January 09, 2025
While we remain fully focused on the day-to-day of the current Sixers while aiming to project their future, it never hurts to periodically look back at the recent history of the team and check in on players who we used to be locked in on for several months of the year.
As we do every once in a while, let's see how some old friends are doing:
Simmons, now a 28-year-old on a significant expiring contract in Brooklyn, had a very brief run in which he looked like someone who had turned from a complete non-threat to score to someone who could at least theoretically get to the rim and finish there.
After averaging 5.1 points in 23.5 minutes per game during his first 19 contests of the season, Simmons rattled off three consecutive games in double-figures — notching 10 points, 12 points and 15 points against Cleveland, Toronto and Utah — in mid-late December.
The Nets have played in nine games since that stretch, and Simmons has only played in four of them due to a combination of a calf injury which made him a late scratch against the Sixers last week and the ongoing injury management of his back which has held him out of back-to-backs all season. In those four games, he has mustered all of 20 points in total while shooting 39.1 percent from the field.
Simmons' harshest critics might have predicted that his inability to develop any sort of jump-shooting ability would catch up to him and prevent him from having a long prime. But what stands out the most when watching Simmons on the Nets is how little burst he has. What has hurt him just as much as his lack of skill development is the fact that surgery after surgery zapped his athleticism, rendering him without any sort of advantages beyond his basketball intellect — which can only take a player so far when defenses do not feel compelled to even guard them.
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Niang's first year with the Cavaliers did not go as planned — he did appear in all 82 regular season games, but his performance was underwhelming and he fell out of favor during the playoffs. However, like everything associated with the Cavaliers in 2024-25, things have gone much better for Niang the second time around.
Niang remains one of the safest bets in the NBA to shoot a high percentage from three-point range on terrific per-possession volume, and that has not changed this season (38.6 three-point percentage, 10.3 three-point attempts per 100 possessions). But as nearly every critical component of Cleveland's rotation has taken a massive step forward under new head coach Kenny Atkinson, Niang's responsibility has diminished — a good thing for Niang and the Cavaliers.
As the Sixers battled in the final seconds to secure a win against the undermanned, NBA-worst Wizards on Wednesday night, Niang and the Cavaliers secured a close win in the most must-see game of the season to date, when the 31-4 Cavaliers took down the 30-5 Oklahoma City Thunder in an epic clash of NBA juggernauts in Cleveland.
Speaking of the Thunder, who will be in Philadelphia next week...
Joe, the No. 49 overall pick by the Sixers in the 2020 NBA Draft, never found his footing during his first two seasons with the organization — so it moved on earlier than some expected, with the obvious risk of an impending breakout. That is exactly what happened, as Joe landed with a young Oklahoma City team which afforded him opportunities to grow on the floor.
Joe's excellent three-point shooting stroke, which appealed to the Sixers when he came out of Arkansas, was the driving factor in his ascent: in each of his first two years with the Thunder, Joe shot well over 40 percent from beyond the arc on massive volume (12.4 three-point attempts per 100 possessions). Now, as OKC has formed into a full-blown demolition machine, Joe has found himself in a comfortable role on a team which could challenge for 70 regular season wins (currently on a 68-win pace).
As the Thunder constantly tweak their fifth starting spot, Joe is a part-time starter, with his name being called to begin 10 of his 34 appearances this season. Joe's three-point efficiency is down quite a bit — he has made 35.2 percent of his three-point tries on 5.8 long-range attempts per game — but the threat of his shot still helps provide significant floor spacing for MVP contender Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, All-Star contender Jalen Williams and co.
The 25-year-old Joe signed a four-year contract with a team option in the final season worth $48 million to solidify himself as a long-term piece for the Thunder, including a team-friendly descending structure.
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The draft compensation the Sixers received from the Clippers in last year's James Harden trade could eventually serve as a lifeline for the franchise. The acquisition of KJ Martin in that deal may also prove to be far more impactful than many would have anticipated at the time. But the swap of Tucker and Nic Batum was massively helpful — not just because of how good Batum was for the Sixers on both ends of the floor last season, or that Batum's experience in Philadelphia enabled him to give countryman Guerschon Yabusele an excellent review of the city and organization, but because the Sixers escaped the third and final year of the contract they had given Tucker two summers prior.
It was clear as day that Tucker would eventually pick up his $11.5 million player option for the 2024-25 season, and it is equally obvious that the 39-year-old Tucker is no longer fit to be part of an NBA rotation. If not for the Tucker-Batum swap, not only would last year's Sixers have been worse, but this year's Sixers would have likely been unable to sign Caleb Martin to a four-year deal which came in well below his expected market value.
The Clippers announced before the start of the preseason that Tucker would be away from the team as it searched for a situation which suited him better. Tucker was not in line for any minutes in Los Angeles, and so the decision was made to wait things out. It is incredibly difficult to imagine any team trading for Tucker unless he is merely salary filler in a larger deal.
Tucker being bought out after the Clippers either fail to move him or package him with other salaries in a bigger trade feels like an inevitability at this point. The Sixers are fortunate to not have to deal with the situation themselves.
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