Each week, we’ll take an in-depth look at something Sixers, be it a story from the past, a trend during the present, or a thought about the future. As the NBA season chugs along — or if Varun has a random, basketball-related thought pop into his head — we’ll expand the series to include everything hoops. Welcome to Canonball*.
*And yes, that’s the spelling we’re using. Brand recognition over correct spelling every time, eh Froot Loops?
I’ll start by saying I hate the way the NBA records its draft day trades. No, the Sixers did not technically pick Matisse Thybulle, but he’s the guy they wanted, he’s the guy they traded for, and he’s the guy who’s playing for the Sixers. Yet nowhere on the Basketball Reference or Wikipedia pages for Philly’s draft history can you find the name Matisse Thybulle.
That’s not to throw shade at the sites, by the way, just how the league documents its own transactions. And to that end, thank goodness for RealGM, which has two separate lists, including one for draft rights acquisitions. Okay, let’s do this.
The Sixers fancy themselves a championship contender, which they certainly can be (and have been) with a healthy and engaged Joel Embiid leading the way. Embiid, who went third overall in 2014, signed a big-money extension in 2017, a no-brainer then and now (even accounting for the injury caveats). Ben Simmons, the top overall pick in 2016, has essentially played like one since and earned his first megadeal last offseason. Tobias Harris, whose trade we’ll discuss below, also signed a mammoth contract in 2019 and is in the second year of it.
For better and worse — and barring a Daryl Morey maneuver, of course — these are the Sixers’ pillars moving forward. They’re all under contract through 2023, with Harris and Simmons’ deals going a bit longer than that.
The goal of The Process was to draft and acquire — via trade or free agency — star-level talent in order to legitimately compete for titles. Instead of discussing whether Ben Simmons and Tobias Harris can actually be the second- and third-best players on a championship team, I’m just going to establish that, starting in 2013, the Sixers went searching for stars and ultimately came away with this triumvirate, which takes up the majority of the team’s cap space.
The goal has since shifted to finding pieces which make sense schematically and financially. Teams can do this a few ways. One is what I call the “LeBron way*,” which essentially means getting post-prime veterans who have already made their money — and appeared in big games — to come play for cheap. Think Ray Allen in Miami or Marc Gasol now.
*An offshoot of the “LeBron way” is to scour the veteran buyout market for help at the trade deadline. In either case, it’s mercenary team building.
Another method is to sign quality role players to mid-level contracts that don’t affect a star’s upcoming deal. Think Marcus Smart’s pact with Boston, a tidy 4/50 (four years, 50 million) that allowed the Celtics to extend Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown without devolving into a stars-and-scrubs setup. This method, unlike the prior one, breeds chemistry, as All Stars and role players alike can take solace in knowing they’ll be together for a few seasons. These contracts also help the money match up in case a team wants to deal for a star, making them exceedingly flexible.
The third avenue for bringing in talent without breaking the bank is the most obvious one: drafting rotation pieces outside the lottery. If you’re contending, you’re not picking before 20-something (unless it’s another team’s selection) so you’d better make sure the guys you take will have an impact in Year 2 at minimum, Year 1 preferably.
These players sign cheap contracts that number three or four years and can be used to sweeten trades. However, the guys who do stick around have to show offensive potential quickly — and not be the defensive sieve that most rookies and young players are — in order to provide legitimate bench depth against top competition.
The Sixers aren’t really anyone’s paragon of quality drafting, but they’ve actually been quite successful at finding production in the latter part of both rounds while making the playoffs. For brevity’s sake, we’ll focus on a handful of guys — Landry Shamet, Shake Milton, Matisse Thybulle, and Tyrese Maxey — taken since 2018, the draft after Philly’s first 50-win season in 17 years.
Again, we’re talking about playoff teams picking good players outside the lottery, so you’ll find nothing on dudes like Mikal Bridges*, Markelle Fultz, Furkan Korkmaz, Dario Saric, or Jerami Grant in this piece.
*We also won’t be talking about Zhaire Smith, a lottery pick who came to Philly along with Miami’s 2021 first round selection while Bridges was shipped to Phoenix. That Heat pick was used in the Tobias Harris deal, which we’ll discuss in more detail below.
Copyright 2018 NBAE (Photo by Jesse D. Garrabrant/NBAE via Getty Images)
2018 Draft — Shamet and Shake
This was almost as good a draft as a 50-win team could hope to have. Though Shake Milton’s emergence does go a long way in making up for the loss of Mikal Bridges, not having the Philly native and Villanova legend in the starting lineup is painful in many ways. But we’ll get to that in a bit.
