June 24, 2016
On paper (or more specifically, on Twitter), Nerlens Noel, Robert Covington, the 24th pick, and the 26th pick was a preposterous trade proposal for a prospect of Kris Dunn’s caliber. It was $1.60 on the dollar, or the British pound yesterday for the British pound today.
Yes, the Sixers could use a nominal point guard or two as Brett Brown will break in Ben Simmons at the 4. And yes, they still have three highly-drafted centers in the frontcourt playing next to Simmons and potentially Dario Saric. These are problems that new president of basketball operations Bryan Colangelo admitted that he’ll still have to solve, the second of which is both more important and pressing. Yet just because Dunn is a point guard and Noel plays up front doesn’t mean that the deal would be a solution.
One problem: Colangelo came out and, by doing everything short of offering specifics, maintained that he wasn’t offering that crazy haul.
“I would tell you that a number of the rumors and innuendo out there was false,” Colangelo said. “It was false. I don’t know why it was out there, because it was completely errant.”
However it happened, the deal didn’t go through. And Colangelo, who has been both praised in some corners and ridiculed in others over the past few months despite the fact that he hasn’t done anything good or bad during his short time in Philly, put together a nice performance on his first night of the job.
Simmons has the potential to be a superstar, and that was the easy part. Waiting until 24 and 26 and nabbing a couple of intriguing international wings in Timothe Luwawu and Furkan Korkmaz represents a strong understanding of value and a nice potential fit with Simmons. If one of them pans out to be a rotation player, the front office will have done its job.
If you just looked at the picks, the draft didn’t look all the different from one that Sam Hinkie would’ve conducted over the past few years. There was Colangelo, talking about making use of the D-League and long-term thinking for a couple of first-round picks.
“Both of them are probably younger, developing players but they’ve been playing pro basketball for a while so they’re probably more prepared than you think,” he said.
Still, you can bet on Colangelo balancing out the roster before the season starts. In that sense, he still has an incomplete on his toughest test. Colangelo said that the next stage of the offseason will involve pursuing some trade talks that the team had already been engaged in. Noel and Jahlil Okafor aren’t safe yet.
“By staying the course, we still have some things to do to this roster to make it more balanced,” Colangelo said. “I talked about roster balance being a key objective. Once again, we didn’t feel there was a deal that presented itself.”
Staying the course, trust the process, or whatever you want to call it, Colangelo did strong work on his first real night as the Sixers’ lead decision maker. Now, the real work begins.
Follow Rich on Twitter: @rich_hofmann
