The Sixers didn’t move up in the lottery in large part because they refused to trade Dario Saric, Ian Begley of ESPN tweets. Philadelphia tried to get into the top five of the draft but multiple teams indicated the Sixers had no interest in giving up a forward who averaged 14.6 PPG 6.7 RPG and 2.6 APG last season, Begley adds. Philadelphia wound up staying put at No. 10 and drafted Villanova’s Mikal Bridges, then dealt his draft rights to the Suns for Texas Tech guard Zhaire Smith and a future first-rounder.
In other draft news involving Atlantic Division teams:
- With coach and GM Brett Brown running the show, the Sixers were very active in the second round. They traded the No. 38 pick to the Pistons and the No. 39 pick to the Lakers, then parlayed two late picks to move into the Mavericks’ No. 54 spot, where they drafted SMU guard Shake Milton. The Sixers picked up three future second-rounders and cash in the first two second-round deals. “I feel like the trades that we made to acquire future picks and to move up closer to somebody that we really like like Shake Milton, I think that the room was fantastic in organizing and allowing us to do that,” Brown said during a press conference.
- The Celtics decided against trading for a second-round pick after drafting enigmatic Texas A&M big man Robert Williams with the No. 27 pick, Steve Bulpett of the Boston Herald reports. “We don’t need more young players, really,” GM Danny Ainge told Bulpett and other media members. “We feel good about adding one positional player that has something that we don’t have, that does something that we don’t have.”
- Knicks GM Scott Perry doesn’t expect the team to be “highly active” in free agency, Begley reports in a separate tweet. That’s not surprising, considering the team’s salary commitments for next season. Kyle O’Quinn gave them a little more breathing room by deciding to decline his option but unless Enes Kanter also chooses to decline his $18.62MM option, they’ll be operating over the cap.
That was a good move from Philly, you cannot trade Dario, he is very good & complements very well with Embiid, brilliant stretch 4, good rebounder, he’s got grit is aggressive, really like him.
Anyway don’t think any guy in the top 5 really did fit what Philly neede, I mean Ayton, MBIII & JJJ, would be hard to fit with Embiid & Young & Doncic hard to fit with Simmons, maybe Young playing the 2G, but he would be very undersized there. So Philly did real good not trading Dario, & I hope they don’t trade him neither for a FA, he is a keeper.
Reason why your head coach should not be making GM decisions. Saric is a great player, but eventually you would have to pay him and I just can’t see him making an impact enough to where he could help a team win a championship.
But he is a pure Philly guy and the fans love him.
Too vague to know, exactly how far up and what else was involved. No way Saric + 10 + 26 was getting a top 4 pick. Longer term, once there’s a GM in place, Saric is a guy that they should consider moving in the right deal. The Embid-Saric-Simmons combination is problematic longer term against high end competition.
For this draft, even without a GM, I think they did great trading down. I wanted the Knicks to do something like this with Phoenix targeting the same player (Smith) if things broke a certain way (Phoenix had originally indicated they were looking to trade up for PG). For Philly, the deal is even better because Smith is a better fit than Bridges for them (not so with the Knicks), and the future unprotected pick might have more trade value in their hands because their own picks are likely to discounted in trades because they figure to be low.
Problem is smith is more of a project than bridges and drafting smith the team hasn’t gotten any better from last season, while the Celtics are basically getting 2 all stars back and arguably had the steal of the draft.
Realistically they aren’t going to get Lebron, Pg13 and Leonard is a 1 year rental that would cost them saric and other assets.
Taking a pick 3 years down the road doesn’t help as they need a much bigger improvement over Covington.
I think Philly fans are underrating Covington, and overrating Saric. But if you see a starting five of Embid, Saric, Simmons, Fultz and either Bridges or Smith, I wouldn’t be so sure that Smith is not going to round out the team better by the time the playoffs roll around. I think the pick is going to be used to upgrade long before 2021.
I’m a Celtics fan but I like Dario. He’s the type of player that every team needs. He does all the little things and the dirty work inside that a lot of players don’t want to do. Marcus Smart is the same guy for Boston. He’s worth more to the Sixers because of his attitude towards the team and the city the same way Smart is to Boston. I feel like someone will overpay for Smart in FA but I hope I’m wrong.