After a 2016-17 campaign that brought the Sixers plenty of hope for their long-term future, the organization entered an offseason with genuine ambitions of building a sustainable playoff team for the first time in quite a few years. Joel Embiid had showed flashes of superstardom in 31 games, Ben Simmons was set to make his NBA debut, Robert Covington and Dario Šarić were emerging as valuable young role players and the team had another top draft pick on the way in addition to several future picks and an abundance of salary cap space.

Sixers General Manager Bryan Colangelo had all possible resources at his disposal to enhance the team's chances of reaching its goals in the short- and long-term. He kicked off his summer by taking a major gamble before signing some 

Sixers offseason rewind: Summer of 2016 changes everything as new era begins

NBA Draft

About a week before the 2017 NBA Draft, the Sixers -- who owned the No. 3 overall pick -- made a massive trade with the rival Boston Celtics, parting with the Sacramento Kings' unprotected first-round pick in 2019 to move up two spots to No. 1. The team believed that the prospects expected to be available to them at No. 3 were either not talented enough or did not fit well enough, and they made a bet on a prospect who they viewed as the most talented and well-fitting in the draft class.

That prospect was a dynamic guard out of Washington named Markelle Fultz. The ultimate three-level scorer, Fultz appeared to be the absolute perfect player to round out a star trio alongside Simmons and Embiid: he could get to the rim at will and rise above defenders to knock down jumpers in both the mid-range area and three-point territory with ease. He boasted tremendous size for a guard, and was able to play either backcourt position on both ends of the floor.

After moving down to No. 3, the Celtics selected Duke wing Jayson Tatum -- a player they later claimed they would have selected had they held onto the top pick.

While the pick the Sixers gave up to make this move turned out to be of little significance -- Boston used it to select Romeo Langford two years later -- the aftermath of this deal was, of course, disastrous.

Fultz played just 33 regular season games in a Sixers uniform before being unceremoniously traded to the Orlando Magic. He dealt with a series of long-standing obstacles during his time in Philadelphia -- it will likely never be public exactly how many of those obstacles stemmed from mental blocks and how many of them stemmed from physical injuries. But it was clear by the midway point of his sophomore year that he was never going to be comfortable shooting on a routine basis. Suddenly, Fultz went from a player universally believed to be a perfect fit with Simmons and Embiid to one who could not share the floor with Simmons because of his own woes as a shooter.

Meanwhile, it was clear during Tatum's age-19 rookie season that he was going to become one of the best players in the world -- and that is exactly what has happened. Tatum has been named to the All-NBA First Team in each of the last three seasons, and was the best player on a Celtics team that went 64-18 last season before cruising to an NBA Finals victory. 

The rationale behind trading for Fultz was easy to justify at the time -- even if it failed to work out. Much of the Sixers' other activity on this night was a lot more difficult to explain.

When Orlando was on the clock at No. 25, news broke that the Sixers had acquired their pick. Plenty of intriguing prospects remained on the board, and in retrospect, it would have been a major coup if the Sixers used that selection properly. Instead, they drafted a Latvian center named Anžejs Pasečņiks, who went on to never play a game for the Sixers after they eventually renounced his rights. Pasečņiks played in 28 games over a two-year period for the Washington Wizards from 2019-2021, and recently inked a two-way deal for the upcoming season with the Milwaukee Bucks. 

Five picks remained in the first round after the Sixers took Pasečņiks. Three of the players selected in that range were Kyle Kuzma, Derrick White and Josh Hart.

The Sixers owned four second-round picks in 2017 -- No. 36, No. 39, No. 46 and No. 50 -- but did not have enough roster space for all of them, even though Pasečņiks was considered a draft-and-stash player. But their use of the four picks was extremely puzzling, even in the moment.

