Sifting Through the Rubble After T-D-Day

By Sean Kennedy (@PhillyFastBreak)

Trade Deadline Day was supposed to be a relatively quiet time for Sixers fans. Maybe Sam Hinkie would collect a 2nd round draft pick or two, but unlike fear-mongering Philadelphia weathermen, no major storming were forecasted to be brewing. Oh, how young and naive we all were. Let me first take you back to simpler times.

Things started off basically as expected, with Hinkie swindling a fellow GM and getting a draft pick for nothing. Same old, same old. This time around, thanks to the massive surplus of cap space Hinkie had carved out, that pick even happened to be a first-rounder. The Sixers dealt the rights to Cenk Akyol (a guy drafted in 2005 and never expected to come to the NBA; so, nothing) to the Denver Nuggets for JaVale McGee, a protected Oklahoma City first-round pick and the rights to Chu Chu Maduabum (the replacement for Akyol as the guy the Sixers can throw in a trade when they need to give up nothing). With JaVale McGee making $11.25M this season and $12M next season, the Nuggets handed over a first-round pick as a tax just to get McGee off their cap. It’s exactly the type of deal Hinkie has placed the organization in a position to exploit.

The Oklahoma City pick is 1-18 protected in 2015, 1-15 in 2016 and 2017, then if not conveyed by 2017, becomes 2nd round picks in 2018 and 2019. This means there can only be 11 teams with a better record than the Thunder (and they need to make the playoffs) for the Sixers to earn the pick this season. Currently, OKC is tied for the 14th best record in the NBA with the Suns, so they need to outpace Phoenix and jump ahead of two other clubs. As for McGee, originally everyone thought he would be a buyout candidate or simply flat-out waived. However, word came out that there have been no plans to discuss buyout. The Sixers will hope to be the team to finally unlock the athletic potential that allowed this to happen:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNJ0K8qdq00]

More realistically, the team will try to rebuild some of his trade value to flip him as an expiring contract this offseason. In the meantime, Sixers fans may be treated to something along these lines (which will carry its own entertainment value):
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkKJvqMTbrA]

The McGee deal happened around noon; a few hours went by and it looked like that was all the trade deadline had in store for Sixers fans. Then, right around the 3:00 hour was like the Wolf of Wall Street scene where the Lemmon 714 kicks in; the world stopped making sense. The Sixers were a part of what was effectively a 4-team deal with Milwaukee, Phoenix and Boston, shipping Michael Carter-Williams to the Bucks in exchange for the Lakers 1st-round pick owned to Phoenix. ‘How could this be?’ the entire Sixers fanbase wondered. The team just released their promotional poster for next season and MCW was right there alongside Embiid and Noel as the faces of the franchise. He’s the reigning rookie of the year! Let’s discuss the risk/reward of the move and why the Sixers decided to do the deal.

First, the Lakers pick is top-5 protected in 2015, top-3 protected in 2016 and 2017, and then unprotected in 2018. The Lake Show currently has the 4th worst record, 5.5 games back of the Kings, basically locking them into one of the 4-worst records. Even if the Lakers go no worse than 4th, in order for the Sixers to get the pick this upcoming draft, they would need two teams to leap over LA into the top-3; this has about a 16% chance of happening based on the lottery ball permutations. More likely, the Sixers will get a pick somewhere in the latter half of the top-10 next season, after Kobe and Julius Randle return from injury to help the team escape train wreck status. The real risk is Kevin Love or another top free agent heading to Los Angeles this offseason and the pick ending up in the teens. So is trading their young starting point guard worth it for a pick with a 16% of being 6th this year, more likely about a top-10 pick next year, or an outside chance of it being somewhere in the teens? The Sixers evidently though so and here’s why.

For all the popcorn stats Carter-Williams put up thanks to his high usage rate, and the admittedly great strides he had made on the defensive end this season, the glaringly obvious hole in his game is he can’t shoot. He dropped to 11th in the draft because he couldn’t shoot at Syracuse and in two NBA seasons, he’s shot 26.4% and 25.6% from behind the arc. MCW doesn’t have a good mid-range game, he’s not a strong finisher around the rim, and he’s a below-average free throw shooter. Check out this stat:

Of the 328 players who have used over 150 possession this season, Michael Carter-Williams ranks 324th in overall scoring efficiency.

