As a Sixers fan and loooongtime Andrew Wiggins hagiographer, I’m pretty well beside myself by now. I was entirely on board with the tanking strategy, then a little crestfallen at the outcome of the lottery, but then everything looked to be falling into place with the rise of Embiid, until his injury.
Now, god, who knows. There are so many guys in this year’s draft I really like. It’s probably easier to list the ones I don’t like: Parker, Gary Harris, Payne, Ennis, McDermott. I think that’s it. Nurkic, Payton, Capela, Saric, Hairston, yep yep yep yep.
The absolute best case for me was actually Chad Ford’s mock pre-Embiid injury: Wiggins at three (I will go totally fucking berserk) and then Randle at 10 (any survivors would be entirely destroyed at that point). It doesn’t look at this point like either one of those two is going to make it to those picks, so now, geez, I really don’t know. If they could trade 3 and 10 to get 1 and take Wiggins, I wouldn’t complain, but there are going to be genuinely fantastic players available at 10. I definitely would not approve of 3, 10 and something else.
Maybe they stay where they are and take Embiid – I would approve. Maybe they stay and take Exum – I’d be cautiously optimistic; a bit disappointed by the vanillaness of it, but in Hinkie I trust. Or maybe they trade MCW for 7, take Smart at 7, trade Young, 10 and a future pick for 6, and trade 3 and 6 for 1 to get Wiggins, and then… fuck, even I can’t add Randle to that. OK, MCW for 7 and Nash, take Randle at 7, Wiggins drops to 3, here we go, and then Stauskas at 10!
Yeah, I’m intrigued by this.