Sixers' Joel Embiid, Ben Simmons are foundation of the future | Marcus Hayes
The Process now turns to cultivating players to give Embiid and Simmons best shot at success
ALMOST EVERYONE on the Sixers roster accepts the reality that The Process begins in earnest next season. Assuming everyone's bones and connective tissues don't simultaneously degrade (again), 2017-18 will commence construction around center Joel Embiid and forward Ben Simmons.
Embiid played just 31 games this season after missing his first two seasons with foot problems. Simmons missed his rookie year with a broken foot. It might sound unwise to build your foundation on a pair of foundationally unstable players, but that's where The Process, um, stands. Everything rides on Jo Jo and Big Ben.
The rest of the team? Every player understands that his value is relative to how much he can help that pair succeed. The smart ones will spend the summer making themselves attractive to Sixers coach Brett Brown and general manager Bryan Colangelo.
"Ben and Joel, obviously, are going to have the ball a lot," rookie guard Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot said Thursday morning, after a Wednesday night loss in New York ended a 28-win season. "I have to be consistent with my shot."
Predictably, that was the theme. Shooting sells in today's NBA. Nik Stauskas wants to be the next Kyle Korver. T.J. McConnell wants to follow Kyle Lowry. And Justin Anderson wants to rain from range, as does Dario Saric. Robert Covington escaped the D-League because of his "J," and, after his "D" has secured him a spot in the Association, RoCo needs to relocate his deep game.
Even Jerryd Bayless, signed last summer to run the point, realizes that he will be most useful next season if he can snipe alongside Simmons. Bayless missed all but three games with a wrist injury, but he wisely spent his time on Simmons' shoulder.
"(He's), like, my big brother," Simmons said.
Bayless hopes to be his wingman.
"We spent a lot of time together. He'd ask me questions about basketball. We watched games together," said Bayless, who will be in his 10th season. "We were able to talk a lot about not only basketball, but life things."
That was smart, because the point position might not belong to Bayless this fall. Brown plans to turn Simmons into a point guard. Brown will plant the nimble, 7-2, 250-pound monster in the paint. He will task Simmons, basketball savant, to orchestrate the offense over the heads of the opposition.
Everyone else? Coincidental.
As such, everyone else is elbowing his way to the front of the line, jockeying for October minutes in April exit interviews. They are promising to pigeon themselves into whatever hole will get them the most exposure on a crowded, young roster. To a man, every one of them pledged to voluntarily return to the training center in Camden in no more than a few weeks to begin molding themselves to their bosses' ideal.
At 6-6 but just 205 pounds, TLC needs more lbs. To that end, he said, he will return home to France for a month and gorge on his favorite meal, beef bourguignon.
Drafted 24th overall, Luwawu-Cabarrot, smooth and athletic but cripplingly raw, was an afterthought until March. He then started 18 of the last 23 games and averaged 11.7 points in 28.3 minutes and hit just 31.8 percent of his three-pointers. Over the last three games, however, those numbers jumped to 16.7 points and 31.5 minutes and he hit 50 percent of his threes.
Saric, the obvious choice for Rookie of the Year, said he plans to improve on every aspect of his game - a pat answer, and one without real merit. Thanks to years of playing professionally in Europe, Saric, 23, plays like he's 33, but he didn't even hit 33 percent of his threes this season. Embiid can dominate the paint, but he needs Saric to be a corner-three threat.
Of course, Embiid needs more than Saric to deter double-teams. Assured a top-seven pick, the Sixers should land a scoring perimeter player in the guard-heavy draft. But should they expect a rookie to be a sniper on Day 1?
Stauskas doesn't thnk so. He led the team by hitting 36.8 percent of his threes, but that wasn't good enough. He says he wants to hit 40 percent next season. If he does, whoever Mr. Rookie turns out to be might have a year of apprenticeship.
It will take more than a 4 percent jump for Justin Anderson (29.9 percent) or T.J. McConnell (20.0) to merit significant playing time, especially since the team will be deep next season. McConnell attempted only 55 three-pointers in his 81 games, which made defending him simple.
"If I become a reliable shooter," he said, "it will take my game to the next level."
McConnell's value goes far beyond 23 feet, 9 inches.
A second-year, undrafted point guard, McConnell entered training camp as the fourth option at the position and ended the season as the only real option. He took over the starting job Dec. 30 and never relinquished it.
In the offseason, McConnell will be running things in the Sixers' gym. Brown won't have to be there.
"As a point guard, you have to be on the same level as your head coach, to know what we want offensively and defensively," McConnell said. "It's your job to get people in the right positions."
Covington, a D-League success story, saw his three-point rate drop to 33.3 percent, but then, he endured an early-season slump while he adjusted to his new role as a lockdown defender. He averaged more than 36 percent of his threes in his first two full seasons in the NBA. He should return to that level.
Fringe center Richaun Holmes, a narrow-shouldered fan favorite, was the Last Man Standing among the four centers who began the season. Nerlens Noel was traded. Embiid's knee went first, then Jahlil Okafor's. Suddenly, suddenly, it was all Holmes, all the time.
His reward for his hard work:
Show up, shut up, get beat up.
Holmes will be the punching bag for Embiid and Okafor; at least, for the moment.
As for Okafor - he clearly wants to be traded. He said that projecting his role next season is "far-fetched," whatever that means. Okafor was asked specifically if saw value in playing the role of super-sub for Embiid - a role Noel embraced, which increased his value and helped the Sixers trade him. Okafor, the third overall pick in the 2015 draft, refused to consider that possibility.
Clearly, not everyone on the roster is realistic.
@inkstainedretch