The most fun thing the Sixers can do with all those picks

Even though we’re about a month into a totally unpredictable, completely riveting regular season, there’s something about the Summer League from four months ago that I just can’t stop thinking about.

It’s Jonah Bolden. Selected 36th overall in this June’s draft by the Philadelphia 76ers, Bolden is a native Australian who had an undistinguished freshman year at UCLA in 2015-16 before leaving for Serbia in 2016-17. At the end of the season Bolden was named the Adriatic League’s top prospect, an honor previously held by Dario Saric and Nikola Jokic. He looks pretty much exactly like the player you’d draw up if you were imagining the ideal-center for our floor-spaced age: the physicality to bang down low with the foot speed to keep up with driving guards. An able shooter, a willing and creative passer.

He is not on the Sixers’ roster.

Read More: Robert Covington is the 76ers’ invaluable glue guy

Nope, for this year and maybe even two more after that, Bolden is playing with Maccabi Tel Aviv in Israel. He’s only one of three players on the Euroleague-entrant team who is under 25, and he’s already an every-game starter.

The existence of Bolden makes me marvel, more than anything, at how crowded the Philadelphia roster is getting. As I discovered last week, the Sixers are leading the league with nine players who are first-round picks still on their rookie contracts. That group of nine players does not include explosive third-year center Richaun Holmes, the 37th overall pick in 2015. That group does not include undrafted guard T.J. McConnell, who has missed only two total games now that he is in the third year of a barely guaranteed contract. And that group does not include Robert Covington, who was picked up as a street free agent and is the only player out of the 25 who appeared for the 2014-15 Sixers who is still on the team.

Not only can Covington breathe easy now that his non-guaranteed contract was converted this week into a $62 million extension, but advanced metrics like ESPN’s Real Plus-Minus rate Covington as one of the top 10 players in the league, period.

Oh, and in addition to Bolden, whose drafts rights are still held by Philadelphia, the team also holds the rights to 7-foot-2 Latvian behemoth Andzejs Pasecniks — who is not avoiding any Kristaps Porzingis comparisons by also playing in the difficult Spanish league — plus Caribbean pogo stick Mathias Lessort, who is putting together a convincing case for his own Adriatic prospect of the year status.

Oh, and in addition to owning all of their own future picks, the team is still very likely to get an extra shot at the lottery in either 2018 or 2019 thanks to the first-rounders still owed them by the Lakers and Kings.

Oh, and now that the league has in fact seen the sweet, sweet basketball music that Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons make together, there are honestly few destinations for veteran free agents that would be more attractive than Philadelphia. For the next few years, Philadelphia is going to have a harder time than just about any other team keeping their roster down to 15 players.

And I’m not even done going through the Sixers’ massive warehouse of future assets. I’m talking about the Sam Hinkie signature: the second-round pick. While Bryan Colangelo has been a good sport getting in on the second-round-pick-party, most of the eight future second-round picks that the Sixers own — oh, plus all of their own picks — were acquired back in the day by Hinkie.

Here is my plan: using only their current second-round picks — and also all of their future second-round picks — the Sixers continually trade up the draft board until they get as high in the 2018 lottery as they can. I’ll also give the Sixers a $5 million trade-up budget as part of this plan.

Using previous draft-night trades and also Nick Restifo’s draft slot value chart as my guides, the Sixers can achieve some pretty astonishing results. And all it will take is 17 little trades, which would all need to be done between May and June, after the draft is set and before the draft actually takes place. Hear me out.

Phase 1: Consolidate the 2019-2021 picks into 2018

Maybe this isn’t the most efficient thing to do on the trade market, but the only way that I can at least wrap my little head around this is to push all eight of Philadelphia’s future second-round picks into the 2018 draft.

Trade #1: In the 2017 NBA Draft, the Grizzlies were able to get slot #35 in exchange for the Nets’ second-round pick in 2019. The Sixers own the better of the Bucks’ and Kings’ picks in 2019, which will probably convert to a very high second-rounder from Sacramento. The Sixers trade that future pick away and move into pick #35 for 2018.

Trade #2: In 2016, the Trail Blazers were able to get slot #47 in exchange for $1.2 million and their own second-rounder that was three years away. The Sixers send away the same $1.2 million plus their own 2020 second-rounder to move into pick #47.

Trade #3: Same idea as Trade #2, but using the Mavericks’ 2020 pick this time, plus another $1.2 million (bringing the total spending up to $2.4 million). Since things are looking kind of dire for Dallas right now, this gets a bit of a better return, landing the Sixers at pick #45.

Trade #4: In 2015, the Nets were able to get slot #38 in exchange for $0.8 million, plus a second-rounder that was three years away, plus a second-rounder that was four years away. The Sixers trade $0.8 million (bringing the total spending up to $3.2 million), plus their own 2021 second-rounder, plus the 2020 second-rounder that will be the better of the Knicks’ and the Nets’, and get pick #38.

Trade #5: In 2014, the Hawks were able to get into slot #48 in exchange for their second-rounder that was one year away. The Sixers send away the Knicks’ 2019 second-rounder and also get pick #48.

Trade #6: Same idea as trade #5, except the Sixers send away their own 2019 second-rounder. That gets them pick #49.

Trade #7: The Sixers completely own the Knicks’ second-round future. Philadelphia sends away New York’s 2021 second-rounder for let’s say pick #60.

