Sixers continue to focus on future, not present
Here’s the Philadelphia Inquirer reporting on the 76ers, who in their quest to build for the future have now tossed point guard Michael Carter-Williams away:
The Sixers made three trades, the first of which was easy enough to understand. They basically paid the Denver Nuggets $16 million for center JaVale McGee and a first-round draft pick. It was exactly the kind of trade everyone would expect the Sixers to make Thursday. They needed to get above the salary floor anyway, and McGee’s $11.25 million salary this season will help them do that.
Now, the Carter-Williams deal. For last season’s rookie of the year, Hinkie acquired the Los Angeles Lakers’ 2015 first-round pick – a valuable pick that’s protected if the Lakers land in one of the top five spots in this year’s draft and one of the top three spots in the 2016 draft. It’s likely that the Lakers will retain the pick this year, but think about 2016: The Lakers will probably improve, but are they going to improve so much, by 30 victories or more, that they catapult themselves out of the lottery and into the playoffs? Unlikely in the grueling Western Conference.
Next year, then, the odds are excellent that the Sixers will have a pick between No. 4 and No. 14 – in addition to their own first-round pick. Carter-Williams is 24, was the 11th-overall pick, and already had seen his value drop from last season, based on his poor shooting, his turnover-prone play, and the questions (dating to last season) of whether he was tough enough to be an exceptional NBA point guard.