Instead, let’s start by focusing on two other players the Sixers drafted/acquired that evening: Landry Shamet (26th) and Shake Milton (54th). Shamet immediately came in and added three-point shooting — always in short supply around here — going 4-7 from distance in his second game on his way to 99 three-pointers (at a 40 percent hit rate) in 54 games with the team.
The Wichita State product became what prior late-first rounders Furkan Korkmaz (at the time) and Timothé Luwawu-Cabarrot could not: a knockdown outside shooter who didn’t hemorrhage points on the other end and was therefore worth something in a trade. Then-GM Elton Brand promptly sent him, along with Wilson Chandler, Mike Muscala, and two first round picks, to the Clippers’ in exchange for Tobias Harris, Mike Scott, and Boban Marjanovic.
Quick sidebar: Let’s say Philly kept Bridges. Would he have proven good enough right away to convince the Sixers that Joel Embiid, Ben Simmons, and Jimmy Butler (we’re assuming that trade still takes place) could come out of the East without another “star”? Could a lineup of Simmons, Redick, Butler, Bridges, and Embiid — with Shamet and some vets off the bench — win a title?
Hindsight says there’s a fair chance, mostly because of Butler’s ability to carry a team in big games as a shot maker from the wing. But the Sixers didn’t feel the Simmons/Embiid/Butler trio was quite enough (nor did most of the fanbase at the time, if we’re being honest). So, they sprung for a guy who they thought could get them over the top in Tobias Harris, then a 20-PPG scorer who was competing for an All Star spot in the deeper Western Conference and playing the best ball of his career.
As we established earlier, the goal of the Process was to draft and acquire stars — via trade or free agency — to compete for rings. Since Philly, like most markets, isn’t a free agent destination, the Sixers had to land their stars via drafting and trading.
In order to trade for stars, you need quality role players on team-friendly contracts — preferably 20-somethings who haven’t yet hit their ceiling, guys who’ll actually get the other team’s attention. That means you need to draft and develop lower picks well, regardless of when (or if) they were selected. It’s how the Sixers landed Jimmy Butler in the first place — a late lottery pick in Dario Saric and an undrafted diamond in the rough in Robert Covington.
So, ignoring the debate around whether Tobias Harris qualifies as a “star,” the Sixers drafted a player at the end of the first round who proved good enough in his first 50 games to be the centerpiece of a deal for a borderline All Star.
Yes, Philly gave up two first round picks as well — Jerry West versus Elton Brand is something of a front office mismatch — but that doesn’t take away from the fact that they found value at a slot that provides far more misses than hits. To wit, here are the 26th picks from the five drafts before 2018: Caleb Swanigan, Furkan Korkmaz, Nikola Milutinov, P.J. Hairston, and Andre Roberson.
The only one who’s still in the league is Korkmaz, and he’s a Sixer. Roberson was the best of this bunch before his injuries, but the point stands. With the 26th pick, the Sixers drafted a legit trade chip who will likely play for a decade and contribute to good teams during that time. Not something every team who’s been in that position recently can say.
What’s more impressive than getting a surefire rotation piece at 26? Getting one with a more expansive offensive game at 54. How Shake Milton dropped that far has bewildered me since it happened, because he’s 6-5 with handles and shot 43 percent from three in college. Also, Larry freakin’ Brown thought this guy was a good basketball player. I’m not saying he should’ve been a top-10 pick, but what else do you need to crack the top, I don’t know, 40?
Fortunately, the Mavericks thought they needed Ray Spalding and Kostas Antetokounmpo more than a guy who played right down the road from them at SMU, so they traded Milton for those two luminaries on draft night. Ray and Kostas have combined for 63 NBA points; Shake has 84 through seven games this year.
Milton, whom the Sixers have under contract through 2023 for less than five million dollars in total, is going to play in the NBA for a long time and (eventually) make serious money doing so. He’s going to log meaningful minutes on multiple playoff teams through his first deal, which is one of the best in the league. Honestly, it’s hard to overstate how vital this guy’s skillset and contract are for Philly. And he was there to be taken at 54*!
*In keeping with our look at Shamet, here are the five 54th picks that preceded Milton: Alec Peters, Kay Felder, Dani Díez, Nemanja Dangubić, and Arsalan Kazemi. Only Peters and Felder have played in the NBA, and neither is in the league now. Getting Shake Milton was and is a major win for the Sixers organization.
2019 Draft — Locking Up Thybulle
These next two drafts will feature one player each, with Matisse Thybulle being the pick here. Though Philly’s annoying inability to contain their excitement over Thybulle led to Danny Ainge swiping an early second round pick for the privilege of landing the Washington wing, it’s been worth it.