Phase Two: Move Up the 2018 Draft Board

Let’s not forget that the Sixers already own four second-round picks in the 2018 draft already, and I have touched none of them in the seven trades above. At the moment, those picks are projected to look like:

• The better of the Cavaliers’ and Nets’ second-rounders — Nets, at pick #36.
• The better of the Knicks’ and Clippers’ second-rounders — which surprisingly means the Sixers would actually get the Clippers’ selection, at pick #39.
• The Sixers’ own second-rounder, which is at pick #46 right now — although, heck, Philadelphia could really climb up in the standings and cause this value to plummet.
• The Rockets’ second-rounder, which would be pick #58.

This gives the Sixers 11 of the 30 second-round picks in 2018: picks 35, 36, 38, 39, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 58 and 60. Using the Restifo value chart as my guide, I am simply going to trade the lowest two picks in the Sixers’ portfolio — receiving a single, slightly higher pick in return — over and over, until there is only one Sixers’ pick remaining. The opponents are agreeing to do this because I am rounding down against Philadelphia’s favor: if the league follows Restifo’s chart, they are stealing little percentage points of draft capital with each and every one of these transactions:

Trade #8: Combo #58 and #60 to get #52.

Trade #9: Combo #49 and #52 to get #37.

Trade #10: Combo #47 and #48 to get #33.

Trade #11: Combo #45 and #46 to get #31.

Trade #12: Combo #38 and #39 to get #26.

Trade #13: Combo #36 and #37 to get #25.

Trade #14: Combo #33 and #35 to get #22.

Trade #15: Combo #26 and #31 to get #16.

Trade #16: Combo #22 and #25 to get #13.

Trade #17: Combo #13 and #16 to get #6.

Number. Six. The Sixers have so many little coins buried deep in their couch that, if they collected them all, the result would be a legitimate NBA fortune. The last ten picks at the number six slot are: Jonathan Isaac, Buddy Hield, Willie Cauley-Stein, Marcus Smart, Nerlens Noel, Damian Lillard, Jan Vesely, Ekpe Udoh, Jonny Flynn and Danilo Gallinari. For some reason, this group of #6 overall players is substantially overshadowed by the last decade of #7 overall picks: Lauri Markkanen, Jamal Murray, Emmanuel Mudiay, Julius Randle, Ben McLemore, Harrison Barnes, Bismack Biyombo, Greg Monroe, Stephen Curry, Eric Gordon. Either way, somewhere around a 10-20 percent chance that the pick lands an absolutely essential franchise cornerstone player.

What Have We Learned

My plan is the most fun thing that the Sixers can do with all of these second-rounders. It is far from the smartest thing that the Sixers can do with these picks. The smartest call is probably to hang on to all of them, and select a battalion of players who can be stashed abroad, until every major international league features some incubating 20-year-old Sixers prospect, an undercover global army of Bolden’s and Pasecniks’s who eagerly await their turn to be featured next to Embiid, Simmons, Covington and the gang. The odds are much better that the Sixers will receive more overall value, in the decade to come, from a group of twelve second-round picks, instead of putting all their eggs in one still-risky lottery basket.

I am going to end this insane, drunken, impossible recommendation for the Sixers with a completely sober, sensible word of caution: Do not simply trade any of these picks for cash. It is so much wiser for a team to have at least a shot of developing a future player — even if they end up playing internationally their entire careers (what’s up Vasilije Micic) (or, wait, he’s only 23, maybe even Micic will come over) — instead of having a few extra million on hand.

Trading a pick for cash is one of the few moves that totally eliminates all future upside for your team. The recent horror stories are mind-boggling: Rudy Gobert would have been a Nugget, except that the Jazz were willing to part with pick #46 and a few million to get him. This June saw the Bulls trade pick #38 for cash — giving the Warriors the chance to nab Jordan Bell, who within a few weeks had already become the most Draymond Green-esque player that the league has seen since Draymond Green. That cash that the Bulls got is almost enough to pay for two months of Dwyane Wade to play on the Cavaliers.

The Sixers traded two second-round picks for cash this June, sending the 39th pick to the Clippers, who would pick Jawun Evans, and the 46th pick to the Bucks, who would pick Sterling Brown. It is only a small comfort that the Sixers that they avoided embarrassment in the Bell debacle, with the Warriors taking him off the board one slot ahead of Philadelphia’s first traded pick.

Although Evans and Brown have yet to distinguish themselves in spot minutes this year, it’s not just those two players who the Sixers missed out on inviting into The Process. Philadelphia could have selected Dillon Brooks, who went at #45 and took about two weeks to play himself into the Grizzlies’ starting lineup while being a complete plus-minus beast. Philadelphia also missed out on worthwhile long-term experiments, like 19-year-old stretch-five Isaiah Hartenstein, nabbed by the savvy Daryl Morey at #43, or the delightfully intense then-18-year-old Ike Anigbogu, picked up by the rebuilding Pacers at #47.

Next: Kevin Knox makes his NBA Draft lottery case against Kansas

Plus, who knows which second-round picks are stashed anonymously abroad now but are primed to jump into the NBA scene in the future, like Davis Bertans, Bojan Bogdanovic, Nemanja Bjelica, Patrick Beverley, Marc Gasol, Ersan Ilyasova, Marcin Gortat and Jokic himself have done.

That cash is going to come in via so many Embiid jersey sales, so many new season-ticket holders. You don’t have to follow my 17-trade sequence, Sixers, but, please, pick the picks.