ESPN Ranks Sixers 25th In Future Power Ranking

ESPN has released their Future Power Ranking [ESPN Insider], which is essentially their way of predicting a teams on-court success over the next 3 seasons.

Each team is given scores over 5 categories: current players, management, market, draft, and money.

First, I’ll note the Sixers rank among the 30 teams, then we can talk about them.

ESPN has the Sixers worst in terms of current players.  That’s not really a shock, considering the moves from this past offseason.  We’re all expecting the Sixers to be one of, if not the, worst teams in the league.

ESPN gave the Sixers extremely high marks in both the draft and money, ranking the Sixers as 3rd best in the league in both categories.  The draft is is their estimation of how well positioned the teams are in terms of future picks, taking into account both number of picks and the expected positioning of those picks.

Money is not only how well the team is positioned in regards to the salary cap, but also how willing they are to spend money and pay the luxury tax, if necessary.  With upwards of $30 million in cap space available next offseason and having been willing to eat Elton Brand’s contract last summer, the Sixers are both well positioned and have an ownership group willing to use it.

The management rating is perhaps the most dubious, in my opinion.  It’s published on ESPN insider, so I’m not able to re-print the article here, but Tom Haberstroh went to great lengths in the write-up praising Joshua Harris and Sam Hinkie for the decisive actions they have taken.  Why, then, is the management team rated in the bottom half of the league?  They mention stability as one of the factors that go into the ranking, and with the recent change in ownership, general manager, and coaches, I suppose that still plays a large role in the ranking.  Still, the ranking didn’t seem to jive with the text, nor how most of the analysts have rated the Sixers offseason.

Overall, they have the Sixers ranked 25th.  Remember, this is how they’re expected to do in the next 3 years, not necessarily how well positioned they are for the long-term future.  Players make up 50% of the overall ranking, which makes sense considering they will directly impact 1/3 of the overall record for the span the projection is meant to cover, and even if the Sixers should successfully use all of their assets this offseason to bring in a ton of talent, it’s going to take time for that to really translate into wins.  And time is not on the Sixers side for a projection that only goes 3 years into the future.  If Sixers fans are lucky, we can hope to start showing some real progress in the win/loss column by the end of this projection.

However, if you have confidence in Sam Hinkie, then being ranked 3rd in both draft and money, both rankings that I think are accurate, that gives Sixers fans great hope going forward.  Sam Hinkie has assets.  Now it’s his job to make use of them.