Excited About the Sixers? You Should Be!

From the Sixers Twitter

Last Thursday night, the Sixers drafted Markelle Fultz with the top overall pick, a pick they obtained by trading the #3 pick in this draft, plus a future pick. One can't be unhappy with that. Then they traded a "future first round pick" to move back into the first round and select Latvian Center Anzejs Pasecniks with the #25 pick overall. With the 36th pick in the draft, they selected Australian-born, Serbian League Power Forward Jonah Bolden, and followed that up at #50 by selecting French Forward Mathias Lessort.

Yesterday we learned that Dario Saric and Joel Embiid made the NBA All-Rookie team, not overly shocking news, but good nonetheless. The Sixers have been linked to several major free agents, including sharp-shooting J.J. Reddick, who would fill a major need. Obviously it's early in the off-season, and much will change, but the Sixers could very well go from a ten win team in 2015-2016 to a playoff team in 2017-2018. Toronto and Indiana still may be taking major steps backwards this season, and Chicago and Atlanta are already working on dismantling their teams. If you assume for a second that Cleveland, Boston and Washington are the class of the conference at the outset of this season, and that Milwaukee should vastly improve yet again, that still leaves four spots open in the Eastern Conference. It's hard to say right now that the Sixers shouldn't back into one of these spots in 2017-2018. In fact, if everything went right...

No, no... I'm a Philadelphia fan, don't get too excited.