Philadelphia 76ers: Isaiah Joe needs more chances to succeed

In the 2022 NBA Playoffs, the Philadelphia 76ers‘ floor spacing was… sort of bad, right?

Like, of the 15 players who logged at least a minute of action for Doc Rivers’ squad, only four had a 3 point shooting percentage of 40 percent or better, with three of those players, Shake Milton, Paul Reed, and Furkan Korkmaz doing so on less than two attempts per game.

Now granted, the Sixers actually did make their 3s at a higher clip than in the regular season, as their 37.3 percent conversion rate was actually .9 higher than their regular season mark of 36.4, but when it mattered and the Sixers needed buckets from their shooter to get past the Heat in Round 2, the team’s production dried up, connecting on just 33.2 percent of their shots on 33.2 attempts per game.

So what gives? Why did the Philadelphia 76ers’ production dry up, and more importantly, why didn’t they have a Plan B for when players like Georges Niang lost his touch? Why didn’t Doc Rivers play his most prolific shooter, Isaiah Joe, to try to spark some production from deep? Probably because he didn’t get much run in the regular season.

The Philadelphia 76ers need to give Isaiah Joe a chance to succeed in 2022-23.

*Crazy stat alert*: Isaiah Joe took more 3-pointers in his second season at Arkansas than his entire career with the Philadelphia 76ers.

Okay, maybe that’s not too crazy of a stat, but hey, when a player puts up more 3s in 25 games of college basketball than in 96 professional contests, it isn’t particularly flattering… to the coaching staff.

That’s right; it’s not Joe’s fault that he was given a green light to shoot 10.4 3s per game in college but was held in check with a perpetual yellow light as a pro. It’s also not his fault that his average minutes per game in 2021-22, 11.1, made it hard to get into a regular rhythm on a shot more akin to drumming than landscape painting.

No, those issues fall solely on the shoulders of the coaching staff, who refused to give Joe – or any of their other young players really – consistent runs during the regular season in favor of playing veterans who have long proven their abilities at the NBA level. Despite being relatively healthy last season, Joe only played in more than six games in a row once, with his longest stretch of playing time coming in over a 15 game run from mid-January through early February.

Why, you may ask, did Joe get so much run during that period? You guessed it, COVID-19.

Had Joe been afforded consistent playing time, even just a dozen minutes per game, maybe he would have failed. Maybe his 3-point shooting percentage would have still been in the mid-30s, and the team would be looking for another developmental shooter to develop moving forward. Or maybe, just maybe, the Joe would have gotten better and become an exciting 3-and-D guard perfectly suited to play off of James Harden.

But because that didn’t happen, Joe is just as much of a question mark today as he was one year ago, which is pretty darn antithetical to the philosophy of player development.

The Philadelphia 76ers were dealt a tough hand in 2021-22. They didn’t have Ben Simmons, were marred with trade rumors all season, and had to play Tyrese Maxey out of position during his breakout run. And yet, instead of resting on the knowledge that they would make the playoffs no matter what thanks to Joel Embiid and give developmental minutes to players like Isaiah Joe, Paul Reed, and Jaden Springer, they instead opted to tread water and play veterans with much less of a future with the team, or even in the association. For everyone’s sake, let’s hope that doesn’t happen again.