Worst Player Acquisition of the Process/Embiid Era

[Embiid P]

FYI I am intentionally leaving coaches and execs out of this. Also, I am talking more about the worst acquisition not necessarily the worst player. For me even though the Sixers organization has made a number of terrible player acquisitions during the Process/Embiid era, this one is a no brainer in hindsight IMO. The drafting of Ben Simmons singlehandedly likely destroyed the Process because of its major ripple effects most of which turned out to be (drafting Fultz, causing Butler to leave, trading for and re-signing Tobias, signing Horford to fill for the loss of Butler, trading for a declining Harden, and finally signing a declining PG) complete disasters. The best thing that came out of the Simmons era was the emergence of Tyrese Maxey.

[76ciology]

Ben Simmons.

The ultimate tease that wasted our 5 years 2016-2021.

[M2J]

I say Ben was a good pick because he was a special player.... Didn't develop though, had injuries, but after being ROY, all star, all NBA, all defensive and dpoy runner up that should've won that year. What the organization did after picking him isn't his fault.

Fultz shouldn't have been drafted.


Zhaire.... Well you are playing cards at that point in the lottery.

[mjkvol]

I voted for Okafor simply because that was where the disaster really originated, just a dreadful pick that was just as awful when it actually happened. That led to the trade with Ainge that Silver nixed and then removed Hinkie to bring his buddy Colangelo in to sabotage everything Hinkie had been building.

If that trade goes through for a 1st and Silver stays the hell out of our business, who knows how everything else would have turned out?

[Negrodamus]

Tobias handcuffed the entire Embiid prime with a guy who never showed up when it mattered.

Missing draft picks happen and it’s not really a weight on your cap. Mostly it’s the front office crossing their fingers that an 18-19 year old pans out.

Trading for a non-volume three point shooter with a mediocre ISO game, a fine defensive game, and an OK distribution game and give him the max was the death of Embiid’s prime. Never showed up in the second round when we needed him most. Was immovable.

Good for Tobias to strong arm a dumb organization though. He was never worth that amount.

[Jailblazers7]

There are just so many bad ones to pick from lol. It really makes you wonder what even an average run of roster building choices would’ve resulted in.

[the_process]

It's Tobias hands down end of discussion.

[Stanford]

It's Fultz for me.

[Sixersftw]

Is this worse process or worst result?

Fultz is the worst result - Paying assets to draft a bust and pass on several perennial All-stars.

Tobias was the worst process. That trade was known trash at the time of acquisition. Then they compounded it by extending him. They shot a heat check after getting Jimmy for literally nothing. It was like watching a gambler on a hot streak bust.

[Mik317]

Okafor was the beginning of the end in a sense. Cost Hinkie his job due to him not being good and driving fast on the Ben Frank and fighting celtics fans (he is goated for this one tho). Which in turn made Harris shook as **** and accelerated the timeline via Collars, who in turn was a black eye on the franchise, which led to the offseason of a pile of coats and shadow GMs..which ended in Brand coming in and trying to prove himself with aggressive moves but because he was green and probably couldn't fire Brett, it costed us Jimmy and he "pivoted" to Horford, causing us to have to bring in Morey, who's lust for Harden, hurt Bens fee fees and wasted half a season before trading for Harden who was closer to washed thanks to overextending on the Nets which cost him his max and hurt his fee fees which led to the capspace plan, which ended in PG who is closer to washed than expected.

All started with poor Jah lol

[Murray_17]

Tobias handcuffed the entire Embiid prime with a guy who never showed up when it mattered.

This.

Also, it costed us Shamet, the Miami pick we got from the Bridges deal, and forced the team to choose between Butler and Harris. Not to mention it also capped the team from resigning JJ.

[Ferry Avenue]

Fultz, because he involved a trade up and because if he pans out he takes lots of pressure to perform off of Simmons, which perhaps changes his career trajectory for the far better.

The Process was looking real good until that point. Simmons and Embiid would've benefitted tremendously from a player who performed at the level Fultz was projected to, at the position Fultz played.

[ProcessDoctor]

Sad, this was very difficult with so many options to choose from.

Ultimately went with Fultz because of the trade up (asset PLUS how Tatum turned out) and him never being productive while here. He was supposed to complete the big 3. Remember the big 3 photo shoot? What a time. I'll never get over the difference between his summer league and regular season performances with us.

Harris hurt because we used Jimmy's money on him. A non-max player on a max deal.

Ben Simmons panned out, but just fell apart psychologically (and physically?).

Okafor at least put up numbers on a tanking team.

Horford sucked with us, but wasn't the #1 overall pick.

