Liberty Ballers is asking for the community’s help in ranking the Sixers’ full roster (12 active players, 3 inactive players, 2 two-way players) according to on-court value for the upcoming season. When casting a vote, you should concern yourself only with each player’s ability to contribute to winning this season. So, for example, maybe you believe Markelle Fultz will be a valuable member of the Sixers core over the next 5 seasons, but you also think he’ll be slight negative on the court for most of this season. Meanwhile, you expect Robert Covington to be an integral part of the starting lineup in 2018-2019, but in 3 or 4 years, you expect him to bottom out. From that perspective, Markelle would be the more player over the long haul, but you should place Covington above him in this ranking, due to Covington’s projected positive contributions this year. You can find the original post here, which includes the Sixers’ projected final roster.

Landry Shamet

Shamet has been voted in at the #11 spot with 30% of the votes, which was initially a bit of a surprise to me. Shamet’s preseason has been impressive, however maybe we need to pump the breaks a bit and so tempering some of the hype, as this vote has done, is appropriate.

Landry Shamet was selected 26th overall in this summer’s NBA Draft out of Wichita State. During his time at the NCAA level, Shamet was a prolific 3PT shooter, with a career average of 43.7% from distance. (Maybe even more impressive is his lofty eFG% of 60.9%.) But no one had challenged Shamet’s shooting ability leading up to the draft. The caution surrounding him as a prospect had been more a question of whether or not the rest of his game would translate to the league.

In his four preseason outings, Shamet has shown that his game is on par for, at the least, a minor role in the NBA out of the gate. Landry has decent size at 6’4”, and though he’s not the fastest or strongest player on the court, he’s shown a promising defensive IQ and general awareness that could help compensate for a lack of athletic tools (I say he’s not that fast, but he’s actually quicker on his feet than I anticipated.) On the offensive end, Shamet’s shooting has been bookended by two 1-for-5 performances. But in games two and three in the preseason, Shamet has shot a combined 9-of-17, with five threes sprinkled in.

Despite Marco Belinelli’s swiss cheese defense, the Sixers’ will miss the shooting contributions and floor spacing Marco brought on offense. Landry Shamet isn’t ready for the 26 minutes a game Beli offered, but if his 3PTs are falling and he’s playing competent defense, Shamet could be a valuable bench piece in the mold of a Belinelli from game one. Voters are right to curb some of the enthusiasm: when the regular season starts up and defense intensifies, Landry may not be as effective. On the other hand, Shamet could climb a few spots on this list by as soon as November if he adapts well.

Vote for #10