Sixers will be tougher with new additions, but they need more

SALT LAKE CITY — The 76ers are tougher than they were on Thursday morning.

Thursday night’s free agency acquisitions, P.J. Tucker and Danuel House, will provide toughness the team admitted it lacked in the postseason.

But here’s the real question: Did the Sixers get better?

They still need to replace Danny Green. The swingman was a starter. He could shoot the ball. He could defend. He was great in the locker room and won three NBA titles. So it’s not as if the Sixers have the same team as last season and are just adding to it. Green was a major part of what the Sixers did over the last two seasons.

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Green’s value did not always show up on the stat sheet. They were a few games when Green did not score a point. Yet he was the glue guy with a knack for playing off guys, especially elite players. That’s why the Sixers acquired him in a trade from the Oklahoma City Thunder before the 2020-21 season.

Green established himself as one of the league’s top three-and-D players while playing alongside the likes of Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, Kawhi Leonard, Kyle Lowry, Pascal Siakam, LeBron James, and Anthony Davis in previous stops with four teams in 11 seasons.

But his Sixers tenure concluded on June 23, the night of the draft, when they shipped him and David Roddy, their No. 23 pick, to the Memphis Grizzlies for De’Anthony Melton. It was a good move, considering that Green will miss at least most of next season after suffering two torn ligaments in his left knee in May.

Tucker, an undersize power forward, will partially replace what Green brought, but in a different way.

House and Melton are good pieces. However, they don’t really move the needle enough to catapult the Sixers to the top of the Eastern Conference.

Melton was benched in Games 5 and 6 of the Grizzlies’ opening-round playoff series against the Minnesota Timberwolves. That came after he averaged around seven minutes in Games 3 and 4.

Meanwhile, House played on three teams (Rockets, New York Knicks, and Utah Jazz) this season. He did find his groove with Utah.

He shot 41.7% from three-point land during his 25 regular-season games, with six starts, with the Jazz. However, he made just 2 of 10 threes in the playoffs.

The Sixers made acquisitions to help with a deep postseason run. So they’ll definitely have to improve on their recent playoff performances. But the team knows it still needs reinforcements.

That’s why Daryl Morey, the team’s president of basketball operations, hopes to acquire Houston Rockets guard Eric Gordon this summer in a trade.

Like Green, Gordon has a knack for playing off elite players and is a stellar three-point shooter. The Sixers, however, have been trying to use Matisse Thybulle as an asset to get the 33-year-old Gordon.

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I’m still of the belief that getting rid of Thybulle, a two-time All-Defensive second-teamer, would be a premature move the Sixers will regret.

I also think they’ll have a tough time getting what they deem as equal value by trading away Tobias Harris, who has two seasons and $76.9 million remaining on his deal.

Nor do the Sixers have the available salary-cap space to further upgrade their roster in free agency. They used their mid-level exception to acquire Tucker and a biannual exception to acquire House.

The Sixers did get better, but they still have some holes.

So their success is going to depend on Joel Embiid’s staying healthy and James Harden’s heading into the season in shape and regaining the step he lost.