The Philadelphia 76ers are on the clock at No. 22, and the pick already feels like Mike Gansey’s first real test of what his approach will look like. Philadelphia gets that selection because of the Jared McCain trade at the February deadline, and now the front office has to decide whether to use it on a player, or turn it into something else, as Tuesday night’s NBA Draft arrives.
That decision matters because the 76ers do not have a blank slate. Their quartet of Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey, VJ Edgecombe and Paul George is as good as almost any in the NBA, and the team still won 45 games and reached the second round. But the New York Knicks exposed the limits of the roster in that second-round playoff series, and Philadelphia enters the draft looking for more size, athleticism, shooting, defenders, rebounders, durability, playmaking and playoff-viable depth.
The No. 22 pick is supposed to help, not solve everything. The 76ers are built pretty much around their top four and spare parts, which is why the draft is being treated as a chance to add a rotation-level player rather than plug every hole at once. That is also why the search has been broad: the team has attended agent workouts, brought in multiple prospects for in-person interviews in recent days and spoken to more candidates via Zoom.
Among the six players interviewed in person were Zuby Ejiofor, Dailyn Swain, Koa Peat, Chris Cenac Jr., Isaiah Evans and Allen Graves. The list shows how open Philadelphia is to different paths. It could simply take the best player available, or it could chase a specific skill set that fits around the core.
One name to watch is Labaron Philon, the wispy point guard out of Alabama, if the 76ers decide guard creation should be part of the answer. Dailyn Swain, the do-it-all wing out of Texas, fits a different need. Chris Cenac Jr. is another option, and Sam Vecenie of The Athletic has him projected to Philadelphia in his latest mock draft. The point is not that one of those names is guaranteed. It is that the board gives the 76ers several ways to address obvious flaws without pretending one late first-round pick can fix a roster that still has several of them.
That is the real pressure on Gansey. Philadelphia already has the kind of top-end talent that can survive a lot, but the second round showed how quickly the margin disappears when the supporting cast thins out. Kelly Oubre Jr., Quentin Grimes and Andre Drummond were important rotation players last season, and the team still needs another center because Embiid will inevitably miss games and another power forward as well. Tuesday night will not answer every question. It will show which one the 76ers think matters most.
