Sixers Intrasquad Fantasy Draft: Fourth Pick

Shout out to Liberty Ballers community member gramercy riffs, who has already made a fanpost about a Sixers intrasquad fantasy draft. We’re tweaking his idea a bit and putting the draft to a community vote in this exercise.

After our first two votes were both landslides in selecting Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons, the selection of our Sixers Blue captain represented the first close contest in our intrasquad fantasy draft. With 50 percent of the vote, Tobias Harris went off the board, edging out Al Horford, who received 40 percent of the tally.

For our purposes moving forward, voters will now not only have to account for the individual talent of a player selected, but also how he meshes with that particular five-man unit. With the fourth pick in this snake draft, you’ll next be choosing who to pair with Harris. The 40 percent of the voters who last voted for Horford can still have their wish to see him on Sixers Blue, or maybe you think someone else would be a better fit?

In my opinion, Horford is the best option for combating the other two intrasquad captains defensively. Not So Average Al has been a thorn in JoJo’s side for years, part of the reason signing him away from the rival Celtics was such a coup. Per NBA.com’s tracking, Horford guarded Embiid on more possessions than any other player in the league last regular season, holding Joel to 13.3 points per 100 possessions fewer than his normal level of production. The former Celtics center was also vital during the 2018 playoff series between the two teams in executing Boston’s ‘form a wall’ strategy that gave Simmons so much trouble. That defensive versatility should be pivotal for the Sixers this season with Horford slated to both play power forward alongside Embiid and serve as his primary backup at center.

Sixers Red: Joel Embiid
Sixers White: Ben Simmons
Sixers Blue: Tobias Harris

*Apologies for the error in the original version of this post.