The Process isn’t over yet for the Philadelphia 76ers

Few experiments in recent NBA history have gotten more attention than The Process. Former 76ers general manager Sam Hinkie’s bold gambit to push the incentive structure baked into the league’s lottery system to its logical extreme drew the admiration of some, the ire of many and the eyeballs of nearly everyone in the NBA ecosystem.

Even after Hinkie exited the job and Bryan Colangelo ostensibly abandoned the process of The Process, it was still discussed ad nauseam, thanks to A) the way the Sixers’ first post-Hinkie season played out; B) the fact that one of the fruits of The Process adopted it as his own self-given nickname; and C) a segment of Sixers fans remaining fanatically devoted to the ideas (and the man) behind The Process itself.

As its base, The Process was really quite a bit more straightforward than the reputation it garnered. Much in the same way former Eagles coach Chip Kelly’s uptempo, spread offense often masked an old-school football desire to simply run the ball right up the middle, so too did Hinkie’s extreme methods mask a desire to do what nearly every league executive agrees paves the surest path to championship contention in the NBA: acquire multiple superstars.

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There were obviously mistakes made along the way (refusing to meaningfully engage with the media; drafting Jahlil Okafor over Kristaps Porzingis; treating end-of-bench players as fungible commodities; angering agents, etc.) and there are obviously several mitigating factors here (injuries, etc.). But heading into the 2017-18 season, it’s difficult to argue that the specific objective of superstar acquisition — or, at least, potential-superstar acquisition — hasn’t been achieved.

Joel Embiid finally hit the floor last season, and when he was able to play he looked like every bit the evolutionary Olajuwon he was sold as during the pre-draft process back in 2014. Embiid put together an absolute monster of a debut campaign, averaging 20.2 points, 7.8 rebounds, 2.1 assists, 0.9 steals and 2.5 blocks per game, and doing it all in just 25.4 minutes a night. He was not only the rare “rookie” that was a clear positive force on both ends of the floor, but also one of the more statistically rare players in league history, regardless of experience.

Embiid became just the third player ever to average at least 2.0 blocks per game while also making better than 36.0 percent of his 3s on at least 3.0 attempts per game, bringing to the table the uber-desirable combination of rim-protection on one end of the court and floor-spacing on the other. He also became the second player ever, after Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, to average at least 25.0 points, 10.0 rebounds, 3.0 assists and 3.0 blocks per-36 minutes, showcasing a skill set both explosive and extraordinarily well-rounded.

His presence on the floor alone lifted the Sixers from moribund also-rans (-8.1 points per 100 possessions) to sure-fire playoff contenders (+4.1 points per 100). If he were to play 30 minutes a night for 82 games, he’d likely be one of the 10-15 most impactful players in all of basketball.

Embiid is joined in potential stardom by Ben Simmons, the No. 1 overall pick in 2016. Simmons is a 6-foot-11 primary ball-handler whose “size-enhanced ability to thread passes both through and around defenders” has been compared to that of LeBron James. Simmons can operate from the top of the floor as the ball-handler or the screener in pick-and-rolls, as well as from the low block as a post-up player, spraying the ball to teammates wherever they happen to spring open. And that’s just in the half-court. A player that size that can pull the ball down off the glass and run the break himself is still fairly rare, even in today’s NBA, but Simmons fits that mold. He has active hands, if not the greatest lateral quickness defensively and should be a positive force on both ends of the floor.

Simmons may never develop into an above-average shooter, but if he approached average and maxed out his other gifts, he would be an All-Star caliber player.

And Simmons is not even the only potential star No. 1 pick on the roster. The Sixers used one of the last goodies Hinkie left behind (the LaKings pick) to move up from No. 3 to No. 1 in this year’s draft and nab Markelle Fultz, who is perhaps the perfect fit to play “point guard” on a team that has Simmons in the role of co-lead ball-handler.

Fultz can get anywhere he wants on the floor at any time, knocking down shots off the catch or off the dribble. He has excellent floor vision in his own right, excels at changing pace on the fly and at 6-foot-4, 195 pounds is sturdily-enough built that he can probably guard players at either backcourt position once he learns the nuances of NBA defense. (He was not a positive defensive player at Washington, though that was largely due to a lack of effort that may have been due to his having to carry the entire offense on his shoulders. That won’t be an issue in Philly.)

Merely acquiring those three players and surrounding them with quality rotation pieces like Robert Covington, Dario Saric, Richaun Holmes, T.J. McConnell, Justin Anderson and free-agent important J.J. Redick and Amir Johnson has led to at least some groundswell support for the idea that The Process is now complete. That, of course, is not nearly true.

There’s a difference between acquiring potential superstars and developing those players into actual superstars. It’s not that acquiring potential stars is easy, per se. We saw throughout the Sixers’ experiment just how difficult it really is; and there are plenty of teams that have embarked on long-term rebuilding projects that have taken even longer to find even one potential star, let alone three. But turning those players into actualized stars is far more difficult work. Approximately 45 percent of top-five picks since 1980 have made at least one All-Star game during their career, meaning more than half of those players never reached that level. And, of course, superstars are the type of players that eventually go on to make 8-10 All-Star games, not just one.

There’s a lot of work to be done to turn Embiid, and especially, Simmons and/or Fultz into that caliber of player. It’s clear that Embiid has the requisite talent, but he’s also only managed to get himself onto the floor for 786 minutes in three NBA seasons. He’s never played 30 minutes in a game, he’s never appeared in both halves of a back-to-back and he’s never played a game as late as February, let alone May or June. So much of the Sixers’ future success — and by extension, the perception of how well The Process worked — is dependent on Embiid’s being not just a superstar-caliber player, but also healthy enough for the caliber of his play to really matter.

At this point, we simply don’t know if he can do it. In fact, the safer bet might be on the fact that he can’t. After all, he’s only played 786 minutes in three years. And he’s not the only one with injury issues. Simmons missed his entire rookie season with a broken foot. Fultz was injured early on in his first NBA Summer League.

Even assuming a clean bill of health for all three players, there’s still the matter of working out the proper delineation of their roles and responsibilities, and figuring out each other’s tendencies. Embiid has never set a screen for Simmons in a real game, never had to cover for Fultz on a defensive breakdown. Fultz has never worked the two-man game with Simmons and never spotted Redick flying around a screen out of the corner of his eye. These things all take time to work out, and it’s not just the players that have some learning to do. Brett Brown has to play around and figure out which combinations of players work well together and which don’t, and on which sides of the floor.

Next: Fultz and Simmons can learn from LeBron and Kyrie

Long-term, considerations like salary, fit, the future of ancillary players like Jahlil Okafor, whether or not Brown can take the team to the next level and more are likely to come into play as well. In other words, while the acquisition phase of The Process is now largely over, the process of turning the fruits of The Process into a real contender has only just begun.