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Between Jared McCain, Isaiah Joe, Landry Shamet, and Julian Champagnie, we are Guaranteed a Discarded Sixer vs. Discarded Sixer NBA Finals
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Landry Shamet played really well in the Eastern Conference Finals. He had 30 points in Games 3 and 4 and shot 8-9 from three, to go along with a 3-3 mark in Game 1:
With Shamet going to the NBA Finals, we are assured of a discarded former Sixers role player vs. a discarded former Sixers role player final. It will be Shamet vs. either Jared McCain and Isaiah Joe or Julian Champagnie.
If we have to put rooting interest in some kind of order, unfortunately Shamet has to come last. Nice guy, total pro during his time with the Sixers, but we can’t suffer a Knicks championship, so he’s 4th. I’d say McCain and Joe would be in the middle, because if the Thunder win it means flopper SGA gets another ring and we’ll never hear the end of the “the Sixers should never have traded McCain.” Don’t get me wrong; it’s correct, they should not have traded Jared McCain, but the Thunder winning sets that storyline in stone and we have to live with it forever, which is rough.
That’s why I think Champagnie winning the ring would be the most tolerable. And his departure didn’t come with much fanfare because he was an undrafted free agent who only actually played two Sixers games. This was the height of the Doc Rivers era, when young guys and/or two-way guys weren’t gonna see the floor anyway. So nobody was truly surprised when he was waived to make room for MAC MCCLUNG, but it just goes to show that if they stick with these 2nd round draft picks and UDFAs, they might become NBA starters some day. Champagnie hasn’t had a great shooting series against the Thunder, but he’s generally a consistent 3 and D wing who is always available. He’s played 238 regular season games for the Spurs over the last three seasons.
McCain, you know the story, but Joe was one of those guys who didn’t get enough minutes for Doc. They didn’t even get anything for him. He was waived in October of 2022 because “we’re not going to have playing time for everyone.” That’s what Daryl Morey said. Joe went on to become a 20 minutes-per-game bench option for the Thunder and won a ring last season.
Shamet was a first round pick back in 2018 and got caught up in the Tobias Harris trade. His draft selection isn’t always talked about because of the Sixers’ earlier blunder in that draft, which was taking Mikal Bridges and then flipping him to the Suns.* Womp womp. But Shamet has been a decent bench player for a while now, playing for the Nets, Suns, and Wizards between his LA and New York stops. He played 51 games for the Knicks in the regular season and shot 39.2% from three while chipping in 9.3 PPG, and he’s giving them some good minutes off the bench in these playoffs.
That’s the rundown. Maybe one of these days the Sixers will play in the Finals!
*the biggest miss of that draft was not getting flopper SGA
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com