Hindsight is one hell of a thing. The saying is ‘hindsight is always 20-20’, meaning looking back on the past and talking about what you would change about it, the scenarios always seem to work out in your favor.
Sometimes life has different plans and it forces someone to react in the situation they are in, to try and make the best out of it.
For the Philadelphia 76ers, a team in a rebuild process hoping to find a diamond in the rough through the NBA Draft, it appears that they didn’t get their guy after-all. Once it was determined they would select third in the 2015 NBA Draft, it was almost assumed that Russell would be headed to Philly. The 76ers apparently made it known they wanted Russell. There was almost no way the two teams picking before them, the Minnesota Timberwolves and Los Angeles Lakers, would pass up on the top two big men.
As hard as it is to believe, Jahlil Okafor, who was once the top projected player in the 2015 NBA Draft, might not have been their ‘plan a’ in the draft.
Following from David Aldridge of NBA.com.
The Sixers were hoping to take D’Angelo Russell with the third pick, but when the Lakers scotched those plans, Philly had to “settle” for Okafor, the (consensus) first-team All-American as a freshman for Duke who many had pegged as the first overall pick. By far the best big man Philly’s had since this, uh, rebuild began, Okafor will improve the looks of a team that was sixth in three-point attempts last season, but just 11th in 3-pointers made.
Okafor is no slouch, he can cause some damage in the paint. He has fantastic footwork and has post moves that are way better than half of the NBA bigs currently in the league. His defense has a big question mark by it but it’s ok. He’s only 19 and he can definitely work on improving it.
The issue is, if Russell went to Philly, the 76ers would have a seemingly perfect scenario. Even if Joel Embiid was still hurt with Russell in the fold, it would just mean more minutes for Nerlens Noel. Now with Okafor, the jam in the frountcourt begins to take precedence on the Sixers laundry list of things to fix.
Embiid may miss next season but there’s still the problem of all three big men that all have big hopes to be stars in the league. One of them have to be gone and they have to do it on a short clock because you can’t hinder any of the center’s development.
If they went with the star guard, the life of the Sixers front office would be so much easier with a trio of Russell, Embiid and Noel going forward would’ve been quite the setup. Then again, hindsight is 20-20.
