Will the Philadelphia 76ers regret trading Mikal Bridges?

The Philadelphia 76ers’ draft-night decision to trade Mikal Bridges remains controversial weeks after the fact. But was it the right choice?

During the 2018 NBA draft, the Philadelphia 76ers created a storybook moment by drafting hometown product Mikal Bridges at No. 10 overall. Roughly 30 minutes later, they burned it to the ground by shipping him to the Phoenix Suns for the No. 16 pick (Zhaire Smith) along with the Miami Heat’s unprotected 2021 first-rounder.

Will they grow to regret that draft-night swap? It depends on whether you’re looking at it from a short- or long-term angle.

There’s no denying Bridges, a soon-to-be 22-year-old with three years of college experience, is better equipped to make an immediate NBA impact than Smith, who left Texas Tech after his freshman year and just turned 19 in June. Sixers head coach and interim general manager Brett Brown admitted as much on draft night.

“Mikal Bridges would have come in and slotted in and played right away,” Brown said. “Zhaire is gonna be fighting for some minutes. And we are going to develop him, and we are excited to do that. And he may jump into this thing in a quicker way.”

Bridges grew significantly during his three years at Villanova, going from averaging 6.4 points while shooting 29.9 percent from 3-point range as a freshman to 17.7 points while shooting 43.5 percent from deep this past season. Smith, meanwhile, put up 11.3 points on 55.6 percent shooting, 5.0 rebounds, 1.8 assists, 1.1 steals and 1.1 blocks during his lone season with the Red Raiders, all the while shooting 18-of-40 from long range.

If the Sixers needed an instant-impact draftee, Bridges was the preferable option. Though he’s limited as a shot-creator, he could have slotted in as a 3-and-D wing opposite Robert Covington to make life hell on opposing teams. At 6’7″ with a 7’2″ wingspan, Bridges’ length could have helped further bolster Philadelphia’s already stingy defense, as he and Covington would wreak havoc on passing lanes.

Dating back to before the draft, however, Brown was realistic about what to expect from whomever the Sixers selected at No. 10.

“The 10th pick, it doesn’t always ensure, ‘Here I am, I’m going to be playing a lot,’” he said in mid-June, per Sixers.com’s Brian Seltzer. “In some ways, we’d all be naive to think that’s going to happen. … You might trip on somebody that pushes their way into that tough type of [established] rotation, [but] history says that, at times, isn’t that likely.”

In other words, Brown and the Sixers weren’t banking on the second coming of Donovan Mitchell. With Covington, JJ Redick, Wilson Chandler and Markelle Fultz all in line for significant roles this season — not to mention young wild cards such as Justin Anderson, Furkan Korkmaz and Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot competing for the leftover scraps — it’ll be difficult for any Sixers draftee to crack the rotation and play regular minutes right away.

Though Bridges may be more capable of making his presence felt in 2018-19, the Sixers are in position to ride out Smith’s longer developmental curve. They had Smith as the 1B to Bridges’ 1A on their final draft board, according to Brown, which made the opportunity to add Miami’s unprotected first-rounder too enticing to pass up.

“Emotions carry over that it’s pretty cool, he’s from Villanova, it’s the city of Philadelphia, you can’t make this stuff up, his mom works across the street, all that stuff,” Brown said. “And then the human side of, ‘Wow, look at this deal!’ Look at this incredible godfather of a deal that can move our program forward in ways we couldn’t have imagined before this draft. So you’re caught.”

As Brown alluded to during his post-draft presser, the NBA may scrap its one-and-done rule as early as 2021, according to ESPN.com’s Zach Lowe. Following the NBA’s Board of Governors meeting Tuesday, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver told reporters that he felt as though the league was “ready to make that change,” although he noted that “it won’t come immediately.” National Basketball Players Association executive director Michele Roberts hinted there’ll be “some news in the next few months” on that front, which should have the Sixers positively giddy.

If the NBA does begin to allow prospects to enter the draft straight of high school beginning in 2021, the value of that Miami pick will immediately skyrocket. That draft class will feature the top players from back-to-back recruiting classes, which could make it the most loaded prospect pool in recent memory. Whether the Sixers eventually spend that pick themselves or use it to grease the wheels on a trade, as Brown suggested on draft night, it’s a valuable asset in their war chest nevertheless.

There’s a higher degree of variance in the path they chose, as Smith and the Miami pick each have a much wider range of outcomes than Bridges. Whereas Bridges doesn’t appear likely to ever develop into a superstar, he should have a rock-solid 3-and-D floor. Smith’s athleticism and basketball IQ hint at greater superstar upside than Bridges has, but he’s also further removed from being an impactful NBA player at the moment.

The Sixers need to surround Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid with shooters, so Smith’s long-range stroke will wind up being his swing skill. If he’s eventually able to knock down 3-pointers consistently, he could become a valuable long-term piece of the puzzle in Philly. But if his shooting stroke doesn’t come around, his fit alongside the Sixers’ two young superstars becomes far more questionable.

For his part, Brown remains confident in Smith’s upside.

“The city of Philadelphia is gonna love him because of his complete competitiveness, his athleticism and his toughness,” he said on draft night. “He is bred for the city of Philadelphia.”

Next: Why Terrance Ferguson's development is so important to the Thunder

In essence, the trade boiled down to this: The Sixers felt as though the value of the unprotected Miami first-rounder outweighed the immediate downgrade from Bridges to Smith. It’ll be years before we find out whether they were correct in that assessment, but expect the deal to be relitigated incessantly if Bridges gets off to a hot start in 2018-19.