Sixers great Mo Cheeks ranked 7th best second-round pick in NBA history

The Philadelphia 76ers selected Maurice Cheeks out of West Texas A&M with the 36th overall pick in the 1978 NBA Draft hoping that he could eventually develop into a rotation player. After all, he was selected in Round 2 and those picks do not always pan out to be stars in the league.

However, Cheeks was different.

The 6-foot-1 dynamo would go on to average 12.2 points and 7.3 assists in his 11 seasons in Philadelphia and he was named to the All-Star team four times. He was also the starting point guard for the 1983 NBA championship team for the Sixers and he is the franchise’s all-time leader in assists and steals.

For that type of effort, he was ranked by Bleacher Report as the 7th best second-round pick in NBA history.

B/R on Cheeks:

His two-way contributions were summed up well on the Sixers’ team website:

“Always in control, Cheeks knew when to make defenses pay for not respecting his own scoring ability, but getting those points was always in the flow of the offense. Despite that gentlemanly and equitable offensive disposition, Cheeks took the velvet gloves off when it came to defense. Don’t get things twisted. He played that nasty defense fairly, but it was nasty nonetheless. You can’t fully quantify defensive filthiness, but watching Maurice hunker down into his defensive stance was an imposing sight for opposing guards.”

Most of the accolades and attention understandably went to Erving, Malone and, later, Charles Barkley. But Cheeks was often the engine of those teams in Philly.

Cheeks’ contribution to the Sixers was so great that his number 10 jersey hangs in the rafters at the Wells Fargo Center and he has also been inducted into the Hall of Fame. He was a menace on either end of the floor and he was a guy who could step up and produce when called upon. [lawrence-related id=33216,33206,33200]