NBA draft: Breaking down Sixers pick Jared McCain; multiple teams targeting Paul George in free agency

Duke basketball is known for preparing players in the NBA. Current stars like Kyrie Irving, Jayson Tatum, and Zion Williamson all honed their skills at Cameron Indoor.

The Blue Devils are also one of the most hated school's in college basketball.

There have been two freshmen in NCAA history with a .611+ true shooting percentage, 210+ 3PA, and 150+ rebounds.

Jared McCain and Steph Curry.

The 76ers selected Jared McCain with the 16th pick in Wednesday night’s NBA draft at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. And the 6-foot-3 guard will join the team with high expectations.

“I am visualizing winning rookie of the year,” he said Tuesday at the NBA’s draft availability in New York.

There was talk about Kentucky's Rob Dillingham having slide potential in this 2024 NBA draft. But he ended up being highly coveted on Wednesday, with the San Antonio Spurs selecting him at No. 8.

But his night didn't end there. The Minnesota Timberwolves traded for Dillingham, adding him to a win-now roster with championship aspirations. He'll get a chance to learn from Michael Conley, one of the all-time teammates and one of the craftiest guards in the NBA.

Former Kentucky head coach John Calipari compared draft prospect Rob Dillingham to Sixers legend Allen Iverson during a broadcast at the NBA Draft.

“He’s got a little AI in him,” Calipari said on the broadcast, in reference to Dillingham.

The NBA’s Financialization Era is over. For 5 to 10 years, the competitive advantage lay with executives who recognized that first round picks and superstars were undervalued, that traditional counting stats and strategic methods were overvalued, that player contracts were currency that could expand a team’s money supply on the trade market. Salaries weren’t just salaries but vouchers that could increase a team’s allowable payroll by 25 percent. A team president who understood these things and could educate his bosses in ownership was at a massive advantage given the critical mass of rival execs who adhered to the traditional tenets of team building. Well, that critical mass no longer exists, and, thus, neither does the competitive advantage.

In fact, the competitive advantage has shifted. As it always does. The cycle exists in every industry, every asset class, every marketplace. By definition, the greatest values lie where the fewest people are looking. The early adopters reap the biggest gains. Eventually, a new paradigm is established. The nouveaux critical mass then sets about inflating the new wisdom into the new groupthink. At which point, the value begins to lie somewhere else.

The Knicks are going all in.

One day after shocking the NBA world and doubling down on their 'Nova Knicks moniker, the franchise has now locked up defensive ace OG Anunoby. He now intends to sign a five-year, $212.5 million deal, according to ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski.

Turns out it does pay off to keep your enemies closer...

Indiana Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton became good friends with three of the 'Nova Knicks last summer while playing for Team USA at the 2023 FIBA Men's World Cup.

Last week, the Sixers had UConn All-American point guard Tristen Newton participate in an NBA predraft workout.

Newton, who's a two-time NCAA champion, averaged 15.1 points, 6.6 rebounds and 6.2 assists this past season for the Huskies. He played three seasons for East Carolina after going into the transfer portal after the 2021-22 season.

It appears the Golden State Warriors would like to spoil the 76ers’ free agency plans.

Los Angeles Clippers swingman Paul George has been the Sixers’ top target for some time. But a league source confirmed a report from The Los Angeles Times that the Warriors are interested in the nine-time All-Star.

One of the greatest NBA drafts in league history involving one of the greatest players in the history of the Sixers turned 40 this year.

In 1984, the Sixers secured Auburn forward Charles Barkley with the No. 5 pick in the draft. It was a momentous occasion for the Sixers to snag Barkley, but for those who can’t readily recall the names that came before "Chuck" was selected, here’s a little trip down memory lane.

John Calipari is now head coach at Arkansas, but that hasn't stopped him from hitting the campaign trail for his former Kentucky players.

Speaking to the Pat McAfee Show on ESPN, Calipari gave a riveting speech for his four guards — including Imhotep star Justin Edwards — in the 2024 NBA draft. The crux of his argument?

Coming on the heels of a 2023 NBA draft that featured can’t-miss future superstar Victor Wembanyama and a number of other tantalizing prospects, 2024′s draft class was always going to seem a little bland by comparison. There aren’t any difference-makers predicted to be on the same level as Wemby among this year’s draft crop; in fact, with less than a week to go before the draft, there is still some mystery over which French prospect — 6-foot-9 forward Zaccharie Risacher, or 7-1 center Alex Sarr — will go No. 1.

Against that backdrop, the Sixers hold the No. 16 pick — assuming they don’t trade it. That might seem to be a bad place to be; after all, the bulk of the value in any given draft class tends to be produced by lottery picks, particularly concentrated among the top handful of picks. Philly is picking just outside of that range, and while the 16th pick in the draft has yielded some pretty good players over the years — a list that includes 2011 Sixers draftee Nikola Vučević, Hedo Türkoğlu, Terry Rozier, Jusuf Nurkić and, more recently, Alperen Sengun — it’s unrealistic to expect to find prospects there who can make an instant impact.

