The NBA season is on hiatus and we don’t know when basketball will return so that means we begin to look at other things to get our basketball fix. For the Philadelphia 76ers, if the regular season is over, they now have a first-round pick from the Oklahoma City Thunder due to the pick landing at 22 in the draft.
In this case, we look at a mock draft option from The Athletic’s Sam Vecenie who has the Sixers selecting a sharpshooter out of Texas Tech: Jahmi’us Ramsey.
Vecenie wrote:
I’m a bit less enthused about Ramsey than some seem to be. Part of me wonders if he does enough other stuff outside of scoring on jumpers. About 68 percent of his points this season have come either out on the break, or off of hitting jump shots. And he’s not particularly adept as a shooter off the dribble, having made those at just a 33.3 effective field goal percentage. Now, there’s a lot of value in shooting off the catch, but is it enough for a kid who is 6-foot-4? For the 76ers, I think you can make the case that it is. They need someone like Ramsey who can knock down shots and attack closeouts.
But on some level it’s a bit hard to ignore that the most obvious comparison to this skillset is Rashad Vaughn. Ramsey is stronger and has a better frame, but Vaughn was similarly mostly just a scorer who had some defensive issues. And yet Ramsey now won’t get a chance to go into workouts and prove himself beyond what his role was at Texas Tech. Regardless, NBA teams are very interested and see him as an interesting upside play.
The most important part that Sixers fans should be focused on is, of course, the shooting. Ramsey shot 42.6% from deep in his freshman season with the Red Raiders. The only thing that is going to hurt his draft stock is that he did not get a chance to compete on the game’s biggest stage: March Madness after it was canceled due to COVID-19. He also won’t be able to get any private workouts so it’s all just what he did during the season.
The one bright side if the regular season were to just end and go straight to the playoffs when basketball eventually does return, is that they get a first-round pick. With the team’s shooting issues, Ramsey would be a good pick for them. [lawrence-related id=27790,27778,27728]