Morning Sixers – Monday, April 10th, 2017

“Derek, who do you think is better set up for the next 3 years, the Celtics or the Sixers? Eventually the East won’t go through Lebron.”
— Sean

The specific wording of this makes it a little bit tricky.

First, does “the next 3 years” include the remainder of this season? Obviously, for the Sixers, the rest of the season is a mere formality at this point. But the Celtics are tied with the best record in the East and with an East that seems (at this point, at least) as ripe for the taking as it’s been in more than half a decade.

Then, the limitation of it only being a 3 year window that you’re asking about changes the question from the typical “which team has a better foundation to build a title contender” question which Sixers fans usually like to ask.

Let’s assume “next 3 years” means 2017-18, 2018-19, and 2019-20. That means that whatever heights the Celtics reach this year doesn’t factor into the equation. By limiting it to just 3 years it also means that many of these draft assets are unlikely to have a meaningful impact during that timeframe. The Nets picks? The Sixers 2017 pick?  The Kings 2019 pick? The Lakers pick? With rare exception, those players aren’t likely to be real impact players in the NBA during the timeframe that we’re talking about.

So it comes down to 2 questions:

– How much do you expect the Celtics to fall off over the next 12 months?

– Can Ben Simmons, Joel Embiid, et al get the Sixers up to that current Boston level?

Get the rest of this answer, as well as a collection of Sixers links over the past 24 hours, over at patreon.com (subscribers only).