What are the 76ers doing?

The Philadelphia 76ers have had an absolutely atrocious offseason. I cannot for the life of me figure out exactly their plan is. They decided to use their amnesty clause on the last year of Elton Brand’s stupidly huge contract they gave him to save themselves 18 million towards building their team this year. They then proceeded to sign Kwame Brown (2 years, 6 million) and Nick Young, (1 year, 6 million) and resign Lavoy Allen (2 years, 6 million) Spencer Hawes (2 years, 13 million) and Thaddeus Young (5 years, 42 million). They also acquired Dorrell Wright from Golden State via a trade as well as drafting wingman Moe Harkless and power forward Arnett Moultrie in the 1st round. What exactly is the plan here Philadelphia?

Why amnesty Brand in the last year of his stupid contract? Why not amnesty him immediately last year if they were going to amnesty him at all? They basically just ate his 18 million dollars remaining on his deal when surely they could’ve used his expiring contract to bring back a package more valuable than Kwame Brown and Nick Young combined right? Hell, isn’t he better than Kwame Brown and Nick Young even in his current dilapidated state?

I just can’t wrap my head around what exactly this team is doing. Are they trying to save cap space or are they trying to compete for a title? Right now it seems like they’re doing a combination of both and that just doesn’t work in the NBA. They signed Nick Young and just let Lou Williams walk for a 3 year 15 million dollar deal, when Williams’ was probably their most productive player last year. Nick Young is terrible, have you watched him play? (Lou Williams had a 20.22 PER compared to Nick Young’s 12.93)

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Nick Young has swag...too bad he sucks at playing basketball

Right now they have Andre Iguodala, Moe Harkless, Thaddeus Young, Nick Young, and Dorrell Wright as their wingmen. They all fill the same role on a team and you can even make a case that Evan Turner belongs in this group too. The only way any of this possibly makes sense is if they plan on unloading Andre Iguodala for some expiring contracts and really blowing the whole thing up. Iguodala while a productive player is signed through next year for around 15 million this year and 16 million next year, so that’s not exactly going to be an easy thing to do.

Their starting 5 right now looks like Jrue Holiday, Evan Turner, Andre Iguodala, Spencer Hawes, and Kwame Brown. They’d have Thaddeus Young, Moe Harkless, Dorrell Wright, Lavoy Allen and Nick Young as their primary bench contributors. Does this sound like a team even remotely close to contending to you? This reminds me of some of the Isiah Thomas Knicks teams when every player he acquired seemed to play the same position.

Unless the goal is to send Iguodala out of town, which 76ers management consistently denies, this is a team that took a clear step backwards. They were an 8^th seed in the Eastern Conference and actually showed up and played quite well in the Eastern Conference Playoffs last year. I don’t see this team being any better than that team and it has the potential to be a lot worse.