If I Ran the Sixers....

Finally, the nightmare is coming to an end. That's what the Philadelphia 76ers want us to believe. Finally, with the #1 overall pick, and currently two others, the Sixers will have that big draft that begins to build the next great basketball team in the city. It's finally here.

The Sixers will pick Ben Simmons with the #1 pick in the NBA draft, at least according to every source that knows anything about basketball. He did work out for them today, reports say they told him they will be picking him, and he's #1 on every big board. Seems simple enough, right? It actually is in this case. The easy part for the Sixers is who to pick at #1. Ben Simmons is exactly the right player in this draft for the team picking first. In Simmons, the Sixers get their small-forward of the future, the kind of perimeter athlete who can get to the basket, shoot the ball, and grow into a plus defender. You can see him fitting together with some of the other "assets" the Sixers possess to make the best front court in basketball in a few, short years.

That is where the easy stuff ends. The Sixers possess picks at #24 and #26. If they stay there, it's a crapshoot guess, though one mock draft has them selecting Demetrius Jackson out of Notre Dame and DeAndre Bembry out of St. Joseph's. I doubt that happens. I would bet on one or both of those picks being traded to move up. That though, is also kind of the easy part.

The ultimate question of this draft is how much the Sixers are willing to move and how far they need/want to move up in this draft. My personal opinion is that there is no guard in this draft I would be willing to move Jahlil Okafor for, Kris Dunn included. In other words, I'd have to get a top ten pick, plus in an Okafor trade. Less than that does not work for me. I'd also be very hesitant to move more than the two picks in this year's draft together to move up, unless it was into the top ten, so i'm not dying to trade either of next year's picks. I could be high on moving Nerlens Noel, under the right circumstances, but i'm not dying to give him away. Faced with either trading him plus either Covington or Stauskas for Teague from Atlanta is not ideal to me, but it is preferable to a straight swap of Okafor for #3. I still believe Okafor can be an All-Star power forward for many years to come.

Let the games begin.