3. Jordan Clarkson
Alright, so we have a 3-and-D point guard and a 3-and-D forward, both of whom are best suited coming off the bench for this current Philadelphia 76ers squad who are nice, obvious, dare I say, safe choices. But what if Daryl Morey wants to have some fun? What if he looks at how Eric Gordon was used in Houston and wants to secure a similar spark plug coming off the bench?
Enter Jordan Clarkson, the 2020-21 NBA Sixth Man of the Year.
Now Clarkson isn’t as good of a defender as Gordon, as good of a playmaker, or as efficient of a 3-point shooter, but when Quinn Snyder, one of the smartest coaches in the NBA, needed a bucket, he turned to his tattooed sixth man and for good reason: Clarkson can score.
Since entering the association as a second-round pick out of Missouri as a member of the Los Angeles Lakers, Clarkson has never averaged less than 11.9 points per game over a full season and has surpassed 1,000 points scored in every season since his sophomore season.
Goodness, need I say more than the Jazz’s 11-point win over the Sixers on February 15th, 2021, when Clarkson scored 40 points? Granted, it took him 20 shots to get there and seven more attempts from the free-throw line, but every time the game got close, Clarkson boomed back with a big bucket to put his foes away. If the Sixers want a player like that who can fit into multiple lineups and provide some microwave scoring, there aren’t many better options than Clarkson.