Thybulle is still improving much of his game, obviously, but it’s clear the guy has special defensive abilities that could have merited a late lottery selection. Very few rookies are anything resembling a net positive on defense — especially perimeter players — but Thybulle shifted the balance of multiple games in his first year by creating the kind of live ball turnovers most dudes could only dream of forcing. The Sixers essentially replaced a master of deflections in Robert Covington with a guy who, at a younger age, employs a more advanced version of that tantalizing blend of length, reflex, and instinct. Philly will just have to hope Thybulle can shoot as well as Covington.
Regardless, it’s impossible to take your eye off Thybulle when he’s playing defense because you know a big play is just around the corner. How many NBA players, let alone non-lottery guys just starting their second year, make that side of the ball must-watch television? And it’s not like Thybulle is a total black hole on offense; he shot a respectable 36 percent from three his rookie year. From blocking Kemba Walker in his first game to going off for 20 points on 5-8 from distance against Toronto soon after, Thybulle proved right away that he belongs.
Yes, his handle needs a lot of work, and Thybulle’s (lack of an) offensive game explains why he wasn’t a lottery pick, but the Sixers got another guy late in the first round* who positively impacted games from Day One. I’m not sure what happens when his first contract is up, but, as with Shamet and Milton, I know Thybulle will be in the NBA for a while.
*I didn’t want to list the previous five 20th picks because those selections were pretty solid, but since I’ve told you that, here they are: Josh Okogie, Harry Giles, Caris LeVert, Delon Wright, and Bruno Caboclo. Pretty solid group other than Caboclo, which makes sense. The better the pick, the greater chance of high-level talent still being on the board.
(Video via NBA/ESPN)
2020 Draft — A Gift From On High
Thank you, Mike Muscala. The former Sixer nailed two clutch threes at the end of a meaningless OKC-Miami game in the Bubble to push the Thunder’s draft pick to 21 and out of the protected zone, giving the Sixers the chance to take Tyrese Maxey. Remember, the Sixers traded their own pick from 2020 to land Tobias Harris, so they would’ve had zero first round picks this past draft if Muscala hadn’t hit those shots.
Instead, Philly got a guy whose skillset is sorely needed, with Maxey basically falling into the team’s lap as a plug-and-play second unit creator. Unlike most Sixers, Maxey can dribble into the paint, create for others, and has the touch to score around the rim. Though his shot is far from a finished product — and, like with Thybulle, probably the reason his stock dropped — I can’t think of a reason he should’ve been there at 21*.
There’s not a lot to dissect with Maxey, mostly because the sample size is still quite small. That said, rookies don’t need to show completeness; they need to show flashes. They need to showcase at least one sustainable NBA-caliber skill to earn minutes on good teams. For Shamet, it was shooting; for Milton, it’s shot creation off the bounce; for Thybulle, it’s off-ball defense. Maxey has displayed a few league-worthy skills of his own, namely driving ability and touch around the basket.
This was a case of the Sixers not overthinking it, a must in times of front office transition, and their bench has already benefited from Maxey’s quickness and feel for the game. Doc Rivers famously doesn’t like to play rookies, but Maxey has clearly won him over with his attitude and production. And like Shamet, Milton, and Thybulle before him, the Kentucky product seems to have won the fanbase over as well.
Especially due to last year’s disaster, the Sixers aren’t really considered a good organization, just a bumbling quasi-contender that tanked its way into a few All Stars. That’s totally fair, by the way — the franchise has spent years blowing golden opportunities to finally get over the hump and deliver a championship-caliber team. But it’s also done some good things around the margins.
Finding Landry Shamet, Shake Milton, Matisse Thybulle, and Tyrese Maxey in three successive drafts won’t turn Philly into a true title contender on its own, but that vital string of selections would make any front office feel proud. What’s left for the Sixers is to figure out the future of the latter three. Will be they good enough to round out a title team’s playoff rotation? Or can any of them be packaged in a trade for another superstar? We’ll know soon enough.
*I’ve done it for everyone else, so here goes: Justin Anderson, DeAndre’ Bembry, Terrance Ferguson, Grayson Allen, and Brandon Clarke were the five 21st picks from 2015-2019. Anderson’s not on a team, Bembry is a role player for the Raptors, Ferguson can’t crack Philly’s rotation, and Allen and Clarke play for Memphis. Clarke looks like a good one, but no one else is particularly special. Maxey has a chance to be the best of this group.
Postscript:
The Sixers have been unearthing non-lottery rotation pieces for much of this century. Though most peaked elsewhere, here are some players Philly drafted (or acquired on draft night) after the lottery since 2000: Speedy Claxton, Samuel Dalembert, John Salmons, Kyle Korver, Lou Williams, Mo Speights, Jrue Holiday, Nikola Vucevic, Jerami Grant, and Richaun Holmes. That list includes four second round picks. Not bad.
Featured image of Tyrese Maxey and Adam Silver via NBA.com
The Canon 
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