Why the Sixers should keep the No. 3 pick

Good morning. What happens in Philadelphia next is so unpredictable that building an escape hatch seems the best path. That means drafting another young asset and watching how things unfold. Let's basketball.

The Philadelphia 76ers pulled off one of the greatest late-season tank jobs in modern NBA history after it became clear that injuries and malaise across the roster had dug the team too deep a hole from which to escape. The discourse around the Sixers starting with Joel Embiid's mysterious absence and running up through the midseason mark was about whether the team should tank in an effort to preserve their top-6 protected first-round pick – an uphill battle given the team was 19-28 at the end of January where a slew of teams in worse shape – or rally (again) to capture a play-in spot there for the taking and see what happened in the postseason. The Sixers waited until just about the last minute to choose the former. Embiid, Paul George and Tyrese Maxey played all through February and it looked like the team was content to give its pick to the Thunder.

But a funny thing happened: despite trying the Sixers kept losing. Philadelphia went 1-10 in February with some combination of the stars playing most nights. It was as if the universe was telling the Sixers to tank. And so they did. The three stars stopped playing, and but for some Quentin Grimes heroics the Sixers were awful the rest of the season. Philly went 4-20 over March and April.

At the beginning of February, the Sixers had the eighth-worst record in the NBA at 19-28 (.404). By the end of the season, they had dropped to the fifth-worst record at 24-58 (.293). Over the last 35 games of the season, which included that purgatorial February, the Sixers had the worst record in the league at 5-30, edging even the Jazz (6-29) and Hornets (7-28).

And then the Sixers still almost lost their pick as the Mavericks and Spurs jumped into the top two during the lottery. Luckily for Philadelphia, they also received a bump, landing at No. 3.

Now the buzz is that the No. 3 pick could be on the move as the Sixers look to add another piece to their quixotic quest to get past the second round.

This is considered a strong draft overall, with a potentially foundational top pick in Cooper Flagg and a very highly rated likely No. 2 pick in Dylan Harper, a big and alluring point guard (and the second son of Ron Harper destined for the league). There are options and paths after that: Ace Bailey, a modern NBA wing who played with Harper at Rutgers; dynamite athletic guard V.J. Edgecombe from Baylor; shooter extraordinaire Tre Johnson; shooter extraordinaire Kon Knueppel. There isn't really a consensus forming around who should go No. 3; these players and others have backers and detractors. But the players in the conversation are replete with upside. You can get a future star at No. 3, or No. 5, or maybe even No. 10 in this draft.

And that's what the Sixers should be trying to do, because no one in that building or any other building on this planet knows what's going to happen at the top of the incumbent roster of the Sixers.

Joel Embiid's health has been a roller coaster his entire career. He missed his first two NBA seasons but played 77% of the Sixers' games (the equivalent of 63 games per season) over a 6-year stretch only to miss most of the past two seasons. Is Paul George washed? Paul George looked washed last year! Does anyone know if he's washed or if he just had a weird and bad season after moving to Philadelphia? He's 35 and the last player remaining in the NBA from the 2010 draft. There are fewer questions about third star (maybe first star) Maxey, but he's also the least decorated of the trio by a huge margin.

Nick Nurse! There are questions there based on his reputation and history and whether that style of leaning hard on key players is a match with the health history of the team. Would anyone be shocked if Nurse found himself on an early hot seat next season? That makes any remaining bench adjustments the Sixers execute as the coaching carousel comes to a halt pretty important. Currently, the team doesn't have any assistant coaches with NBA head coaching experience. Hmm.

How the Sixers will perform early in the 2025-26 season is as far from guaranteed as you can get. They could be dominant in a weakened Eastern Conference. They could be a repeat disaster. They could be somewhere in the middle. That lack of certainty creates a cloudy path forward: if Embiid and PG are healthy and meshing well, and Maxey, Jared McCain, Grimes and others are supporting the two stars through a winning environment, maybe the championship path looks open and you consider cashing in any chips laying around for more help where needed. If things go south, maybe you start shopping the veterans to see if there's any market out there. (Hell, if things go well but not really well, maybe you start shopping the veterans.)

In all three cases, having the flexibility to pivot if and when necessary seems important. Trading the No. 3 pick now for roster help erases that flexibility. Choosing the best prospect available preserves it. If the team's a disaster, you have a readymade young core to spark the next era of the Sixers with Maxey, McCain and the rookie. If the roster works, you have a cost-controlled young player to potentially extend the window and provide some help on the fringes as the season wears on. (We've seen young players help title teams in recent years: Jordan Poole with the Warriors, Christian Braun with the Nuggets, basically the entire OKC roster should the Thunder win this year.) If you're on the high side of the middle and you really need another big or another wing this season, you have an upside piece to include in a trade.

Trading down a few spots isn't appreciably different than this, though the Sixers front office certainly believes in its scouting ability. If the team thinks it knows which of the No. 3 candidates can become a star, it's hard to imagine passing that up to get a secondary asset in the team's current state.

The draft is more fun when teams are wheeling and dealing, so I'm hoping for a little chaos. But for their own sake, the Sixers should be as patient as humanly possible while they figure out if the team is going to be competitive or not. That means taking the best prospect available and waiting for next season.

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So There Was A Plan

Reports suggest that the Knicks asked the Timberwolves and Rockets for permission to interview Chris Finch and Ime Udoka respectively. The teams denied those requests. It sounds like the Knicks haven't directly asked the Mavericks about Jason Kidd yet, but that the Mavs plan to say no. The plan after firing Tom Thibodeau was apparently to poach another top-tier coach from another team. It's not going well.

What's interesting here is that if a coach under contract really does want to jump ship, their agent will communicate that to both the courting team and the incumbent team. This is how Jason Kidd went from Brooklyn to Milwaukee, and how Doc Rivers went from Boston to Los Angeles, and so on. Teams don't really want to employ coaches who tell them they'd rather be elsewhere. So the implication here is that neither Finch nor Udoka were interested in jumping to New York. That's interesting.

It also makes the slower-moving story in Dallas a little more interesting. If the Knicks haven't asked the Mavericks for permission yet, is it because they are working with Kidd to set the stage for a Kidd-led request to the Mavericks to be considered for the Knicks job?

If you're the Mavericks, and your head coach approaches asking to interview for another job, how exactly do you handle that?

Perhaps Kidd isn't interested and the Knicks don't have a path here to poaching a current head coach, and they are just moving through their list and will end up with someone currently unemployed or a current assistant coach. But consider me intrigued.

Something's Gotta Give

Oklahoma City has been vulnerable on the road during the postseason. They are 4-3 through three rounds, going 1-2 in Denver and splitting their two games in Minnesota. To that end, the Thunder have been pretty shaky in Games 3 during this run. Against Memphis, they fell behind by a million and came back after Ja Morant went down with injury. Against Denver, they lost in overtime. Against Minnesota, they lost by 42.

Meanwhile, Indiana has been awful in Games 3 all postseason, with two of them at home with the Pacers up 2-0 in the series. (Against Milwaukee, the Pacers went up 2-0 at home and had Game 3 on the road.) Indy has lost two Game 3 blow-outs and crumbled in Game 3 against the Knicks. Overall, the Pacers have been about equally as good on the road (7-3) as at home (6-2) in the postseason. Their crowd is great and star Tyrese Haliburton had a pretty strong home-road split going this season. But for some reason there hasn't been a real advantage in the postseason.

We'll see what happens this time. Game 3 is 8:30 PM Eastern on ABC.

Be excellent to each other.