By Art Beitchman, DOCBLOG
It is very appropriate that this send-off to Thad Young is being posted on Labor Day weekend because very few Sixers ever worked harder.
The Sixers became the third team involved in the Kevin-Love-to-Cavaliers trade this week, and so ends the last vestiges of former GM Billy King’s era — which was an abject failure that set the team back for a long time.
Young was the last to go. By most objective standards, Young was a good player in his seven years wearing a Sixers uniform — averaging 13.7 PPG, while shooting at a .521 clip from the floor, not too shabby.
But $9 million per year for that production is way too much, coupled with the fact that Young is the quintessential “Tweener”, (a player with no real position on the floor). Thad doesn’t have the shot to play small forward and he isn’t beefy enough at power forward.
In return from the Wolves the team got two expiring contracts of Alexy Shved and Luc Mbah a Moute, whose biggest asset this season will be making fellow Cameroonian Joel Embiid’s transition to the NBA as smooth as possible as the Sixers’ top pick heals a broken foot he sustained just before the NBA draft last June.
The biggest prize the Sixers were able to get is Miami’s first-round pick (via Cleveland) in the 2015 NBA draft. It’s protected 1-10, but the Heat should be better than that. Coupled with their own pick that would give the 76ers six lottery picks in a three-year span.
I believe with the infusion of young talent, the 76ers should put a winning team on the floor, finally seeing this extreme strategy begin to pay.
I still feel there is no other way for the 76ers to build a long time winner in today’s NBA.
