Sixers Combine Interviews

By Sean Kennedy (@PhillyFastBreak)

Courtesy of Keith Pompey, Sixers beat writer for the Inquirer, we’ve been receiving notes on who the team has already sat down with and what players the team will be interviewing in the coming days at the NBA draft combine. As he laid out, the rules for the interview process are as follows.

At the draft lottery, teams & prospects get a total of 18 interviews. Teams request players to interview. They don’t always get their wish.

— Keith Pompey (@PompeyOnSixers) May 13, 2015

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Teams are able to work out players later on they don’t interview at the combine, so just because they don’t speak one-on-one with a particular player in Chicago, it doesn’t mean the Sixers are not targeting him. Still, with teams having to narrow down their list of requests at least a little bit, it does provide some limited insight into what direction they may want to head.

Below are the prospects we know thus far are slated to interview with the Sixers.

Stanley Johnson [interviewed yesterday]: Coming off the board in the latter half of the top 10 in most mock drafts, Johnson would be a possibility for the Sixers should they wind up with either the Lakers or the Heat picks in this draft. Still just 18 years old, the Arizona product oozes the kind of long-term upside a team with the long-term viewpoint the Sixers have would crave. Johnson has the physical tools to be a dominant perimeter defender in the league and showed signs of expanding his offensive game during his freshman year with the Wildcats. Though he lacked the reputation as a top-notch shooter entering college, Johnson did wind up shooting 37% from three. Given the dearth of wings on high-upside wings currently on the Sixers roster and his youth, Johnson would be a tremendous fit in Philadelphia if they could snag him without using their own first-round pick.

Kevon Looney [interviewed yesterday]: Entering the league as a 6’9″ power forward, any discussion of the Sixers drafting Looney would have to start with how he might fit alongside Nerlens Noel and Joel Embiid. He did show potential as a player who could fit the stretch four role during his freshman year at UCLA, connecting on 41.5% of his threes at around 1.5 attempts per game. Looney lacks elite athleticism, although he was the type of player to really hustle after offensive boards, while also working hard as a willing defender. Given his projected range of mid-teens to early-twenties, I don’t see Looney as a player who will end up wearing ‘PHILA’ next season.

D’Angelo Russell [interviewing today]: Following the mid-season trade of Michael Carter-Williams, the Sixers have a huge hole at the point guard position and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know they’re going to take a long, hard look at both Russell and Emmanuel Mudiay at the top of the draft. Russell is a guy who’s not going to go outside the top-5, so the Sixers would need to use their pick to grab him and be reasonably certain he’s a franchise cornerstone. Like MCW, the Ohio State guard has great size for a point guard, measuring 6’5″ (with shoes) at the combine with a 6’9.75″ wingspan. Unlike the former Sixer, now Buck, Russell can connect from long distance, hitting 41.1% of his triples on a high volume 6.6 attempts per game. Concerns around him stem from whether he’s a ‘true point guard’, as well as his struggles against some higher-profile teams and whether that bodes poorly when opposing defenses are more formidable at the pro level. Nevertheless, given positional need and skillset, there’s no doubt Russell is a prime candidate for the Sixers’ initial selection.

Tyler Harvey [interviewing today]: If the 6’4″ shooting guard carves out an NBA career for himself, it will be on the basis of his shooting the rock. The 21-year-old shot better than 40% from three in each of his 3 seasons at Eastern Washington. Projected to be a second-round pick (something the Sixers have no shortage of), Harvey would be a departure from the team’s typical draft style to take guys with great measurements but an unrefined skill set. Still, we saw how the offense improved in the second half of the season with actual shooters on the court; Harvey would help in that area.

Chris McCullough [interviewing tomorrow]: A 6’9″ power forward out of Syracuse, McCullough has a few reasons we might point him in the Sixers’ directions. They certainly appear to have an affinity for former members of the Orange, having drafted both Michael Carter-Williams and Jerami Grant in recent years. McCullough also missed the majority of his freshman season after tearing his ACL, which would fit the team’s strategy of drafting guys who have slipped due to injury concerns; you can potentially get great value if you draft based on talent alone, rather than a need to have more of a win-now mentality. McCullough was a true interior player, staying mainly in or around the paint offensively, while averaging over 2 blocks per game. While he wouldn’t necessarily be a great fit alongside Noel and Embiid, the price may be right given his early 2nd-round projection.