Friday night’s win in Milwaukee needs to be a sign of things to come for the Sixers.
In a game in which Philadelphia led by as many as 26, the team got 43 attempts from beyond the three-point line up and
connected on 17 of them. That’s a 40% success rate from outside the arc. Perhaps the most positive thing from the box score on Friday was the outside shooting from the bench. Quentin Grimes shot 6-of-7 from three-point land and Philly got a 4-for-8 night from deep from Jabari Walker.
Despite the hot shooting night against the Bucks, the Sixers are hovering around the middle of the NBA in three-point shooting at 36.1% for the season after 22 games. It’s not bad, but is it good enough? Well, I guess it depends on what your goals are for this season.
Some fans probably look at 2025-26 as a transition year. The Sixers have so much dead weight tied up in Joel Embiid and Paul George’s contracts. Therefore, an argument can be made that the team is best suited to see what it has on the rest of the roster this season to set itself up for 2026-27 and beyond to go with Tyrese Maxey and VJ Edgecombe. If Grimes thrives in the bench role he thrived in on Friday night for a good chunk of the season, and is willing to accept a similar role in the future to stay in Philadelphia, that would be a win for the organization. If Jabari Walker were to become any sort of rotational piece, that would be another win.
We’ve yet to see Jared McCain return to his rookie year self before his meniscus injury, but McCain’s progress would be another helpful step in the transition away from Embiid and George and towards the team’s younger players. So, if that’s your motivation for this season, then nights like Friday night occurring enough are most important and the team’s win-loss record is secondary. Of course, the Sixers won easily against the Bucks so these things do not have to be mutually exclusive.
Having said all of that, this season should be about winning games first and foremost. The Sixers likely will not own their first-round pick in 2026 and there are still multiple years of Embiid and George’s contracts to deal with beyond this year. Does that sound like a team that should prioritize developmental results from its younger players? Yes, the franchise is in a weird place and sort of stuck, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t try to make the most of the situation.
When you look at the roster, there simply aren’t many interior offensive threats that you can count on. Therefore, as per the modern basketball school of thought when it comes to offensive success, if you’re not going to be able to rack up a ton of points in the paint, your best bet is to let it fly from the three-point line a bunch. That means that hovering in the middle of the NBA in three-point percentage isn’t going to work for Philadelphia since the Sixers aren’t going to be able to complement their outside shooting with enough scoring inside.
When it comes to the individuals that need to shoot the ball more consistently, let’s start with Grimes. In five games in the month of October, Grimes shot 44% from the three-point line. Philadelphia won four of those five games and the one loss was an NBA Cup game against Boston by one point. He went 4-of-8 from three-point land in the team’s first game in November, a blowout win against Brooklyn, but for the entire month of November, he shot just 34% from deep in 14 total games.
Grimes missed Philly’s first December game against Washington, but went 0-of-5 from the three-point line against Golden State before the big night against Milwaukee. There really is no excuse for Grimes to be this volatile. If you exclude all the starts he made with the Sixers last year, a team that simply needed bodies to get through a disastrous season, Grimes has mostly been a bench guy that can come in and provide some outside shooting. He shouldn’t be uncomfortable in that kind of a role in the backcourt behind Maxey and Edgecombe and should be able to knock down anywhere from two to six three-point field goals a night.
Perhaps we should be a little less critical of McCain due to his return from a major knee injury, but his three-point field goal percentage is down from 38% in 23 games last season to 34% thru 13 games this season. The reality is that if this is going to be a good season for the Sixers, they’re going to need more from McCain, which he could certainly be capable of in the second half, but it hasn’t come yet.
I understand many fans probably want nothing to do with George at this point, but the veteran wing player is again underperforming from beyond the arc. Prior to coming to Philadelphia, George shot a career best 41.3% from deep in 2023-24 with the Clippers, He also appeared in 74 games for Los Angeles, starting all of them in that season, which feels impossible to believe given how much time he has missed as a Sixer. In his first season in Philly, George shot 35.8% from three-point land on 6.5 attempts per game and this season in seven games he’s shooting an even 35% on 5.7 attempts per game. George might not be the dynamic three-level scorer he was earlier in his career, but is it asking too much from him to flirt with 40% on threes again?
We should note that VJ Edgecombe is certainly pulling his weight when it comes to three-point shooting. That was one of the knocks on Edgecombe as a prospect coming out of Baylor, but he’s just south of 37% in his first two months in the NBA. So that leaves Grimes, McCain and George as the three players whose outside shooting needs to be consistent enough in order to provide ample support for Edgecombe and Maxey.
There’s reason to believe McCain will grow into a bigger role as the season progresses and shooting has always been a strength of his. George can’t be counted on to play basketball at a high level any more so I wouldn’t be nearly as optimistic in his shooting improving. That leaves Grimes as the wild card. Grimes is already on his fourth team in the NBA since being drafted in 2021 and could be headed for a fifth next season if he doesn’t re-sign with Philadelphia. Players that travel down those kinds of career paths can be difficult to trust, so frankly your guess is as good as mine when it comes to what kind of shooting nights we’re going to get from Grimes.
It should come as no surprise that a no-sweat win on the road like Friday night’s in Milwaukee was fueled by a strong shooting night for the Sixers. That’s going to have to be their bread and butter this season if they want to be successful, and being a run-of-the-mill shooting team isn’t going to be good enough.
