Quentin Grimes, 3-Point Shooting and Other Sixers Thoughts

There's only so much value you can observe when the Sixers are without their four highest-paid players. So on a night they get out-talented by the Cleveland Cavaliers, here are two general thoughts related to the game.

What to do with Quentin Grimes

If you had flashbacks to last season for parts of this game, you weren't alone. It felt like the last quarter-plus of the season, after the Sixers had already raised the white flag.

Grimes has the ball in his hands for the overwhelming majority of his time on the floor. He dribbles and hesitates his way into gaps and explodes to the rim at challenging angles for fancy layups. And those layups aren't being contested by any replacement-level NBA defender. He's attacking Evan Mobley and finding ways to get around him for these swooping, gliding scores at the rim.

Grimes is scoring with his top speed. He's embracing the contact. Everything you'd want your sixth man with high-level athleticism to do.

It's not like he was gifted with spacing in these lineups. His bigs rotated between some combination of Andre Drummond, Adem Bona, Dominick Barlow and Trendon Watford. No one is guarding those guys outside of the paint even if they float into spaces around those areas of the floor. And it's not as if the Sixers provide any of their ballhandlers with much spacing anyway, so Grimes did all of his damage by navigating traffic.

So it begs the question: Why does this version of Grimes only come out when no one above him in the hierarchy is available?

It wasn't like Grimes shot the ball particularly well from 3, either. He missed six of his eight attempts.

But the poise and decisive mentality are often nowhere to be found when he's not one of the two players handling the ball the most.

It's not as if the Sixers don't need his boost off the bench. They're 28th in the league in bench scoring, per NBA.com.

But you see a fundamentally different player when he has to share opportunities with Tyrese Maxey, Joel Embiid and Paul George.

Grimes frequently loses his dribble and makes bad passes for turnovers. He puts too much spin on layups and leaves points on the board. He can't be trusted to knock down open threes. Grimes contests recklessly and commits silly fouls.

It makes it clear which player he is, and that's one who is worth about what he got on the qualifying offer this past summer and not much more.

This is not to suggest that it's necessarily easy to scale up and down as a player who clearly excels with the ball in his hands.

But that's the criticism you get when you go into free agency asking for contracts paying $30 million per year. The wild inconsistency is extremely frustrating because of what he shows when the team isn't at full strength.

Rotation decisions that make you scratch your head

Speaking of frustrations, there is no way for the coach of a team that is 19th in 3-point accuracy to justify not giving his best shooters consistent opportunities in the rotation.

Since February 1, here are the Sixers' best 3-point shooters per minute, by percentage, according to NBA.com:

I can pardon MarJon Beauchamp and Dalen Terry not getting regular minutes. They have not been with the Sixers for the majority of the season. But Oubre has been a consistent starter. Same with Embiid.

That leaves McCain, who was traded for picks ahead of the deadline. It also leaves Walker, who is getting just 12.2 minutes per game over that span. The door isn't much more open for Edwards, who is logging 12.8 minutes per contest.

How is it that Drummond is extended the degree of latitude he is when there are other big bodies in the rotation but the guys who are actually getting results shooting the ball can't buy consistent minutes?

Is Drummond actually adding anything besides good rebounding numbers?

Furthermore, is the team's rebounding good enough elsewhere for Drummond's individual offering to really matter?

We can't argue that the team's shooting is a bigger problem than the defensive rebounding is. But we can certainly wonder whether maximizing the offense isn't more important than the marginal value added by playing Drummond.

At this point, even if Nick Nurse wants to juice size on the floor, go with combinations like Walker and Barlow or Walker and Bona.

Oh, and veering into another lane on the same road, yes, Oubre was in foul trouble for most of the first half and the game was out of control by the time the second half began. But why is his game over at 14 minutes on the first night of a back-to-back when Maxey has had to fight to the bitter end in blowouts all season? Where is the consistency?