Should the Philadelphia 76ers use their first-round pick on… Lou Williams?
Could the Philadelphia 76ers use their first-round pick on a 34-year-old sparkplug?
Doc Rivers is not what most would call a player development coach.
When he won a title in Boston, it was on the back of 32-year-old shooting guard Ray Allen, 30-year-old incognito bathroom break expert Paul Pierce, and 31-year-old Kevin Garnett of ‘Anything is possible’-fame. When those players left, first with Allen in 2012 and then with Pierce and Garnett to the Brooklyn Nets in 2013, Rivers too was shipped out of town – being traded to the Los Angeles Clippers for a first-round pick that eventually became R.J. Hunter.
Who? Exactly.
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Once in Los Angeles, pulling double duty as a coach and general manager, Rivers wasted little time trading for J.J. Redick and signing star point guard Chris Paul to form his version of the big 3 with DeAndre Jordan and Blake Griffen.
Sure, Rivers found some success in the post-Lob City-era, getting big seasons out of players like Tobias Harris, Landry Shamet, and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the 6-5 point guard many assumed would be the face of the franchise for years to come, but when the opportunity arose, the team wasted little time giving up their war chest to acquire Paul George via trade to pair up with free agent acquisition Kawhi Leonard.
And as for current Philadelphia 76ers President of Basketball Operations, Daryl Morey? Well, he isn’t all too keen on keeping first-round picks either.
Since 2014, only one of the Houston Rockets’ first-round picks, Clint Capela, earned a second contract with the team. The rest have either been traded on draft night, traded a season or so down the line, or traded preemptively before they were even selected by the team.
I know everyone has their favorite can’t-miss prospects in the 2020 NBA Draft that they just know is going to come up aces on a rookie-scale deal – mine remains Stanford combo guard Tyrell Terry – but there’s a very real world where the Sixers opt to flip their first-rounder for a more NBA-ready player capable of putting up big numbers right away.
If that happens, the most obvious options would appear to be our old friend Lou Williams.
I mean, think about it, Morey traded a first-round pick and Corey Brewer for Williams in 2017, Rivers traded for Williams in the Chris Paul deal five months later, and Williams went on to win Sixth Man of the Year honors under Rivers. Lou Will has played almost 30 percent of his professional basketball games either under Morey or Rivers and has really caught on as the best sixth man on the block over that period.
And last season, it was reported that Williams could be had for a first-round pick.
In theory, the idea wasn’t too far fetched. Williams had a 1.6 real plus-minus when sharing the court with George and Leonard, the 142nd most efficient trio the Clippers put on the court in 2019-20. While one could that the sheer volume of minutes – an average of 17.3 minutes per game – could affect that total versus the smaller sample size of the team’s most efficient high-volume pairing – George, Leonard, and Marcus Morris – it’s obviously a whole lot easier to swap out auxiliary pieces than completely clean shop on a pair of top-15 players.
If Tyronn Lue wants to prioritize getting points from his starting five and Rivers’ former partner in crime, Lawrence Frank, is still open to moving Williams, either for a player or a first-rounder, the Sixers are the obvious choice. But is it the right one?
With the Sixers already in luxury cap territory, there are only so many ways to upgrade a roster that’s clearly not good enough to win it all right now. If the team can exchange a pick in the 20s, Mike Scott, and Zhaire Smith – either to the Clippers or a third team interested in rehabbing his career – for a 20.4 points per game bench scorer, it would undoubtedly make the team better.
It would also, obviously or not, free up the contract of Josh Richard, the team’s best trade chip, to be used in another deal to either get off Al Horford’s contract or to acquire a better-fitting piece like, say, J.J. Redick from New Orleans.
String a few of these sorts of deals together without surrendering too much draft capital down the line, and the 76ers’ future could be bordering on Process-levels of brightness with the added bonus of getting to watch Williams go off like a blowtorch when Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid head to the bench.
At least Allen Iverson likes Ben Simmons’ City Edition. dark. Next
For better or worse, Tyronn Lue has never been a guy who relies on his bench to put up big numbers. He never had a 20 points per game sixth man during any of his seasons with the Cleveland Cavaliers, and only had one, Jordan Clarkson, who even cracked 15 with any regularity. If the Los Angeles Clippers want to recoup some future assets on the chance Kawhi Leonard and/or Paul George leave in free agency, flipping Lou Williams for a first-round pick could be their best option. Fortunately, they have a natural trade partner in the Philadelphia 76ers who would all but surely accept their diminutive ex-second round pick back with open arms and pay handsomely for the pleasure.