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Sixers pleased with draft situation, ready to make pick worthwhile

Between now and draft night, Sixers brass will gather enough info to make the right selection with the No. 3 pick.

WE KNOW all about the numbers-crunching that goes on behind closed doors at the 76ers' offices. There are more MIT graduates and analytical experts behind the scenes than there are basketballs.

So, while the last month has consisted of talk about possibilities and probabilites of landing the first pick in the draft or getting the protected picks of the Lakers and Miami Heat available via trades, none of that matters now. The Sixers have the third pick in the June 25 draft, and nothing else in the first round. They still have five selections in the second round and perhaps as many as four first-rounders in next year's draft.

But now faces can be put to draft spots, and the future might have a bit more light than it has had in quite some time.

"I am thrilled with the third pick," said coach Brett Brown, who left yesterday to watch workouts in Los Angeles. "We won the pick, [despite] all of the odds that had us at four, like last year . . .

[General manager Sam Hinkie] will use this pick and all of the second-round picks we have to mine talent. Then it's on me and my staff to develop them.

"Our core will continue to grow and continually help us build our culture. Continuity and culture - these two words are not mutually exclusive. To think that we have Dario Saric and possibly four first-rounds picks in 2016 should provide even further optimism that we are moving forward in a good way. [Tuesday] night was a good night for the city and the organization."

Brown let it be known at the end of the season he wanted the winning to start next season. He no longer appears ready to play the good soldier and coach a revolving door of "gypsies." Perhaps that third pick, whoever it winds up being, might bring him closer to stabilizing the franchise.

"We're clearly building through the draft," Hinkie said. "We're clearly trying to find star players that we can really move forward with. We'd all love to play in June. You watch the playoffs, and there's playoff games going on right now that will just be fantastic. It's the best time of the year. The sooner we can get there, the better.

"We've tried to do our work early in ways that have been unusual, I think, maybe for the Sixers in the past. That's important to me, and we've really turned up the heat in a big way with that. But it doesn't stop. I'm not wired well to say that's enough. We'll spend a lot of time between now and then, mostly all of the available time, to try to get all the information we can to make good decisions and, by design, we'll have to make a decision at the end of June."

None bigger than what to do with that third pick. Maybe it's as simple as taking one of the two highly rated point guards - D'Angelo Russell or Emmanuel Mudiay. Perhaps one of the big men - Jahlil Okafor or Karl-Anthony Towns - falls to Hinkie, and Brown is left to figure out playing time among three bigs, including Nerlens Noel and Joel Embiid.

Whatever the case, the organization is happy with how the pingpong balls fell on Tuesday in New York. And Hinkie can't wait to see what he can do with the five second-round picks he'll have.

"There's a big range for us from 3 to 60," Hinkie said. "So because of that, we will try to see lots of players. I tell people this all the time: It's an important time to gather information about these players, because for some of them, it's our last time. Many of these players will get drafted and some of them will play really well and then you fast-forward a few years and they'll be free agents. We won't have a chance to get them in our gym to shoot and run and test and interview, and do all those sorts of things. They'll be on television 82 nights a year. That's helpful, but we won't get an up- close-and-personal feel like we will now, and we'll try to take advantage of that."

Hinkie will take advantage of a lot of things in the near future, the biggest one being that No. 3 pick.

Votes for Noel

In polling for the NBA all-defensive team announced yesterday, rookie Nerlens Noel received five votes, including one for the first team. Noel averaged 8.1 rebounds, 1.8 steals and 1.9 blocks this season.

Blog: ph.ly/Sixerville