Four Years Ago....(SI Cover)

[Donoghus]

This aged well.

[Roy H.]

The Sixers have so many “what if” scenarios.  What if they had sold high on Simmons, and built around an Embiid / Butler core? 

[Donoghus]

The Sixers have so many “what if” scenarios.  What if they had sold high on Simmons, and built around an Embiid / Butler core?

They'll win a title in 2057 and someone will yell "see the process worked" and connect it Charlie Kelly style

[celticsclay]

This aged well.

I’ve been toying with doing a thread about their draft picks for a while but haven’t done it. But you go through their trades and how their careers have panned out and almost everyone outside Embid is a disaster.

Okafor has been out of the league for a while and was really a deep bench player very quickly even before he couldn’t get a contract

Noel, on the rare occasion he is healthy, is completely out of the rotation for a bad team. He is 28.

Dario saric is a deep bench player at 28. Injuries didn’t help but he was absurdly overrated on this forum

Zhaire smith is out of the league. He was traded for mikal bridges who recently scored like 50 for the nets. Funny article on an all time bad trade here https://section215.com/2021/10/17/philadelphia-76ers-bridges-wrong/

Ben Simmons had some years as a lower end all star and even made one all nba third team. Now relegated to a deep bench role behind Claxton and sharpe, it is unclear what his future is at 26.

Markelle fultz may top out as a starter for a bad team after a very strange injury. His trade for Tatum is an all time bad nba trade also.

[footey]

The Sixers have so many “what if” scenarios.  What if they had sold high on Simmons, and built around an Embiid / Butler core?

Yeah, and I may have suggested on a thread they would be better off trading Embiid for KAt and building around Simmons.  Egg on my face.back

[footey]

This aged well.

I’ve been toying with doing a thread about their draft picks for a while but haven’t done it. But you go through their trades and how their careers have panned out and almost everyone outside Embid is a disaster.

Okafor has been out of the league for a while and was really a deep bench player very quickly even before he couldn’t get a contract

Noel, on the rare occasion he is healthy, is completely out of the rotation for a bad team. He is 28.

Dario saric is a deep bench player at 28. Injuries didn’t help but he was absurdly overrated on this forum

Zhaire smith is out of the league. He was traded for mikal bridges who recently scored like 50 for the nets. Funny article on an all time bad trade here https://section215.com/2021/10/17/philadelphia-76ers-bridges-wrong/

Ben Simmons had some years as a lower end all star and even made one all nba third team. Now relegated to a deep bench role behind Claxton and sharpe, it is unclear what his future is at 26.

Markelle fultz may top out as a starter for a bad team after a very strange injury. His trade for Tatum is an all time bad nba trade also.

Didn't the trade Jrue Holliday for the 6th pick that became Noel?

[Moranis]

The Sixers have so many “what if” scenarios.  What if they had sold high on Simmons, and built around an Embiid / Butler core?

Yeah they have a lot of those.  Embiid being hurt the first two years really messed them up as that pushed them into drafting Okafor when they clearly should not have.  Porzingis wasn't going to report so taking him would have been a huge risk, so I have no idea what they would have done had Embiid not gotten reinjured.  Maybe Mudiay, but it isn't like he worked out either.  Maybe they could have taken Danny up on the offer to the Knicks to move up for Winslow. 

Trading Okafor during or after his rookie year in retrospect was the way to go.  They were still bad and Embiid was coming back.  Reportedly teams were very interested in Okafor, including the Celtics, during and after his rookie year, before his terrible work ethic really started to rear its ugly head.  Had they moved off Okafor and gotten real value for him, they'd have been so much better off. 

[Moranis]

Also, they may have been a bounce of a basketball away from a title that season.  That was the year they lost in 7 to Toronto when Kawhi got the double bounce as time expired to win game 7 (it was tied so it would have been overtime had it missed and who knows what OT looks like).  The Raptors of course beat the Bucks in 6 and the very injured Warriors in 6 to win the title.

[SHAQATTACK]

Thrust the Process





Down the Drain 

[Phantom255x]

I know this is an unpopular opinion, but I sort of think the league stepping in and getting Hinkie out of PHI hurt them. Their "process" wasn't complete yet but Hinkie was booted out and then the Colangelos took over and made it a lot worse.