At No. 36, the team selected an Australian big man by the name of Jonah Bolden. Any person with a history of evaluating young basketball prospects can tell why Bolden was so tantalizing to many. At 6-foot-8 with a massive 7-foot-3 wingspan and jaw-dropping athletic tools, Bolden could fly up and down the floor, and to top it all off, he was developing a three-point stroke that could turn him into a stretch four or five. But after an additional year overseas, Bolden came to the NBA and failed to impress. He showed flashes across 46 games as a rookie, but only played four games the following season before being waived. Bolden signed a 10-day contract with the Phoenix Suns, played three more games and has not appeared in the NBA since.

In a pair of moves that caused immense frustration among Sixers fans, the team sold the No. 39 and No. 46 picks. Nowadays, teams prioritize acquiring future second-rounders in these situations -- even if those picks are in the distant future -- to avoid appearing as if they are abandoning assets for the sake of putting extra money in their owner's pockets (cash acquired in trades do not provide any sort of salary cap benefits). 

At No. 50, the Sixers selected their third draft-and-stash player of the night, picking an energetic French big named Mathias Lessort. At the time, Lessort was believed to have little to no chance of becoming an NBA player -- it almost seemed as if the team just wanted to ensure it did not have to sell another pick. 

Two summers later, the Sixers traded the draft rights to Lessort in the four-team Jimmy Butler sign-and-trade that brought Josh Richardson to Philadelphia. His rights have been moved a couple of times since, and now the New York Knicks own them. After a standout performance in the 2024 Olympics, Lessort now appears to be firmly on the radar of NBA teams.

No team should be expected to nail every draft pick they make -- especially in the second round -- but selling picks provides no genuine value to the organization from the perspective of winning basketball games. And it's an especially tough pill to swallow when looking back at some of the players they could have selected -- Isaiah Hartenstein, Dillon Brooks and Monte Morris, for example.

Free agency

Like in the prior offseason, Colangelo hoped to use the team's significant salary cap space to ink quality, well-fitting veterans on short-term deals. This time around, he succeeded.

The Sixers were desperate for three-point shooting around Simmons and Embiid, and Colangelo nabbed the very best shooter available -- veteran JJ Redick, who agreed to a one-year deal worth a whopping $23 million. Redick helped transform head coach Brett Brown's offense, forming a lethal two-man game with Embiid. Redick had some brutal moments in crucial situations in the 2017-18 NBA Playoffs, but his signing was a massively successful one for the Sixers.

To back up Embiid, Colangelo signed a favorite of his from his time running the Toronto Raptors: veteran Amir Johnson, a tough-as-nails center with a comically slow three-point stroke who gave the Sixers reasonable minutes when the team's best player was off the floor. Johnson is typically remembered more for his lowlights than his highlights in Philadelphia -- and after re-signing for the following season, he struggled quite a bit before falling out of the rotation -- but he was a positive influence within the organization.

Results

The dark cloud of mystery regarding what was going on with Fultz hung over the Sixers all year, but it didn't matter: the team surged to a stunning 52-30 record, earning the No. 3 seed in the Eastern Conference after winning its final 16 regular season games -- most of them without Embiid, who broke a bone in his face in ominous fashion as he bumped into Fultz's apparently-injured shoulder. 

After handily defeating the Miami Heat in five games in the first round of the playoffs, the Sixers were favored against the No. 2 seed Celtics, who were devastated by injuries to the point that a rookie Tatum was forced to serve as their go-to scorer. You probably know the rest: Ben Simmons scored just one point in a game, the Sixers lost after dropping confetti on their own floor in the next game, Embiid couldn't finish a tough shot near the basket against Aron Baynes and the Sixers were sent home packing in five games.

But the Sixers knew they had a tremendously bright future ahead of them. Many believed Embiid, Simmons, Fultz, Covington and Šarić made up the league's best young core -- and rumors were already swirling that a player on the sport's Mount Rushmore could be on his way to Philadelphia.

Follow Adam on Twitter: @SixersAdam

Follow PhillyVoice on Twitter: @thephillyvoice