NBA Team Preview: Philadelphia 76ers

Dunking With Wolves is counting down NBA Team Previews from the worst to the best. The Philadelphia 76ers are ranked #30.

Philadelphia is once again the tanking capital of the NBA.

The 76ers will not be good again in 2014-15, and fans are beginning to get restless. Not just Sixers fans, mind you, but NBA fans as a whole.

It’s fair, as general manager Sam Hinkie and his front office have put zero effort into fielding a competitive team for the present. His entire focus is on the future. And from fans that want to see a

enjoyable

respectable product on the court, it’s hard to sit and watch the Sixers do what their doing.

Hinkie is doing it correctly, however. The ship is starting to turn, but it’s a massive vessel, and it’ll take awhile. But Philadelphia has taken advantage of the undervaluation of injured college stars like Nerlens Noel and Joel Embiid, and certainly has a stable of exciting young talent at it’s future disposal.

Their current, healthy roster is a wasteland. Michael Carter-Williams won the Rookie of the Year award for the 2013-14 season, but ultimately was not very good. He had a hot start to the season, and in the Sixers’ tanking state, he had the opportunity (34.5 minutes per game and a dearth of talent around him) that afforded him the national recognition necessary to win the award.

Carter-Williams attempted three three-pointers per game, despite shooting just 26.4% from long range — a pretty terrible and frightening statistic.

Backup guard Tony Wroten was atrocious a year ago, but has good promise as a rotation piece. Eliot Williams had a very nice rookie year in Portland back in 2011-12 but missed an entire season due to injury and struggled in Philly a year ago.

Nerlens Noel will make his NBA debut as a rookie more than a year after being drafted out of the University of Kentucky due to his knee surgery shortly before the 2013 draft. Joel Embiid could very well miss the entire 2014-15 season after undergoing foot surgery shortly before the 2014 draft.

Other than that, there simply isn’t much there. Dario Saric was drafted and will stay overseas for the foreseeable future, and he could have a star-type ceiling, too. But that won’t help the 2014-15 edition of the 76ers.

James Anderson and Hollis Thompson were the best members of the squad a year ago outside of now-Timberwolf Thaddeus Young, but that isn’t saying a whole lot. Alexey Shved could be the starting shooting guard for this club, which should tell youall you need to know about the caliber of players on the Sixers’ roster.

Being in the Eastern Conference should help the Sixers limp to a win total similar to last year’s 19, and depending on Noel’s immediate impact, they could reach 20 or more. Losing Young will have a negative impact, and losing their best player from a year ago will certainly put a cap on what they can achieve.

For the record, I wholeheartedly agree with pretty much everything that Hinkie has done to this point. Now, he has Embiid, Noel, and Saric in his possession, and Carter-Williams should improve mightily over the next couple of seasons. If he can find a couple of young win players to add to his budding front court, we’ll start to see the future of the Sixers take a more obvious and tangible shape.

As is, I would expect coach Brett Brown’s crew to amass another 19 wins in 2014-15. Noel will have a positive effect on the defensive end of the floor, and Carter-Williams and Williams should improve to shore up the play in the back court, mitigating the loss of Young as much as possible.

But that won’t make Sixers fans feel much better as their suffering through what will certainly be another sub-25 win season. The good news is, competent play should be coming in the not-all-too-distant future.