Wednesday 23 October 2019 12:31, UK
While most of the NBA is focused on 'going small', the Philadelphia 76ers have built a gigantic starting line-up whose defensive prowess ensures they will keep pace at the top of the Eastern Conference, writes Mark Deeks.
In Bill Simmons' "The Book of Basketball ", he tells a story about meeting Isiah Thomas, the legendary Detroit Pistons point guard and former executive whom Simmons had previously chastised for the way he managed the New York Knicks.
In particular, Simmons made reference to Thomas's decision to pair Eddy Curry with Jerome James, two big-bodied centers who played the same position and who were, for their time, on extremely long and expensive contracts.
The moves, famously, did not go well. Curry started strongly but quickly faded over the course of his career, not developing his game (particularly on defense) and struggling with injury, while James simply never got into shape - earning the nickname 'Big Snacks' in the process - barely played and had no more than a few minutes of stamina when he did.
In talking to Simmons, Thomas retrospectively justified his strategy by saying: "Everyone's trying to get smaller and faster. I want to go the other way. I want to get bigger. I want to pound people down low."
Fine in theory, but not in practice. You cannot "pound people down low" with players like Curry and James. Curry may have been built like a grain silo, but he never played especially physically on either end, and was a finesse player who merely didn't look like one. James meanwhile just happened to be enormous but did not actually do much with it on either end.
The philosophy, however, could have some merit if it had been done better. Theoretically, defying the orthodoxy could give a team certain advantages in respect of both individual player value and the ability to attack opposing defenses not well equipped enough to handle all that size.
Because of the preference for stretch bigs and stretch big defenders in the modern NBA, paint-based players have arguably become the new market inefficiency, with quality players available for much cheaper than the numbers suggest they should be.
Be it by design or by circumstance - that is to say, after Jimmy Butler decided he wanted to leave, he became the target simply because he was the best player available rather than the ideal fit - this is what the Philadelphia 76ers have done over the summer by signing Al Horford from the Boston Celtics.
Signing Horford gives the 76ers a giant starting line-up of Ben Simmons, Josh Richardson, Tobias Harris, Horford and Joel Embiid. While everyone else is going small and even experimenting with line-ups containing no centers, Philly have built a line-up in which they will be starting two of them.
They will be able to pound people down low just in the way Isiah Thomas once envisaged, 14 years on.
Considering that Harris is better served as a power forward, and that Horford himself is better in modernity as a center just as he has been for the Boston Celtics over the last three years, targeting him in this way for big money seems an odd fit.
Horford's quality is not in doubt. He is a five-time All-Star, a former All-NBA third-team selection, and the winner of the unofficial annual 'so many people write articles about how underrated he is that he is probably now overrated because of it' award at least twice.
But for Horford to be the big 'get' after a season in which Philadelphia sorely needed wing help even before losing Butler, and in which shooting was known to be a dire need considering the Simmons and Embiid pairing at the heart of the team - an issue further compounded by the departure of JJ Redick - defies the homogeneity of the rest of the league by going big when everyone else has gone small.
It was however not a strong market for star wing players or shooters. Indeed, Butler and Redick were two of the best players on it. When Butler said he wanted to leave, his star power needed replacing, somewhere.
Perhaps the acquisition of Horford was a case of 'best player available' more than a conscious decision to deliberately go big. Either way, now, some intricate roster balancing is required, and the depth of the team beyond the gigantic starting five is a concern headed into the season.
In acquiring Horford, the Sixers do address one of their former biggest depth problems. The reserve center spot was a problem last season. Amir Johnson aged pretty quickly, Boban Marjanovic was an offensive dynamo but always one to be attacked on defense, and although Jonah Bolden has the potential to play the five spot in the Draymond Green/PJ Tucker style down the road, the young rookie was foul-prone and unreliable.
Acquiring Horford means that, barring injury, the team will always be able to put out either him or Embiid at the five-spot. It also means that managing Embiid's minutes and games-played totals will be far easier to do hereafter.
The heavy reliance on Embiid, especially defensively, meant that when he sat out, the 76ers could easily drop important games. Not so any longer - now, Philadelphia have two All-Star centers. They also signed Kyle O'Quinn for the minimum salary, a perfect representation of the aforementioned market inefficiency that quality post-based bigs now represent. They should never be short at the five-spot again.
The re-appropriation of the limited financial wiggle room and roster spots to the frontcourt in this way has however deepened concerns about the Sixers' shooting, backcourt and wings.
With TJ McConnell also leaving this summer to sign with the Indiana Pacers, Markelle Fultz being moved at the trade deadline and Jonathan Simmons being salary-dumped onto the Washington Wizards, the 76ers are now very young and unproven in the backcourt.
Richardson can cover all three positions, and young veteran point guards Trey Burke (shooter) and Raul Neto (playmaker) have been brought in to serve as depth guard options. But while Burke has been a ruthless gunner over the past couple of seasons, Neto has never been that good of a shooter, and Richardson is also fairly average. With Simmons still a non-shooter, a key spacing position has only one spacing option.
On the wings, the depth options are second-year athletic specimen Zhaire Smith, rookie defensive master Mathisse Thybulle, returning back-up small forwards James Ennis and Furkan Korkmaz, plus whatever can be got from Shake Milton and Marial Shayok.
You have to be a certain level of NBA fan to know who any of them are, let alone all of them. In their own right, each of them is a quality player, particularly Smith and Thybulle, who could both become two of the best defensive options at the shooting guard position in short order.
However, the lack of experience, proven contributions and outside shooting - only Korkmaz can be said to be an average shooter, and he has been an unreliable and marginal talent thus far in his NBA career - compounds the doubts about how much of these things the Sixers have in reserve.
The aim, then, will be to choke opposing offenses like the Toronto Raptors just did to win their maiden NBA title.
Richardson, Horford and Embiid are all distinctly 'plus' NBA defenders at their position; in the cases of Richardson and Horford, they are that at more than one position. Ben Simmons struggles with the speedier point guards he faces, but his length and ability to win possessions in help defense is highly useful in its own way.
Harris does not shine on defense, particularly at small forward, but he holds his own, and as mentioned above, Smith and Thybulle should be two of the better options defensively at the shooting guard position in good time.
It will be difficult for the 76ers to put forward line-ups with at least four average outside shooters in them, but it will also be very difficult for them to not have at least four good defenders on the floor.
The new modern orthodox way of thinking about basketball is based largely on high-volume high-efficiency outside shooting. The value of the jump shot, for so long scoffed at by the old school mentality, has been undergoing a stark reappraisal over the last decade. Now, teams want everyone at every position to be a shooter.
I am sure the 76ers wanted that as well. But the old adage says that defense wins championships, and rarely, if ever, has it been wrong. We saw that as recently as last season with the Raptors.
In truth, for any team to win a title, a balance between the two ends of the court is required. But by stockpiling defenders, the 76ers have given themselves the foundation to win games, low scoring games, games in which their two All-Stars and two extra fringe All-Star talents may make the difference.
Depth matters, but not as much as health - if this starting five can stay healthy, they are up with the Milwaukee Bucks right at the top of the East.
