In an interesting bit of full-circle-ness, Robert Covington departed the 76ers in the trade that brought Jimmy Butler from Minnesota five years ago, and returned to Philadelphia in the trade that sent James Harden to the Clippers nine days ago.
“I’m glad I’m back,” the veteran forward said Wednesday night, after a 106-103 victory over Boston. “I thought I would be here sooner.”
He didn’t elaborate, saying only that he had heard “rumors and whatnot” as he wended his way from the Timberwolves to Houston to Portland to the Clippers. A single visitor to his corner cubicle heard him out, and reminded him that when he was here before (2014-18) the Sixers were just emerging as a viable team. (And here both men might have been forgiven if they suffered a relapse of PTPD – i.e., Post-Traumatic Process Disorder – the symptoms of which are a 1,000-yard stare and visions of Tony Wroten firing a pass into the third row.)
“Philly,” Covington said, “has a special place in my heart. I saw the build-up and the initial start to getting to that peak, and it was great. I’ve been watching from afar.”
The Sixers have yet to take the next step toward a title, having remained chained to the second-round treadmill amid growing impatience among the paying customers – not to mention almost-constant crises involving Harden, Ben Simmons, et al.
The way the hoops nerds view it, Covington and the other three players acquired in the Harden deal – Nicolas Batum, Marcus Morris Sr. and KJ Martin – can help the team change course once and for all, since they are assets. All are in the last year of their contracts. Some or all can be packaged with draft capital (some of which also came over from the Clippers) to acquire another big name before the midseason trade deadline. Or they can be cast aside to clear salary-cap space next summer.
But maybe it’s time to rethink that, if only a tad. Because Batum and Covington might serve as assets of a different type in the short term, in that they can provide the sort of athletic, rangy wing presence so necessary to deal with other teams’ perimeter firepower. Which is why they have been immediate additions to the rotation since their arrival, and why they were among those manning the ramparts Wednesday, against Celtics snipers Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown.
Tatum shot 6-for-14 for his 16 points, while Brown went 4-for-13 for his 11. Hang your hat on that if you will, since it’s early days (as Brett Brown always used to say) and nobody on either team could really find the range from deep. Eighty-one 3-point attempts were launched in the game; just 24 found the mark.
But suffice it to say that the Sixers at least have options to throw at wing scorers of this caliber, that they are as athletic on the perimeter as they have been in recent memory.
“That’s one thing I really like about this team … that we may not have one guy that’s a lockdown (defender),” first-year coach Nick Nurse said. “We’ve got, like, five above-average guys with size and athletic ability and aggressiveness – guys that are out there trying really hard to guard.”
Nurse went on to say that only “about 40 percent” of the team’s defensive schemes have been installed, while at the same time admitting that defense is really all about digging in and playing hard anyway.
And, well, Batum and Covington have always been all about that. As Covington put it, “That’s what I built my name on.”
Batum admits he’s “still lost” on certain offensive actions the Sixers run, so he is redoubling his efforts at the other end of the floor – just trying “to make no mistakes on defense, because defense is just effort.”
The two of them are remarkably similar, to the point that they share the same birthday – Dec. 14. Batum, who is 6-8 and in his 16th season, will turn 35 next month, while Covington, who is 6-7 and in his 11th season, will be 33. Both have averaged about 11 points a game for their careers, and both shoot just over 36 percent from the arc.
On Wednesday Batum played just over 26 minutes, scoring five points while doing his usual due diligence on D. It was particularly notable that he was out there for Boston’s final possession of the night, after the Celtics had trimmed a 15-point deficit to three in the last 3:44.
Switch everything, right?
And indeed Batum wound up in the lane, on Jrue Holiday, as C’s center Kristaps Porzingis collected Derrick White’s inbounds pass deep on the left wing. Tobias Harris rushed at Porzingis, who maneuvered around Harris and had a great look at a potential game-tying 3-pointer. But his shot barely grazed the front rim, and the Sixers escaped with their sixth straight victory since an opening-night loss in Milwaukee.
Covington, who scored five points in 15 minutes, proclaimed it “a nasty game,” as well as evidence that the Sixers are better-equipped to compete with the team that has eliminated them from the playoffs three times in the last five years, including last season’s seven-game loss in the Eastern Conference semifinals.
“We’ve got depth and different types of guys that can throw at those guys,” he said. “That showed tonight. We did a lot to disrupt those guys and used our length, used our height and made plays.”
The two teams will likely meet again next spring, as they often do. And only then will we be able to tell just how valuable guys like Covington and Batum are. Only then will we know for sure whether they can be assets in a different sense of the word, if they can help the Sixers get over the second-round hump. It is, again, early days. Tough to make any definitive judgments as yet.
But certainly this is a team that looks and feels different than it has in recent years. Certainly the clouds that have hung over the franchise have dissipated. They still have star power (Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey). They have a guy in Harris who is in the last year of his contract, and playing like it. They have a coach in Nurse who seems to know what he’s doing. And now they have a few more grunts, a few more bodies. Seems like a sound approach. Seems like it could take them a long way.