Philadelphia 76ers: Pondering Paul Millsap’s potential position

Contrary to a weirdly popular opinion, the Philadelphia 76ers did not overpay for James Harden.

On paper, does Ben Simmons, Seth Curry, Andre Drummond, and two first-round picks sound like a lot? Yes. I mean, we’re talking about two multi-time All-Stars and an all-time great 3 point shooter who is averaging double-digit points per night. Factor in some draft capital, and surely the Sixers overpaid, right?

Whoa, whoa, whoa, not so fast, my friend. Recall, if you will, that Simmons adamantly refused to ever play for the Sixers again. While he retained value across the association, his cost in Philadelphia was sunk, and valuing him as anything other than a hugely valuable contract was a misevaluation.

Then there’s also the fact that Drummond, though good, was the clear number two on the team behind Joel Embiid and would barely play come playoff time barring a catastrophic illness or injury. Even if Paul Reed and Charles Bassey aren’t quite there yet, the duo aren’t that far away from Drummond either and can replicate his production for 14ish minutes a night fairly convincingly.

So really, outside of some first-round picks that aren’t going to impact the team’s win-now berth all that much, the trade effectively swapped out Harden, a top-15 NBA player, for Curry, who is really good but a limited player who can only do a few things really well.

But don’t forget, the Sixers didn’t just do a three-for-one deal with the Brooklyn Nets. No, they actually secured two players with 29 combined seasons in the NBA and 13 combined All-Star appearances. By now, you surely know about James Harden, but what about Paul Millsap? Who is he, what does he have left in the tank, and how should the Philadelphia 76ers use him down the stretch? Let’s attempt to find out, shall we?

Paul Millsap has an interesting opportunity with the Philadelphia 76ers.

The Philadelphia 76ers haven’t had a legit frontcourt OG on their roster with Paul Millsap’s pedigree since… either Luc Mbah a Moute in 2014-15 or future GM Elton Brand.

The 47th overall pick in the 2006 NBA Draft, Millsap entered the association as a developmental collegiate upperclassman with the unique distinction of having led the nation in rebounding over three straight seasons. He started only three games over his first two seasons with the Utah Jazz but entered the starting lineup in 2008 and started 262 of his final 376 games with the team.

From there, the throwback power forward took his talents to Atlanta, where he expanded his game out to the 3 point line and paired up with future Philadelphia 76ers

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signee Al Horford under Mike Budenholzer. Millsap was named to four-straight All-Star games from 2014-17 and parlayed his Georgia game into a lucrative three-year, $90 million deal with the Denver Nuggets, where he played for four years following a $10 million extension in 2020.

While Millsap’s numbers have declined with each passing season since he left Atlanta, his game didn’t truly fall off of a cliff until 2021-22, when he signed a vet minimum deal with the Brooklyn Nets and averaged 3.4 points and 3.7 rebounds in 11.3 minutes of action per game. Had Millsap not been traded to Philadelphia, the word on the street was he’d likely seek a buyout in the hopes of landing somewhere with a bigger role, but fortunately, that wasn’t the case.

Whether initially targeted or simply thrown in out of convenience, Millsap is now a member of the Sixers, and Doc Rivers reportedly wants to try the 37-year-old at a new position: Center.

Now granted, has Millsap played the five spot before? Yes, over the past two seasons, Millsap played roughly 313.4 of his 1,432 minutes at center, but over his entire career, the pride of LA Tech has only played six percent of his total minutes at the five, with 91 percent of his time spent at power forward overall.

At 257-pounds, Millsap certainly has the width to play center, but at 6-foot-7 with an underwhelming vertical, one has to wonder how well he’ll be able to protect the rim, even if he has a 7-foot-2 wingspan. Still, Millsap is averaging the most rebounds per minute of his career in 2021-22 and could feasibly fill in where Drummond left off on the boards, even if he doesn’t artificially inflate his totals with offensive rebounds from his own shot.

But between you and me, I don’t think Millsap’s best position is as a backup center. No, to truly find a home with the Sixers, Millsap also needs to play off of Joel Embiid when the duo are on the court together, a look that was very rarely available with Drummond on the roster.

You see, not only is Millsap a very good rebounder and a fantastic switching frontcourt defender, but he’s also a good screen setter who finished in the 72nd percentile as a roll man in the pick-and-roll back in 2019-20. While his production has dipped since then, Millsap could form a very interesting four-five pick-and-roll with Embiid the likes of which the Big Fella hasn’t had at any point in his career thus far.

If Millsap can prove himself a decent enough contributor splitting his time between the four and the five, his addition could make the Sixers-Nets trade look even better. If not, well, the James Harden trade wasn’t about him anyway.

Look, there’s a chance Paul Millsap’s production in Brooklyn is the new normal instead of an aberration, and he’ll be quietly waived in favor of a more effective player like Robin Lopez from the buyout market or even more minutes for Paul Reed/Charles Bassey. If that happens, the Philadelphia 76ers will have upgraded their bench with a better player, and no one will be the wiser. But if Millsap can take his play with the Nets personally and elevate his game back to his Denver form, well, the Sixers might just have a solid player capable of logging crucial minutes in the playoffs.