Though with that said, PHI had A TON of draft misses too. Noel, Fultz, Okafor, etc.

I still shudder when thinking about the rumors of the C's needing to trade Smart + BKN Pick + 1-2 other assets for Noel or Okafor lol. Yikes

[celticsclay]

Also, they may have been a bounce of a basketball away from a title that season.  That was the year they lost in 7 to Toronto when Kawhi got the double bounce as time expired to win game 7 (it was tied so it would have been overtime had it missed and who knows what OT looks like).  The Raptors of course beat the Bucks in 6 and the very injured Warriors in 6 to win the title.

They were a bounce away from going to overtime. Then they were at best 50 50 to even win that game just to get to conference finals (Embid was completely gassed and had already played 45 minutes). There they would have to beat the bucks and then the warriors (I guess we are assuming klay still gets injured and Durant gets reinjured in this alternate universe.) This is a common misconception, people have thought this was the conference finals or that the Leonard shot came when the raptors were losing. In reality they just were not close that year.I feel obligated to point this out whenever I see the bounce away from title talk. They frankly were not close.  I’ll also add I usually only see this kind of talk on Liberty ballers but even there some of the fans point out how this was 9 wins away from the chip if the shot misses.

[Who]

Man, how did that team not win the title.

Absolutely loaded squad.

[Phantom255x]

Also, they may have been a bounce of a basketball away from a title that season.  That was the year they lost in 7 to Toronto when Kawhi got the double bounce as time expired to win game 7 (it was tied so it would have been overtime had it missed and who knows what OT looks like).  The Raptors of course beat the Bucks in 6 and the very injured Warriors in 6 to win the title.

They were a bounce away from going to overtime. Then they were at best 50 50 to even win that game just to get to conference finals (Embid was completely gassed and had already played 45 minutes). There they would have to beat the bucks and then the warriors (I guess we are assuming klay still gets injured and Durant gets reinjured in this alternate universe.) This is a common misconception, people have thought this was the conference finals or that the Leonard shot came when the raptors were gone. In reality they just were not close that year.I feel obligated to point this out whenever I see the bounce away from title talk. They frankly were not close.  I’ll also add I usually only see this kind of talk on Liberty ballers but even there some of the fans point out how this was 9 wins away from the chip if the shot misses.

That probably was their best shot at a title though. They also had Butler on the team who is a legit playoff performer. PHI's biggest mistake after though was letting him go. And Embiid has basically echoed the same as well, especially in last year's playoffs when MIA beat PHI in 6

[celticsclay]

Also, they may have been a bounce of a basketball away from a title that season.  That was the year they lost in 7 to Toronto when Kawhi got the double bounce as time expired to win game 7 (it was tied so it would have been overtime had it missed and who knows what OT looks like).  The Raptors of course beat the Bucks in 6 and the very injured Warriors in 6 to win the title.

They were a bounce away from going to overtime. Then they were at best 50 50 to even win that game just to get to conference finals (Embid was completely gassed and had already played 45 minutes). There they would have to beat the bucks and then the warriors (I guess we are assuming klay still gets injured and Durant gets reinjured in this alternate universe.) This is a common misconception, people have thought this was the conference finals or that the Leonard shot came when the raptors were gone. In reality they just were not close that year.I feel obligated to point this out whenever I see the bounce away from title talk. They frankly were not close.  I’ll also add I usually only see this kind of talk on Liberty ballers but even there some of the fans point out how this was 9 wins away from the chip if the shot misses.

That probably was their best shot at a title though. They also had Butler on the team who is a legit playoff performer. PHI's biggest mistake after though was letting him go. And Embiid has basically echoed the same as well, especially in last year's playoffs when MIA beat PHI in 6

I agree it was their best chance. Just pointing out with the passage of time this has been romanticized a bit. They would have still been underdogs to win that game even if the shot missed. Then there were two really tough series after that. Because of the intensity of supporters of the process it has become the most romanticized second round shot ever.

[gouki88]

If that team had traded Simmons for a well-rounded player who could shoot, they would have been unstoppable