Jason Thompson to the Warriors, Gerald Wallace to the Sixers

[celticsclay]

Yes.

I suspect the 2016-17 Sixers will be a 35-40 win team nipping at the back end of the Eastern Conference playoffs.

No one has made it into the playoffs with 35 wins since 94-95 when there were only 27 teams in the NBA. A bigger problem is I don't see Hinkie not tanking next year. He's certainly tanking this year given his draft and free agent moves, has one player of any value who has NBA experience, and he's at the same position as this year's pick who should be a good player, if not transcendent. Even if Hinkie turns on the switch, it would take a lot of favorable events for them to get to the playoffs, including  a young team gelling and winning more than 35 games. Worse, I don't see the talent there yet, and I don't think Hinkie does either.

I think time will tell if this Embiid injury set them back a couple of years or not. Pretty curious about that.

[RAAAAAAAANDY]

Yes.

I suspect the 2016-17 Sixers will be a 35-40 win team nipping at the back end of the Eastern Conference playoffs.

No one has made it into the playoffs with 35 wins since 94-95 when there were only 27 teams in the NBA. A bigger problem is I don't see Hinkie not tanking next year. He's certainly tanking this year given his draft and free agent moves, has one player of any value who has NBA experience, and he's at the same position as this year's pick who should be a good player, if not transcendent. Even if Hinkie turns on the switch, it would take a lot of favorable events for them to get to the playoffs, including  a young team gelling and winning more than 35 games. Worse, I don't see the talent there yet, and I don't think Hinkie does either.

Playoff contention doesn't necessarily mean in the playoffs, but they'll be fighting for the 8th seed. 40 wins was a game back of the 6 seed this past year. It's pretty condensed back there.

As far as this huge required improvement, I just think it's nonsense. They played at about a 25 win pace in the spurt post ASB, with a much improved point differential. They're clearly a significantly better team than they were to start last year, and still pretty clearly better than they were pre-ASB. 

They'll be a 25-30 win team this year and those types of teams make pretty frequent jumps into the playoffs when they're built around young players.

You're really overrating the difficulty of maiking the playoffs in the East.

[tazzmaniac]

Yes.

I suspect the 2016-17 Sixers will be a 35-40 win team nipping at the back end of the Eastern Conference playoffs.

No one has made it into the playoffs with 35 wins since 94-95 when there were only 27 teams in the NBA. A bigger problem is I don't see Hinkie not tanking next year. He's certainly tanking this year given his draft and free agent moves, has one player of any value who has NBA experience, and he's at the same position as this year's pick who should be a good player, if not transcendent. Even if Hinkie turns on the switch, it would take a lot of favorable events for them to get to the playoffs, including  a young team gelling and winning more than 35 games. Worse, I don't see the talent there yet, and I don't think Hinkie does either.

Playoff contention doesn't necessarily mean in the playoffs, but they'll be fighting for the 8th seed. 40 wins was a game back of the 6 seed this past year. It's pretty condensed back there.

As far as this huge required improvement, I just think it's nonsense. They played at about a 25 win pace in the spurt post ASB, with a much improved point differential. They're clearly a significantly better team than they were to start last year, and still pretty clearly better than they were pre-ASB. 

They'll be a 25-30 win team this year and those types of teams make pretty frequent jumps into the playoffs when they're built around young players.

You're really overrating the difficulty of maiking the playoffs in the East.

The Sixers could be a 25-30 win team this year but it depends on who their starting PG is.  Hinkie doesn't seem to be focused on getting one.  I think he'd be fine with another under 20 win season.  With the Lakers pick, they'd probably have 2 top 5 picks. 

[celticsclay]

Lakers are probably going to be guaranteed to finish above Denver, Portland and Philly who will be actively trying to rebuild/lose from the start of the season. You would have to think that Charlotte/Detroit/Orlando, whichever team falls out of the playoff race earliest will also end up losing a lot of games. I think 2 and 8 may be likely outcome. Also Maybe dallas tanks to protect their pick if their guys aren't healthy. Nets also a candidate to be horrible. I'm not sure that if you told the 76ers they would get the 8th pick in a draft two years later, they would do that trade again. If it end ups lower lottery or worse, it works out as a bad deal.

[tazzmaniac]

Lakers are probably going to be guaranteed to finish above Denver, Portland and Philly who will be actively trying to rebuild/lose from the start of the season. You would have to think that Charlotte/Detroit/Orlando, whichever team falls out of the playoff race earliest will also end up losing a lot of games. I think 2 and 8 may be likely outcome. Also Maybe dallas tanks to protect their pick if their guys aren't healthy. Nets also a candidate to be horrible. I'm not sure that if you told the 76ers they would get the 8th pick in a draft two years later, they would do that trade again. If it end ups lower lottery or worse, it works out as a bad deal.

Not sure what you are talking about.  The Sixers traded MCW before the trade deadline last season.  At that point, the Lakers were tanking and almost certain to be a bottom 5 team.  Since the pick was top 5 protected, Hinkie would have known the chance of getting their pick in the 2015 draft was very unlikely.  Hinkie did not want MCW so getting the Lakers pick was a very good return for him.