, then we should be conspiring with Rich Paul on how to get John Wall out of DC if Kevin Durant doesn't come, Kelly Oubre doesn't develop into a stud, and Bradley Beal gets a max deal, but stays hurt.

The plan could be to get a stop gap or bridge point guard until Summer 2017. We could trade for Dennis Schroder this summer, let him average 20pts a game with us, and then either re-sign him or include him in a package for John Wall Summer 2017 is the time when we should be considering trading Nerlens, Robert Covington, and Jerami Grant, etc.

Other players of note include Norris Cole, only because we may need a real bargain basement stop gap point guard, if all the others worth anything sign elsewhere.

Other players Paul represents who should be interesting to the Sixers include shooting guards Kentavious Caldwell-Pope (Det) and Ben McLemore (SAC), and point guard Cory Joseph (Tor).

The rest of the list is comprised of Lebron James, Montrezl Harrell, Kosta Koufos, Trey Lyles, Kevin Seraphin, and Tristan Thompson.


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