Philadelphia 76ers: The DeAndre Jordan experiment just might work

DeAndre Jordan is an old 33.

A former second round pick who played a single season at Texas A&M all the way back in 2007-08, Jordan has played 13 full seasons and counting for five different NBA teams and has been on the court for 25,990 minutes, 27,769 if you factor in the playoffs too.

Considering much of Jordan’s game was predicated on athleticism during his prime, with his uncanny ability to convert a high pass into a dunk making him the key third star in Doc Rivers’ Lob City Big 3, the prospects of “DeAndre 3000” aging gracefully into his late 30s felt rather unlikely, as his tape with the Los Angeles Lakers and Brooklyn Nets clearly showed.

And yet, in DeAndre Jordan’s first game as a member of the Philadelphia 76ers, the well-traveled “professional best friend” actually looked… pretty good. No elite mind you, or Joel Embiid-esque, but after watching Paul Millsap fail to fill Andre Drummond‘s shoes for the better part of a month, having a legitimate veteran center with experience playing with James Harden was a pleasant surprise in a commanding win over the Chicago Bulls.

The Philadelphia 76ers’ backup center spot might not be an Achilles’ heel after all.

In his first professional game with the Philadelphia 76ers, DeAndre Jordan played with eight different players over a 10-minute run.

Of those pairings, which ranged from a single minute of action all the way up to 10, Jordan found his greatest success playing off of Isaiah Joe, with the duo recording a blistering 118.8 offensive rating to go with a net rating of 6.3 over an eight minute run. Conversely, Jordan and Niang didn’t quite mesh as well, with the duo logging a brutal defensive rating of 121.4 and a net rating of -1.4.

And as for Jordan’s minutes with James Harden, which encompassed his entire 10-minute run? Well, the lineup finished out its run with a net rating of 0.0, which doesn’t sound great, but could be much, much worse. Need proof? Well, just look at the net ratings of the Sixers’ other centers. Paul Reed, Charles Bassey, Andre Drummond, and Paul Millsap when they were on the court with Tyrese Maxey sans Joel Embiid.

Of Maxey’s five two-man lineups with a negative net rating, the three least efficient lineups come paired up with Reed, Millsap, and Drummond. Mind you, Maxey and Harden, though both very good, are very different players who want different things from their backup bigs, but before “The Beard” came to town, it wasn’t all that uncommon to see the Sixers’ points differential swing rapidly towards their opponent when Embiid was off the court.

While Jordan isn’t as positionally versatile a defender as Reed and lacks the boundless upside of Bassey – who actually has a good net rating alongside Tyrese Maxey – if he can just provide neutral play for 10-14 minutes a night in the regular season and about a dozen in the postseason when Embiid and Maxey are on the bench, it could make the Sixers’ lives a whole heck of a lot easier.

Sidebar: Why did Jordan only play 10 minutes versus the Chicago Bulls? Embiid played the entire third quarter without a break and only got five minutes off in the fourth quarter before playing six of the final seven minutes of a not-so-close contest.

When asked about DeAndre Jordan after their first game together, Joel Embiid gushed about his new teammates. He complimented his game, his attitude, and applauded the energy he had already brought to the locker room. If that’s what Jordan brings to the Philadelphia 76ers, a good attitude off the court and neutral minutes when he takes it, this experiment may prove fruitful yet, even if the team will ultimately live or die based on the play of the team’s Big 3.