Harden was actually good here, but we couldn't get over the hump (partly his fault, partly Joel's).

[ExplosionsInDaSky]

I voted Horford because it made zero sense when we added him. Then he came here and was terrible. Dude looked like toast here. I thought he was on his last leg. Then he goes back to Boston and feasts. Horrible Horrible signing and the repercussions from that are still felt as we are still suffering from it.
Now you could argue that it was Okafor, but we didn't know WTF was going on with Embiid at the time. There were so many circulating rumors about him and it was quite scary. We didn't know if he'd ever even play for us. Also, I think Okafor was drafted with the intention of trading him.
Can't fault the Fultz or Simmons picks because they were both consensus number 1s and both looked like Can't miss prospects. I was totally happy with Simmons until he pulled his diva **** after getting smoked by Trae Young in the playoffs. Trae Young singlehandedly ruined the career of Ben Simmons. Fultz ended up with the yips and after finally getting to watch him play you could clearly see some mental **** going on with him. Coincidentally Ace Bailey has a similar tick to him in his interviews.
I think Tobias Harris was a gamble that simply didn't pay off. He had just came off a career year in LA and the dude was primed to hit his peak here at what? 26? I mean all the calculated data was there with Tobias, he just simply never improved. If you look at the career numbers of the players in the NBA dating as far back as I can remember, you'll see that most of them had their peak seasons from age 26 to 30 years of age. Tobias was right in that path, so I can't say that it was the worst gamble we took. Signing Paul George looks exponentially worse than the Harris signing and that's saying something.
So for me it's Horford and then George right behind him. This is turn should be a valuable lesson moving forward for us. Don't spend big money of guys over the age of 30. Add Embiid to this too. Got his max and then maxed the FK out.

Oh and I would also like to add...This team is great at finding second round gems and undrafted free agents, but the last player we took in the top five besides Embiid that actually did anything for us was Allen Iverson. Before him it would have been Hersey Hawkins. We are in big fkin trouble on draft night.

[okboomer]

Not so much the player himself instead of whom they traded for him and who was drafted right after the 76ers. 2018 was an all time draft and the 76ers ended up with zilch.

[elchengue20]

Giving up assets then signing freaking Tobias Harris to the full max absolutely killed the window to be a contender. Plus we let Jimmy go for him. I voted for Tobias.

Fultz is up there too.

Ben as bad as he ended up being, was a good player and a elite asset for 3-4 years. We even got Harden for him.

Zhaire for Mikal Bridges in hindsight was damn terrible too, but i try to not judge mid 1st picks decisions that hard. It was another sign tho that our organization was not on the required level to build a really serious contender. Top organizations don't make those kind of mistakes often.

[Negrodamus]

I was at a loss for words for two out of the three picks in this poll and desperately wanted Ingram instead of Ben but came to terms with all three. Okafor was the hyped third of a three person draft. Didn’t like him but also came to terms with that.

Tobias having no All Star appearances and getting the goddamn max was inconceivable.

[Embiid P]

Interesting responses. The worst part about Simmons IMO is that he was a really good player in all facets except one major area and as a result the org wasted multiple seasons acquiring players in a desperate attempt to cover up for that one glaring weakness. I'm guessing that the Sixers brass knew about this as early as 2017 hence why they drafted Fultz to be their point guard when just a season before they drafted Simmons to be their point guard/forward of the future.

[stormi]

If we're going based off of unjustifiable acquisitions in real time, it's down to Tobias Harris and Zhaire Smith.

There are thousands of minutes of data that display Tobias Harris as a parasitic entity on Joel Embiid (and Maxey). Destroyed our finances and shackled the most dominant player in the league to an MLE caliber player on a max for 5+ years of his peak.

50 year old Nico Batum arrived midseason as a throw-in in the Harden trade and immediately showed +IQ, concepts of synergy with Embiid, the ability to simply get the ball into the post, connective passing, SHOOTING WHEN YOU'RE OPEN, off the ball hustle and impactful clutch performances (Brunson block end of game 5 / six threes against the Heat to escape the play-in) than Tobias had in nearly 6 entire seasons.

The bar for contentment with that lethargic sack of waste got lower as the years progressed into his deal and he still somehow continued to let me down.

And then he walked off into the sunset with a donut and a -10 in game 6 against the Knicks in a three point loss, while Embiid was dying on the court putting up 39/13/2/1/1 on 64 TS% on one leg and with one eye.

Wish him nothing but the worst. The ultimate loser.

[SixthStreet]

It’s Tobias 100%. All the other guys we found a way to pivot from, even at degraded asset value.

Tobias was an anchor out of which we could never get out of until the contract expired.