Before the Philadelphia 76ers‘ Wednesday night win over the New York Knicks, Doc Rivers pegged Willie Cauley-Stein as his backup center.
Semantically speaking, that did, in fact, happen. WCS entered the game at the center spot, and because he didn’t start over Joel Embiid, it was technically in a backup role.
But friends, I have to ask, how much did the good Doc really get to see of Cauley-Stein in action when he was only on the court for 1:15? Unlike Paul Millsap, who actually filled the backup center spot for a tick under 12 minutes, Cauley-Stein didn’t play alongside James Harden, Tyrese Maxey, or Tobias Harris and was simply inserted into the game late alongside Isaiah Joe and Paul Reed to ensure that everyone who was dressed got some playing time.
Look, I get that the DeAndre Jordan news broke a day before the game. I get that DJ is Doc Rivers’ guy and that he explicitly asked to be released in order to sign with the Philadelphia 76ers because he expected a larger role, but goodness, you sort of have to feel sorry for Willie Cauley-Stein, as he never really had a chance to prove his worth on the court.
Willie Cauley-Stein got a raw deal from the Philadelphia 76ers.
When the Philadelphia 76ers signed Willie Cauley-Stein to a 10-day contract, the buyout market was still developing. Sure, a few names had wriggled free, most notably Goran Dragic, but there was still hope that players like Derrick Favors, Robin Lopez, Ben McLemore, or the biggest fish of all, Gary Harris, would earn their release and be eligible to sign elsewhere for the playoffs before the March 1st deadline.
Despite having two encouraging young centers under contract and 37-year-old Paul Millsap on the roster as well, even though he’s more of a power forward than a rim protector, Doc Rivers clearly wasn’t content with his options at the five spot when Joel Embiid needed a break and thus asked Daryl Morey to land another big man to fill out his roster and thus his rotation.
That’s the atmosphere Cauley-Stein entered into when he signed a 10-day contract with the Sixers. While the team would certainly remain active in their pursuit of another option should one they like become available, for that week and a half, WCS would be able to put some game on film and show how he could fit alongside the team’s current collection of players. Best case scenario, he impressed everyone enough to stick around like St. Joe’s product Charlie Brown Jr., who parlayed a pair of 10-days into a two-way contract.
Worst case? Well, 10 days ago, I would have said Cauley-Stein plays poorly, and he fizzles out of the league for good, but what actually took place was potentially worse. Despite being active for all three games, Cauley-Stein played just over six minutes of action and leaves the City of Brotherly Love as more of a mystery than he when he arrived. When he was on the court, he looked fine, but because it was so sporadic and always as a third option behind Embiid and Millsap, fans never got to really see how he would have fit playing off of James Harden, as the duo were on the court together for exactly one minute according to the NBA’s advanced analytics.
So what gives? Did Cauley-Stein just bomb hard in practice? Or did Rivers simply miss Andre Drummond so much that the idea of playing another under-30 center drafted in the lottery hurt too much? Could it have been that Cauley-Stein’s status as an ex-Kentucky Wildcat didn’t sit well with the Marquette product?
Whatever the reason, WCS’s run with the Sixers will undoubtedly go down as a failure, even if it comes at no real fault of his own.
If DeAndre Jordan works out for the Philadelphia 76ers, all of this will be for not. Paul Millsap clearly isn’t the answer at center – seriously, just play him at power forward – and if Jordan can approximate what Andre Drummond, or even Dwight Howard, brought to the table as a backup for Joel Embiid, it will be an upgrade. But if he can’t? If Jordan looks like he did in Brooklyn or LA, well, then the chatter around the backup center spot will only continue to grow, and Willie Cauley-Stein will be somewhere else shaking his head.