Here’s good news via Shams, so let’s hope he’s right:

The Sixers have Oklahoma City’s pick, which means they’ll have the 21st selection in the draft. This is the best possible scenario that could have played out when they re-acquired the pick via the Markelle Fultz/Jonathon Simmons trade.

Quick refresher:

  1. This pick was first sent to Philadelphia in the Ersan Ilyasova/Jerami Grant deal.
  2. The pick was then sent to Orlando in the trade-up for Anzejs Pasecniks
  3. It came back to Philadelphia in the Fultz trade.

The selection was top-20 protected, so landing at #21 overall means it just happened to work out perfectly. If it ended up falling within the top-20, it would have instead conveyed as a pair of future second round draft picks.

For a little more context, the last five players selected at #21 are Brandon Clarke, Grayson Allen, Terrance Ferguson, DeAndre’ Bembry, and Justin Anderson.