The Sixers pick outside the lottery — and that’s not the worst thing

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.

However, this might be one of the best drafts to be picking 16th.

» READ MORE: 2024 NBA draft big board: Who could the Sixers select at No. 16?

For one thing, the reputation of this class is that it makes up some for a lack of stellar top-end prospects with depth. To quantify this, I gathered historical mock-draft data from the scouting repository NBADraft.net going back to 2009, tracking the talent grades it gave each projected lottery-pick prospect in that span. (Risacher is graded as a 96, for instance; Sarr is a 94, while Wembanyama was a 101 last year.) The last player listed in the lottery of their mock draft, Duke’s Jared McCain, was rated a 93, just to give a sense of how little the talent level of this class falls off from the highest picks down through the lottery.

Having a 93-rated prospect in the No. 14 mock draft slot is a surprisingly good sign for a group of prospects that has been maligned for a solid year. That’s tied (with 2009 and 2019) for the fifth-best prospect bringing up the rear of the lottery among projected classes since 2009.

At No. 16, the Sixers are projected to land a prospect like USC point guard Isaiah Collier — who is rated slightly lower, at 92. But the availability of guys like McCain and Collier, either at the bottom of the lottery or right outside of it, speaks to how this year’s draft might offer a deeper well of talent than meets the eye.

And the NBA has been trending toward teams asking more out of players drafted outside the lottery but still in the first round — the exact range where Philly will be doing its shopping on draft day.

For most of the 2000s, players taken in that range produced roughly 20% to 25% of the total Wins Above Replacement (WAR) compiled by all drafted players within their first three NBA seasons. (We’ll be looking at the initial three-year window into a player’s career because that’s the point at which teams need to start making serious financial decisions about a player’s future — and it also gives us a chance to evaluate players from drafts as recent as 2021 on the same footing as earlier draft classes.) But that share has been steadily going up ever since:

In recent drafts, non-lottery first-rounders have generated about 35% of all value in the draft, the highest share they’ve had in any three-year span since at least 2000. That proportion includes recent players such Desmond Bane, Immanuel Quickley, Trey Murphy III, Brandon Clarke, our old friend Matisse Thybulle and, yes, Tyrese Maxey — who was taken 21st overall out of Kentucky in 2020.

There may not be a better case-in-point than Maxey for the argument that franchise players can sometimes slip through the cracks in the draft and fall into the range where Philly is currently picking. It still took an impressive job by the Sixers’ scouts and front office to see Maxey’s future — and even more impressive hard work by Maxey to maximize that potential — so it’s not exactly easy to snag stars at No. 16. But it’s certainly not impossible.

With so much depth — but also uncertainty — surrounding the prospects in this year’s class, it might not be the worst time to be picking just outside the lottery. Now all the Sixers have to do is hone in on the right pick, and leave the rest up to fate.