It’s been a long time since the 76ers had a true starting-quality point guard available to them. By my estimation, the last one they had was Jrue Holiday in the 2012-13 season, their last season of relative success (34 wins!). Since then, they’ve rolled out Michael Carter-Williams, Ish Smith, T.J. McConnell, and now Sergio Rodriguez. Jerryd Bayless might also get added to that list. Now, those aren’t bad players, but in general, their “goodness” status is inflated by their ability to play a lot of minutes for a team that has no other options. The subject of this video, S-Rod himself, actually has negative winshares this year but you don’t realize it because he plays a lot of minutes and therefore accumulates respectable assist totals. This highlight video in particular actually makes him look like a good player who you would want on your team.
Ben Simmons might come back some day and rescue the Sixers from point guard purgatory. That would be the best case scenario for next season: Simmons being a great playmaker right off the bat and immediately leading the Sixers to forty wins. Or they could again fail to sign any kind of impact-maker at the PG position and again fail to get more than twenty wins despite the talent on the roster.