Philadelphia 76ers: Justin Anderson’s winding road back to the NBA
There was a lot to like in the Philadelphia 76ers‘ 132-122 win over the Indiana Pacers.
Tyrese Maxey connected on eight of his 11 3s, Tobias Harris followed close behind with a 5-6 performance from deep, and Joel Embiid retook the scoring title lead with a massive 45 point performance in just 38 minutes of action.
But quite possibly the most unexpectedly pleasant surprise of them all was the return of Justin Anderson, who took the court alongside fellow former “Process” Sixer T.J McConnell for Rick Carlisle’s squad in a losing effort.
Now granted, the player acquired in the Nerlens Noel trade only played a little under five minutes and was held scoreless by his former team, but after bouncing around the basketball world waiting for his next NBA opportunity, it’s sure nice to see Justin Anderson back on the court, even if it’s not as a member of the Philadelphia 76ers.
Anderson took the long road back to the court against the Philadelphia 76ers.
When interim general manager Brett Brown traded Justin Anderson to the Atlanta Hawks in a three-team deal that also featured Dennis Schröder, Mike Muscala, Carmelo Anthony, and Timothé Luwawu-Cabarrot in the summer of 2018, it sent the former first-round pick out of Virginia’s career into flux.
Gone were the days of being Joel Embiid’s best friend off the court and a reliable defensive reserve on it, and in its place came a tour around the Eastern Conference that saw Anderson land on four different rosters over the space of two calendar years, including an ill-fated return to Philadelphia that lasted a few weeks before he was waived coming out of camp in the winter of 2020.
From there, Anderson was relegated largely to the G-League, where he played for the Fort Wayne Mad Ants for much of the 2021-22 NBA season. Though he did get called up to the Cleveland Cavaliers on a 10-day contract when the association was struggling with a surge of infections due to the Omicron variant of COVID-19, Anderson only played 47 combined minutes over his three games of action in “Believeland” and wasn’t offered a second contract when his first expired. No, Anderson would have to wait a little longer to really get a chance to prove his worth to the NBA once more, but prove it he did, as he landed with the Mad Ants’ parent team, the Indiana Pacers, and parlayed one 10-day contract into a second and then a third, which should keep him on the team through their penultimate game of the season.
Over his improbable run with the Pacers, paired up again with his former Dallas Mavericks head coach, Rick Carlisle, Anderson averaged 6.8 points, 2.1 assists, and 3.1 rebounds per game on 20.7 minutes of action per game. While his 3 point shot – and shot from the field – remains well below the NBA average, Anderson remains a solid athlete, proven defender, and willing contributor who will do the little things that keep an offense ticking around the margins.
Did Anderson do enough with the Pacers to earn another run at the NBA level? You bet; heck, if the Pacers don’t sign Anderson for the rest of the season, he could sign with another team before the end of the regular season and remain eligible for the playoffs.
Hmm… is there a team who could use a defensive wing, maybe because one of their guys is “intelligible to play” in Toronto? Just a thought.
Next. Tyrese Maxey has become a wickedly efficient shooter. dark
The 2021-22 season has been very good to former members of the Philadelphia 76ers looking to get back into the NBA. Greg Monroe has signed multiple 10-day contracts, as has Dakota Mathias, and both Nik Stauskas and Haywood Highsmith have parlayed solid G-League runs into full-on NBA contracts. Will Justin Anderson be the next member of the red, white, and blue fraternity to become a full-time NBA player once more? Only time will tell, but if he does, the only people who will be happier about it than his new fanbase are the OG “Process” faithful who have kept the faith all of these years later.