Philadelphia 76ers: Excuse me, have you seen Paul Reed?

There was a time earlier this season, where it looked like the Paul Reed-aissance was headed east from Wilmington to the City of Brotherly Love.

That’s right, after failing to latch on in Doc Rivers‘ rotation as a rookie, Reed was regularly taking the court for the Philadelphia 76ers Tobias Harris‘ absence and looked darn good defensively doing it.

Granted, Reed’s offense still hasn’t been great, and his tweener status was on full display regardless of who he shared the court with, but when he tasked with slowing down a player like Giannis Antetokounmpo, the two-time MVP had a tough time scoring a bucket.

Surely this was the start of something special for Paul Reed and the Philadelphia 76ers… except it wasn’t. Reed has played less than 10 minutes over the last four games and appears to be below Charles Bassey on the team’s depth chart.

But why?

The Philadelphia 76ers need to get Paul Reed more involved.

Golden State Warriors don’t have a center who can match up with Andre Drummond.

Their best center, James Wiseman is out, Kevon Looney is just a guy, and Nemanja Bjelica can’t really bump it in the paint with a legit 280 pounder. If Drummond was going off in the fourth quarter for the Philadelphia 76ers in their bout against the Warriors, Steve Kerr would have struggled to stop him.

Only, here’s the problem; Drummond was doing the opposite of going off, his offensive game was imploding in on itself to the tune of one solitary point on five shots from the field in 27 minutes of action.

And yet, Doc Rivers kept Drummond in the game versus the switch-happy Warriors, and the team suffered as a result.

Why, dare I ask, wasn’t Reed inserted into the game to try to right the ship, maybe at the eight-minute mark in the fourth right after Drummond took a shot clock violation after failing to get a shot off with Looney in coverage? Why did Rivers remain rigid to his rotation instead of putting in a switchable forward who could still guard Looney but wouldn’t be out of place if he was switched onto Otto Porter, Draymond Green, or even Jaun Toscano-Anderson?

Who knows, maybe Rivers feels more comfortable with Drummond executing the dribble handoff instead of Reed? Perhaps he likes the UConn product better as a blocker and felt confident that his screens would generate more offense than Reed’s defense would have stopped, but when a team closes out a quarter with a point per minute and their opponent scores 30, there has to be a problem that’s bigger than one positional mismatch.

The Sixers’ roster is loaded with shooters. Furkan Korkmaz is a shooter – even if his shot isn’t dropping at the moment – Georges Niang is a shooter, Seth Curry is a shooter. While Danny Green can hang his hat on being a pretty good defender, as can Tyrese Maxey and Tobias Harris to varying degrees, the team only has one player, Matisse Thybulle, who is a certified defensive stopper coming off the bench, well, one player they use regularly, anyway.

In my humble opinion, that needs to change.

While I maybe wouldn’t put Reed into the regular rotation at this point in his career, as his offense isn’t quite ready for prime time, there are a few minutes in almost any game where his insertion could help to stop a run or end a possession without points.

*sigh* I guess such a varied role doesn’t work in Rivers’ rigid rotation.

I wonder what role the Philadelphia 76ers envision for Paul Reed long-term? Do they think he has the potential to become a legitimate rotation player? A small-ball change-of-pace center? A replaceable energy guy? If played in the same role he had in Delaware, would Reed be the beneficiary of a Tyrese Maxey-esque glow-up, or would it fail to translate in an association where the players are bigger, faster, and stronger than their G-League counterparts? I guess we’ll have to wait and find out, assuming Reed sticks out the remainder of his contract before being aggregated in a trade to a team that better appreciates his abilities.