Philadelphia 76ers: Anderson and TLC deserve to keep playing

With Jerryd Bayless’ return imminent, the Philadelphia 76ers shouldn’t sacrifice Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot and Justin Anderson’s playing time to accommodate.

The Philadelphia 76ers have a wing problem.

After beginning the season with Jerryd Bayless in the starting lineup, the team quickly transitioned the 10th year combo guard into a reserve role to accommodate the emergence of Ben Simmons as a legitimate starting caliber point guard, and since then, the team has been much more competitive.

But Bayless never quite thrived in the sixth man role.

Chock it up to his nagging wrist injury, but Bayless has only averaged 8.3 points and 1.4 assists in almost 25 minutes of action a night, while only completing 42 percent of his shots from the field.

While the team’s struggles to get consistent scoring from the bench have been fairly well documented at this point, Bayless’ recent absence from the active roster has only highlighted just how ineffective the former Arizona Wildcat has been for the Sixers so far this season.

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Without Bayless and starting shooting guard J.J. Redick, the team’s best pure shooter who’s been out with a nagging leg injury, Brett Brown has had to rely on the young tandem of Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot and Justin Anderson to take the bulk of the team’s shooting guard minutes.

And the results have been incredibly promising.

Luwawu-Cabarrot, in his second year with the team, averaged 14.5 points in a little over 30 minutes per game while completing almost 58 percent of his three-point shots over his four-game tenure as the team’s starting shooting guard.

While this uptick in production can obviously be attributed to an increased workload, the former Mega Leks star has looked incredibly confident on the wing and appears to have finally found the outside shot that had largely eluded him in his first season with the team. On his way to establishing himself as a legitimate 3-and-D player in the NBA, one of the league’s most in-demand positions, Luwawu-Cabarrot is starting to look like a real building block for the team moving forward.

And Anderson hasn’t looked too bad either.

The crown jewel of the Nerlens Noel trade, Anderson has always been known as a feisty wing defender but when his shot’s falling, the former Virginia Cavalier can be a handful to cover coming off the bench, just ask Carmelo Anthony.

Averaging 8.5 points in 18 minutes of action, what Anderson lacks in an elite NBA three-point shot (averaging 34.1 percent in 2017-2018) he more than makes up with effort and defensive fortitude. Ranked the 19th best defensive shooting guard by ESPN’s Real Plus-Minus, Anderson’s -1.74 RPM is noticeably better than Bayless’ -3.34 RPM, good for 88th out of a possible 98 point guard. And he’s doing so in far fewer minutes per game.

Which is why the team’s insistence on playing ineffective veterans in reserve roles over young, ascending talent is fairly alarming.

Though Amir Johnson, Bayless, and Trevor Booker have all had their fair share of good games this season, the trio should not be receiving priority minutes over the likes of Anderson, Luwawu-Cabarrot and third-year big man Richaun Holmes.

Even James Young, a 22-year-old former lottery pick signed to the team on a two-way contract, has shown a fair bit of promise as a sparkplug off the bench.

With so many young players eager to try to make a name for themselves in the NBA, and arguably the league’s best developmental coaching staff ready to bring them along, it would be incredibly short-sighted to simply return the team’s rotation to its previous status queue on the basis of seniority, as opposed to merit.

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While leaning heavily on veterans early in the season helped Brown’s squad remain competitive as the team’s plethora of young players learned to play together, the team should now do whatever it takes to secure themselves a spot in the 2018 NBA Playoffs, and that’s going young on their second unit. With Anderson, Luwawu-Cabarrot, Holmes, McConnell and Markelle Fultz all under contract past this season, the Sixers owe it to themselves to see what they have on the bench and identify who’s a keeper, and what they still need to acquire moving forward, while hopefully continuing to win some games in the process.