How would Nassir Little fit with the Philadelphia 76ers?

In case you haven’t heard, Damian Lillard would reportedly like to see his Portland Trail Blazers trade for Philadelphia 76ers point guard Ben Simmons (read about it here, if you’d like).

On paper, the move sort of makes sense. The Blazers are really bad defensively and, after failing to secure another All-Star to pair up with Lillard for basically his entire career, bringing in Simmons would at least buy the ownership group a few more seasons with the face of their franchise before he inevitably works his way out of the Beaver State.

Now granted, would trading Simmons to Portland for a return that doesn’t feature Lillard be a tough pill to swallow for more than a few fans in Philly? Yes. Lillard has been the apple of seemingly every fan’s eye for the better part of 2021, and instead, landing his 1B would be a bit of a bummer. But if CJ McCollum comes joined with a young player like Anfernee Simons or Nassir Little – two players Portland offered up earlier this year – and a ton of picks, it could be enough to reroute Tobias Harris and a slew of picks to a third team to secure the big scoring wing the team desperately needs.

When a franchise goes into desperation mode, anything is possible.

So just for the sake of argument, which of those two young players would the Sixers rather get back in a deal with Portland, Simons, or Little? One is a 6-foot-3 footing guard who has basically the same style of play as CJ McCollum and is in line for a new contract as soon as the end of the season. And the other? Well, he’s just two inches taller but was the sixth-ranked prospect in the 2018 high school class, has two years left on his contract, and has the wingspan needed to play the three and even the four at the NBA level.

Yeah, let’s talk a little bit about Nassir.

Nassir Little would add a rotational forward to the Philadelphia 76ers’ roster.

Even in the modern-day, small ball-focused NBA, starting a 6-foot-5 power forward is usual.

Sure, technically, the position name of any given NBA player is far less important than the role they are tasked with on-court – just ask Ben Simmons – but it’s incredibly unusual to see a team trot out a 6-foot-8 small forward and a 6-foot-5 power forward, even if that might be how the duo would be actually utilized.

Nassir Little is 6-foot-5 but really plays the game more like a power forward than a small forward.

This might be because he weighs in at 220 pounds, which is 11 pounds more than current Portland Trail Blazers power forward Robert Covington. It also could have to do with his freaky-long wingspan, which should belong to a person measuring in at 7-foot-1, not 6-foot-5.

While long arms are a direct replacement for height, Matisse Thybulle also has a 7-foot wingspan, and he uses it to great effect even when switched onto a player like Julius Randle who is much larger in every quantifiable way.

Little has used his size, length, and an offensive bag of tricks to develop into a deceptively good two-way wing player for the Blazers, where he’s averaging a career-high 8.3 points, 5.3 rebounds, .8 steals, and .6 blocks while playing 22.4 minutes of action a night. While his 3 point shooting percentage is down ever so slightly, dipping from 35 in 2020-21 to 31.7 in 2021-22, he’s actually making .4 more 3s per game, as his average attempts have nearly doubled from 1.7 to three even.

Not quite where many a talent evaluator thought Little would be at this point in his career, but a whole lot better than his initial usage as a rookie would have suggested.

… what, you don’t remember Little when he was the second-ranked player in the 2018 high school class? He was getting comped to players like Brandon Ingram, Jaylon Brown, and even Kawhi Leonard, and pretty much had his pick of the litter among Power 5 NCAA programs, with UNC ultimately winning out over Duke, Miami, and Arizona. His offensive game was considered NBA-ready right out of high school, and his potential to become a two-way forward left many a fan of North Carolina basketball excited for the player headed to Chapel Hill over those darn Devils

down

up the road in Durham.

Paired up with Colby White, Little underwhelmed to a pretty notable degree, averaging only 9.8 points and 4.6 rebounds in 18.2 minutes of action while starting zero games and hitting 26.9 percent of his 3 pointers on 1.4 attempts. This knocked Little out of the 2019 NBA Draft Lottery consideration and all the way down to pick 25, where he was selected by the Portland Trail Blazers ahead of Jordan Poole, Keldon Johnson, Kevin Porter Jr., and Nicolas Claxton.

Would the Blazers – or the Philadelphia 76ers, for that matter – look better with, say, Jordan Poole or Keldon Johnson on their roster? Maybe so, but Little has become a viable rotational combo forward who could eventually fill a RoCo-level role as soon as this season if, as Zach Lowe has suggested, the Blazers opt to flip the former Sixer elsewhere to reload for the future.

On the Sixers right now, Little would likely rotate in and out of games as a la Georges Niang, but with a bit more schematic versatility since he has logged 56 percent of his snaps so far this season. He’d probably be the team’s 11th man, which, again, sounds bad but really isn’t, and would surely see his minutes range from eight to 18 to 28 depending on who is healthy enough to go in any given game.

But, if the Sixers opt to shake up their roster composition via trade, then Little’s role could expand greatly. If, for example, the Sixers make a trade and suddenly have minutes to spare at small forward, maybe even in the starting lineup, Little would likely get the nod over Matisse Thybulle, Furkan Korkmaz, or Georges Niang, as his combination of size, speed, defensive switchability, and shooting creativity makes him sort of an amalgamation of all three of those players blended into one. He could also see minutes as a small-ball power forward if, for example, Georges Niang is thrust into the starting lineup at the four spot.

Are either of those scenarios lights out guarantees? No, but they’re certainly possible.

Should the Philadelphia 76ers make a trade to acquire Nassir Little, CJ McCollum, and a ton of picks from the Portland Trail Blazers anytime soon? No. The Damian Lillard situation is seemingly evolving as we speak, and it’d be in Daryl Morey’s best interest to hold the line until the 2022 NBA trade deadline. But with that being said, Little is the sort of player the Sixers could use moving forward, as they don’t really have a combo forward with his set of skills and two-way potential. Even if his height leaves a little bit to be desired, it’s a whole lot easier to see how Little fits into the fray than yet another 6-foot-3 combo guard who doesn’t contribute much on the defensive end of the court.