Philadelphia 76ers: Excuse me, have you seen Isaiah Joe?

Excuse me. You, yes, you. Have you seen this man? 6-foot-4, 165 pounds? Last seen putting up 17-39 shots from 3 for the Philadelphia 76ers from January 9th-16th? No? Okay, thank you for your time.

When Isaiah Joe was initially thrust into starting action in the now-infamous Seven Sixers game, it was out of sheer desperation. As the name would suggest, the Sixers were down to seven players – okay, technically eight, but Mike Scott was effectively unavailable with a knee injury – and Joe was asked to play darn-near 45 minutes of action because the team quite literally didn’t have another player to turn to.

While Joe’s individual performance was very disjointed, as he made three of his first four threes before missing his next seven, the young Arkansas product clearly impressed Doc Rivers enough to earn an extended audition over the next week plus in no small part because the team – again – really didn’t have a better option with Matisse Thybulle, Seth Curry, Shake Milton, and Furkan Korkmaz all out.

And guess what? Joe took that opportunity and ran with it.

Coming exclusively off the bench, Joe averaged 10.3 points in 25.4 minutes of action a night while draining 41.5 percent of his *checks notes* 6.8 shots a game from beyond the arc.

DAAAAA-rn, those numbers are just plain goofy.

To double-down on the sheer ridiculousness of the ex-second round pick’s stat line, Joe is one of the rare NBA players who is actually averaging a better shooting percentage from beyond the arc than from the field as a whole – signifying a uber volume shooter with the memory of a goldfish and no interest of taking any shot inside of 27 feet.

So, if Joe is shooting at a near-unprecedented rookie clip and making almost as many as he misses, all the while playing pretty darn good defense for a sub-170 pounder, why has the rookie shooting guard suddenly becoming missing in action with the Philadelphia 76ers?

Excuse me, Philadelphia 76ers, have you seen my friend Isaiah Joe?

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Going into the season, Isaiah Joe was probably the Philadelphia 76ers’ 15th man.

While some initially questioned why he was even signed to a full-on NBA contract, as his fellow second-rounder “BBall” Paul Reed instead started his Sixers career on a two-way jawn, but once news broke that the team intended to sign G-Leaguer Dakota Mathias to a part-time deal, that made some sense.

If Daryl Morey really was so high on the Arkansas sophomore to give him a draft day promise, why not lock him up for a full three years right out of the gate and see how it goes? Surely no one was complaining about paying Joe roughly $1.4 million a year when he was going on a 3 point shooting tear in mid-January.

Had the Sixers remained 100 percent healthy and COVID free, that’s probably the role Joe would have filled all season – a bench player who only gets minutes in garbage time – but as the team needed to call number 7s number more and more often, and Joe consistently rose to the occasion, it became harder and harder to lock him down to a reserve nothing role.

Make no mistake about it, Joe is the most exciting pure shooter the Sixers prospect pool has had in some time, and if he can continue to work out his issues on the court, there’s little reason to believe he can’t become a viable rotational piece long-term a la some of Morey’s former acquisitions like Ben McLemore.

So, why hasn’t Joe logged a minute since he logged six points in 15 minutes in the Sixers’ loss to the Memphis Grizzlies? I get the Sixers have basically been made whole with (almost) every player officially back from injury/illness save Vincent Poirier and Mike Scott, but hasn’t Joe proven himself a player worthy of a few minutes at the two here and there?

No, instead, the Sixers have opted to completely reincorporate Furkan Korkmaz into their rotation essentially in Joe’s former spot – with the 23-year-old former first-round pick averaging a little under 17 minutes of action since his return versus Boston.

For what it’s worth, Korkmaz hasn’t been bad per se, as he’s averaging seven points while draining 38 percent of his shots from beyond the arc – but his defense has remained a weak point of his game, and with his contract set to expire at the end of the season, it’s really hard to see a path for Furky to remain in a red, white, and blue jersey moving forward – unless, of course, that red, white, and blue belongs to the Los Angeles Clippers, the Detroit Pistons, or the Brooklyn Nets’ alternative jersey.

Could the Sixers be playing Korkmaz to help boost his trade value, knowing that some sort of move will likely need to be made to address the team’s lack of forward depth? Could Korkmaz, Scott, and a pick be enough to land a player like P.J. Tucker? Or could he simply be shipped out of town for a second-round pick to free up a roster spot for BBall Paul, who has provided some pretty good minutes at the four sport in the four games he’s appeared in?

Regardless, the decision to stifle Joe’s growth when he’s clearly in the middle of a moment feels like a misstep for a squad that’s been (mostly) making good decisions in 2020-21.

Next. Seth Curry is the oil that keeps the offense running. dark

Is Isaiah Joe the next Danny Green, or the next Nik Stauskas? Will he have a 10-year career in the NBA, or will he only be remembered for a goofy nickname generated by a really bad closed captioning error? Only time will tell, but I can say the Philadelphia 76ers will be able to know a whole lot more definitively by actually putting Joe on the court and allowing him to sink or swim based on his own merits, as opposed to ghosting out on the sidelines in ~~a white sheet~~ warmups.