— Synergy Sports Tech (@SynergySST) February 19, 2015

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

That’s not good. Carter-Williams has clearly demonstrated an inability to shoot the ball thus far; in their two years of watching his development under a microscope, the Sixers evidently determined it’s unlikely he ever will. You can’t have a championship-caliber team (which is the entire point of everything the Sixers have done in recent years) when your starting point guard can’t shoot. Defenses aren’t going to respect his shot, rendering the pick-and-roll ineffective and clogging up the lane for everyone else. If the Sixers made the evaluation that MCW will never fix that problem, getting a top-10 pick for a guy they took 11th is a very good return. Fans will just have to hope for even more lottery ball luck this summer (that the Lakers pick falls to 6th), or that Kobe Bryant’s bloated contract hampers Mitch Kupchak’s ability to improve that team too much this offseason.

Before Trading the team’s current franchise point guard wasn’t the only surprise Hinkie had in store for Sixers fans. Word came almost simultaneously that the team had sent K.J. McDaniels to Houston in exchange for Isaiah Canaan and the lesser of Minnesota’s or Denver’s 2015 second-round picks (almost certain to be Denver’s). Before we discuss McDaniels’ departure, let’s examine what the Sixers received in return. First, the team obtained what will almost certainly Denver’s second-round pick, which would currently be the 37th overall pick. Remember it was just last year that the Sixers selected Jerami Grant at 39th overall, so there is still plenty of talent on the board around that stage of the draft.

As for Isaiah Canaan, the 6’0″ point guard was selected by the Rockets out of Murray State with the 34th overall pick of the 2013 draft. The 23-year-old, who goes by the nickname Lil’ Sip, is making over $800k this season and $950k in 2015, before becoming a restricted free agent in 2016. Canaan could certainly fill a role as an effective outside shooter for a mostly punchless Sixers offense. He shot 41.9% during his college career and after struggling in his rookie campaign, has drained 38.1% of his treys for the Rockets this season. Lil’ Sip will definitely have a chance to spread his wings in Philadelphia given the gaping hole at the point guard position.

Isaiah Canaan, albeit on limited possessions, ranked among the most efficient Spot Up and Pick & Roll scorers in the NBA.

— Synergy Sports Tech (@SynergySST) February 19, 2015

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Now, back to McDaniels, it’s certainly a blow to lose a player who was exciting on the court and had plenty of untapped potential. Apparently however, the organization didn’t feel confident that they could re-sign him at a reasonable price, given his contract status as a restricted free agent. As explained here, another team could offer McDaniels a deal up to around 4 years, $42 million, but would more likely be around the neighborhood of $7M/year. The Sixers clearly felt it would behoove them to get something for McDaniels before he fled to another team at a rate they didn’t feel they should match.

Personally, I think K.J. has real potential to be a starter as a 3-and-D guy on a contender, so I would have preferred to see how the marketplace played out in the offseason. Given how the salary cap is set to escalate in upcoming years, I don’t think a worst-case scenario of giving him $7M a season would have been a crippling move. The Sixers are obviously closer to his player development though, so we’ll have to trust their judgment in this matter. Thanks for the memories K.J.; we’ll always have his own personal birthday gift to remember him by:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlXI3L1dBxg]

Ultimately, as with much of the Sixers grand rebuild, the gods of the ping pong balls are likely going to decide just how successful this great experiment is or isn’t. There’s an unlikely, but not impossible chance that the team has 4 first-round picks in the upcoming draft. There’s also a not unrealistic scenario where the Sixers pick 4th, the Miami pick is in the teens, and the Lakers and Thunder picks fall into the teens and mid-20s next season. Still, as we’ve been instructed time and time again in recent years, it’s about the process, not the results. The team’s philosophy has been to collect as many lottery tickets as possible until one of the pays off with the superstar the franchise so desperately needs.

Until then, we’ll see the new-look Sixers back in action tonight against the Pacers with the new point guard combination of Isaiah Canaan and Tim Frazier leading the charge. This starts now.