A few things nobody will dispute with regard to the Sixers and this year’s NBA draft.

Assuming all of these are universally accepted, I’m not sure how anybody can have a hard opinion about what Daryl Morey and his front office should do in the first round on Wednesday night.

I’m not entirely sold on what I’m about to write, but I’m about 75 percent certain that it is the direction the Sixers should go, given the realities of both the competitive and labor marketplace.

Instead of a 26-year-old Brandon Ingram or a 32-year-old Kentavious Caldwell-Pope or even a 27-year-old Mikal Bridges, they should be looking for:

As colleague David Murphy notes, acquiring Mikal Bridges in a pre-draft trade makes the New York Knicks even more formidable. Which is, inherently, bad for a Sixers team trying to retool this summer to keep up with the Eastern Conference’s contenders.

But could this move also potentially be helpful for the Sixers’ offseason pursuits?

Their first-round pick is a vital piece for the Sixers’ future no matter how they use it. Either they draft the best player, select an older option who can contribute right away — someone like Colorado’s Tristan da Silva — or trade the pick and get a good piece back to jump-start a busy couple of months.

Once free agency opens, the Sixers are primed to add a third star to mesh with All-Stars Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey and fill out a championship-caliber roster. This moment is why the Sixers didn’t sign Maxey to an extension last summer. It’s also why they had a roster full of players with expiring contracts this season. The Sixers wanted to make sure they had the cap space and assets needed to adequately upgrade the roster this summer.

The tragic comedy that is the Sixers of the late 20-teens and early 2020s just took one of its darkest and most inventive turns yet.

Six years after the Sixers drafted Mikal Bridges, six years and t-plus 15 minutes after they traded him, five years after he emerged as the kind of three-and-D player that might have helped them win a seven-game series playoff against the Toronto Raptors, three years after he indisputably would have made a decisive difference against the Atlanta Hawks, one year after the Sixers found themselves missing such a player against the Boston Celtics, two months after they walked away from a series against the New York Knicks swearing that they would do their darndest to acquire such a player, the Sixers watched as Bridges indeed switched teams in a stunning, balance-of-power-altering trade …

Apparently, three wasn't enough for the 'Nova Knicks.

Already with a trio of former Wildcats on the roster in Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart, and Donte DiVincenzo, the Knicks added yet another Jay Wright product on Tuesday night when they traded Bojan Bogdanovic and six draft picks, including four unprotected first-round picks, to the Brooklyn Nets.

The NBA’s offseason player movement got underway last week, when the Chicago Bulls traded coveted defensive guard Alex Caruso to the Oklahoma City Thunder for young point guard Josh Giddey.

This week’s draft, which will be held Wednesday and Thursday in New York, is also ripe for such moves for the 76ers. President of basketball operations Daryl Morey acknowledged as much during last month’s end-of-season news conference, saying trading the 16th overall pick is one of “all options on the table” while entering this piece of a critical summer.

The 76ers have options with the No. 16 pick in the 2024 NBA draft. Sitting in the driver’s seat for the first time under president of basketball operations Daryl Morey, they can trade the pick for a veteran player, trade back and collect assets, or keep the selection and take a player.

Morey shared that every scenario is on the table. For our purposes, The Inquirer will operate under the assumption that the Sixers will keep the pick. Here’s a look at six players they’d take on Day 1 of the two-day draft, from June 26-27.

They currently have two significant players under contract: Embiid and Tyrese Maxey. That will change by the end of the week.

The draft starts Wednesday night. The draft pool stinks. The Sixers hold pick No. 16, and there is no player likely to be available who will help them, materially, within the next three seasons; Bub Carrington ain’t the answer, despite what your buddies from Pitt tell you. For that matter, even if the Sixers traded up, there is no player likely to be there between, say, Nos. 5 and 10 that would quickly move the needle, and I love Tennessee’s Dalton Knecht.

The NBA draft begins Wednesday, and for the first time it will be divided over two days.

The first round of the draft begins tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern, while the second round will take place on Thursday beginning at 4 p.m.

The Atlanta Hawks have the No. 1 pick for the first time since 1975 after winning the draft lottery despite having just a 3% chance to win. Meanwhile, the San Antonio Spurs have two picks in the top 10 (No. 4 and No. 8) and the Portland Trail Blazers have two lottery picks (No. 7 and No. 14).

Unlike last year, there is no consensus about who will end up taken by the Atlanta Hawks with the No. 1 overall pick. Among the top prospects are 6-foot-8 French forward Zaccharie Risacher, 19-year-old French prospect Alex Sarr, UConn center Donovan Clingan, and Kentucky guard Reed Sheppard.