Philadelphia 76ers: Doc Rivers needs to move on from DeAndre Jordan

Joel Embiid is a darn good basketball player.

When he’s on the court for the Philadelphia 76ers, he has a Box Plus-Minus of 9.4, and a wins above replacement rating of 5.6, both of which lead the team by a pretty sizeable margin. While Embiid alone can’t guarantee the Sixers a victory on his own, as he needs a compatible collection of teammates to keep the offense rolling, the team is rarely outscored when the big fella is on the court, especially when examining the season through a macro lens.

But when Embiid is off the court? Well, let’s just say the Sixers have struggled to remain competitive, even with James Harden running the second unit.

Case in point, the Sixers’ Sunday night bout against the Toronto Raptors. Sure, Philly had played five games in 10 days, with an 11th set for the following night versus the Toronto Raptors, but the Raptors were without All-Star point guard Fred VanVleet and two-way winger OG Anunoby, so that sort of evens out. While some can quibble with how the game was officiated, or the results of an occasional player here or there – most notably the flippant offensive foul call on Harden with 2.7 seconds to go and Embiid’s ugly turnover to Gary Tren Jr. at 27.2  –  it’s hard to put the blame solely on “The Process,” as he finished out the game with a plus-minus of +7, which ranked third on the team behind only Tyrese Maxey and Matisse Thybulle.

No, when a team loses by five points and their backup center is a -10 in 11 minutes of action, even the MVP level play of Joel Embiid is going to struggle to overcome that built-in deficit. Though the sample size may be small, we need to have a conversation about DeAndre Jordan, Philadelphia 76ers fans.

DeAndre Jordan just isn’t it at backup center, the Philadelphia 76ers.

When news broke that DeAndre Jordan secured a buyout from the Los Angeles Lakers with the intentions of signing with the Philadelphia 76ers, it sent more than a few fans into disarray. Since leaving the Lob City Clippers in 2018 and especially since his 2018-19 season split between the Dallas Mavericks and the New York Knicks, Jordan’s game has started to deteriorate, with his points, minutes, and rebounds all contracting with each passing season.

After turning in a career-worst run with the Nets in 2020-21 that saw him play exactly zero minutes of postseason basketball, Brooklyn traded four(!) second-round picks to get off of Jordan’s contract and free up a roster spot for Paul Millsap.

Sidebar: Jordan was replaced by Millsap in New York? Oh, the irony.

While Jordan still drew some interest in free agency and signed a deal with the Los Angeles Lakers to add even more All-Star experience to the oldest roster in the NBA, he fell out of their rotation too and watched from the sidelines as Dwight Howard, a player three years older, soaked up reserve minutes in his place.

So naturally, when news broke that the Sixers were looking for a new center after shipping Andre Drummond to the Brooklyn Nets, a potential reunion with Doc Rivers must have seriously tickled Jordan’s fancy. After a half-decade run together with Los Angeles’ other franchise, surely Rivers would give Jordan some run, and a chance at a chip, in this, the twilight years of his NBA career.

If that, in fact, was Jordan’s thought process, then his intuition was correct, as Rivers has remained loyal to his once and former player to the tune of 12.6 minutes of action per game. Unfortunately, Jordan has somehow played worse than the player he replaced in the rotation, Paul Millsap, and has created a near-“Greg Monroe”-level situation for the Sixers’ second unit.

But how could this be? Millsap was objectively bad during his seven-game run as a backup big for the Sixers, holding a -2.6 box plus-minus for his efforts and showing an inability to get up and contest balls around the hoop. Surely, Jordan could at least provide some defensive consistency in the painted area and serve as a viable lop catcher/screen setter for James Harden, right?

In practice, Jordan has been Millsap 2.0, albeit with even less switchability and a non-existent 3 point shot.

In 88 minutes of action, Jordan has a box plus-minus of -4.0. For context, Basketball-Reference defines a player with a -2.0 box plus-minus as an “end-of-bench player” who probably shouldn’t be averaging a dozen minutes per game behind the best player in the NBA. To make matters worse, according to Cleaning The Glass, teams are making 71.4 percent of their shots when Jordan is at the rim, which is incredibly problematic when you consider that is the very role he was brought to Philly to play.

So, if the Sixers are getting outscored thoroughly when Jordan is on the court, can’t stop would-be drivers around the hoop, and get no real offensive utility out of their center spot outside of the occasional lob, why is Jordan playing over Millsap, let alone Paul Reed or Charles Bassey?

Short answer? Because Doc Rivers wants him to.

Who knows, maybe the Philadelphia 76ers will figure it out. Maybe DeAndre Jordan will shore up his defensive efforts, and the Sixers will at least be able to play neutral minutes when Embiid is off the court, as opposed to the -10.3 On-Off per 100 possessions the team is currently getting when number 9 takes the court. If not, well, I’m not really sure what the solution to the problem would be other than trotting Paul Millsap back onto the field, as it’s clear neither Paul Reed nor Charles Bassey will receive enough run to outright win the backup center spot.