Are the Sixers ‘Goink’ Places?

By Sean Kennedy (@PhillyFastBreak)

About a week ago, Phil Jackson, legendary NBA coach and current president of the New York Knicks, tweeted out this gem.

NBA analysts give me some diagnostics on how 3pt oriented teams are faring this playoffs…seriously, how’s it goink?

— Phil Jackson (@PhilJackson11) May 10, 2015

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At the time, all of the lower seeds were enjoying early series leads in the second-round of the playoffs. Fast-forward to today and chalk has prevailed, as the #1 and #2 seeds in each conference are set to do battle in the Conference Finals. How those teams arrived there not only shows how the current NBA game is evolving, but perhaps also how modern offenses have passed by Mr. 11 titles himself. If I was a Knicks fan, I’d worry the Triangle is as ancient an artifact as the Great Pyramids.

The 4 teams still taking the floor are among the 5 playoff teams who attempted threes most often (measured by attempts per 100 possessions) during the postseason. The 4 remaining combatants were also all within the top-6 in that statistic during the regular season, while the other two teams in the top-6, the Trailblazers and Clippers, were also both playoff teams. Today’s highly functioning NBA offense is a whirl of pace and space, featuring heavy doses of the most efficient available shots: free throws, attempts at the rim, and 3-pointers.

A good sign for those fans in Philadelphia is that Sixers management appears fully cognizant of this fact. Right behind those top-6 teams, slotting in at #7, was the Philadelphia 76ers, who attempted a three-pointer 26.6% of the time. Unlike those other teams, however, the Sixers weren’t at all good at converting those shots, as Philadelphia was the second-worst team in the league at converting those triples, making just 32.0%. Aside from Hollis Thompson, Robert Covington, and later on, Isaiah Canaan, Sixers’ snipers ran the spectrum from below average to aggressively terrible.

To some extent, having a hopefully dominant post presence like Joel Embiid will free up more open shots for his teammates along the perimeter and help those numbers. Still, an easy way to improve is simply to acquire some good, old-fashioned actual shooters. That’s one of a handful of reasons a player like D’Angelo Russell is so tantalizing. Having a player who shot 41.1% from behind the arc in college running the point would be night-and-day from the Michael Carter-Williams era of bricklaying.

Whatever happens in the upcoming offseason, Sixers fans can take solace in the fact that the team’s system emulates those clubs currently having success at the highest level. The machinery is in place, now the organization just needs to find the right cogs to keep things running along smoothly.