What Are the Sixers Going to Do With the 21st Overall Pick?
As we approach the month of November, it’s about time to get excited about the upcoming NBA Draft.
The draft is to be held virtually on November 18th and the 76ers have the number 21 pick in the first round this year, ala Oklahoma City Thunder.
For a long time, many fans have assumed the pick will need to be attached to Al Horford or Tobias Harris in attempts to unload their contracts.
While this may still be the case, the pick may not have as much value as the young players already on the roster.
There are several options with this pick and we will look at each one.
Including the Pick in an Al Horford Trade
Trading the 21st pick in the draft would serve an obvious purpose. Getting out of a contract that we do not want. It goes without saying, another bad contract would have to come back in order to make salaries work, but there may be an opportunity to find a better fit on the team.
If the front office feels that there is no way to make Al Horford fit on this team, even with Doc Rivers coaching, then this pick could be dangled along with a player like Matisse Thybulle or Shake Milton.
Keeping No. 21
Staying put at 21 is something the Sixers will need to be well prepared for if they can’t find any trades involving this pick before the draft. This has been a weird year from a scouting perspective and preparing for the draft has been much different. I expect this year’s draft to be one of the most unpredictable in recent memory. It’s been more than seven months since a college basketball game has been played, so a lot of these players may have made significant strides without any of us being able to see it.
If the team keeps the pick, I think we can expect them to target players with the skills to be a secondary ball-handler and a consistent enough shooter off-ball. It’s unlikely they find a star here, so it’s key that they target specific skillsets at this spot in the draft. Names to keep an eye on are Tyrell Terry, Kira Lewis Jr., Tyrese Maxey, and Nico Mannion.
Trading Up
Photo: Mark Zerof/USA Today Sports
Trading up in this draft at first might seem highly unlikely. The more you look at it, the more sense it makes. This is a draft in which plenty of teams will be looking to trade down. The Sixers have four second-round picks this year, two of them are very early second-round picks (34 and 36). If there’s a player that starts to slip in the draft unexpectedly, there’s a real chance that Philly can move up to just outside of the lottery.
Players that the Sixers would look into trading up for if they begin to fall include: Tyrese Haliburton, Aaron Nesmith, and Saddiq Bey. Mock Drafts have these players all over the place, so we really won’t know how attainable any of these players are until draft night.
Overall, this is going to be a weird, unpredictable offseason. Any of these outcomes are in the realm of possibilities with the 21st pick, but I think the most likely remains keeping the pick. Trades could be difficult to pull off within the next 3 weeks leading up to the draft
Every team most likely has plenty of work to do to prepare for one of the most interesting drafts in recent memory.
Your predictions for what the Sixers end up doing are just as good as anyone else’s at this point.
Featured Image: Mark Zerof/USA Today Sports
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