After flashing some serious game over the last two games of the season, Zhaire Smith deserves a spot in the Philadelphia 76ers playoff rotation.
It’s (almost) here folks, the 2018 NBA season is over, and the Philadelphia 76ers have once again secured home-field advantage in the first round as the Eastern Conference’s three seed.
But there’s a problem: the injury-prone Sixers are still injury-prone.
With Joel Embiid and Jonah Bolden questionable for the team’s Saturday night Game 1 bout against the Brooklyn Nets at the Wells Fargo Center, Brett Brown will be forced to do what he’s done for much of the last month; shuffle his lineup.
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Now granted, this hasn’t been too bad for the 76ers despite their 2-4 record in April, as the team had all but locked up the third seed thanks to the Boston Celtics‘ collapse down the stretch, but still, with Jimmy Butler, James Ennis, Ben Simmons, J.J. Redick, Embiid, and Bolden all missing time to injuries or ‘load’ management, pretty much the entirety of the 76ers’ 17 man roster saw action down the stretch, even mid-season two-way signee Haywood Highsmith.
And through it all, the brightest spot of the Sixers’ limp to the playoffs has to be the emergence of Zhaire Smith as a legitimate player.
That’s right, after missing 76 games due to a combination of an acute Jones fracture and bizarre sesame allergy that resulted in staggering weight loss, Smith finally made his NBA debut on March 25th and even hit his lone field goal attempt in six minutes of action.
Just for context, Smith only hit 18-40 3s over 37 games at Texas Tech, and that was not viewed as one of his strengths coming out of college.
Since then, Smith has played in five more games, averaging 7.4 points, two assists and 2.4 rebounds while hitting 5-15 from 3 point range; including two starts to close out the season where he averaged 14 points in 31 minutes of action.
And to think, once upon a time, Philadelphia fans actually resented Brett Brown’s decision to trade away local legend Mikal Bridges to acquire the undersized, yet uber-athletic two guard.
Now, as Coach Brown spends another late night at a Camdon whiteboard, writing and re-writing new sets to optimize the players he has available to play in a good old fashion South Philly Saturday afternoon brawl, it seems almost impossible to fathom Smith not taking the court in an attempt to neutralize the likes of D’Angelo Russell, Spencer Dinwiddie, and Caris LeVert.
For the first time (seemingly) all season, the 76ers actually have an answer for the uber-athletic guards that have killed them game after game all season; a position they’d initially hoped they’d filled when they flipped Markelle Fultz to the Orlando Magic for Jonathon Simmons, a first and a second.
While this move initially looked like the team giving up on cultivating a third homegrown star to pair with Ben Simmons in the Philadelphia 76ers backcourt for the next decade, it looks like their 2018 first round pick could fulfill that potential in a less ball dominant but more high-flying package and it all starts now, as Brett Brown’s squad is clearly better with Zhaire Smith on the court.