Sixers player evaluation: Furkan Aldemir

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Over the next couple of weeks we will evaluate the Sixers' roster following the 18-64 season. The series starts with big man, Furkan Aldemir. 

Position: Forward/center
Status: $2.68 million in 2015-16; non-guaranteed $2.81 million in 2016-17 and 2017-18; unrestricted free agent 2018.

Signature game of 2014-15
In the second start of his career (which was his 34th appearance in the NBA), Furkan Aldemir had 11 points and 10 rebounds in a little over 26 minutes in a loss at Cleveland in late March. It was a career-best effort in points and rebounds for Aldemir.

Aldemir in 2014-15
The Sixers acquired Aldemir in a 2013 trade. After playing overseas when the season began, Aldemir signed a deal with the Sixers and joined the team in December. It was an inauspicious campaign for the forward.

Aldemir was with the team for 59 games but made just 41 appearances. Some of his 18 absences were owed to injury, but several were of the dreaded DNP-CD variety -- did not play, coach’s decision.

Aldemir played less than 10 minutes in 16 games. He averaged 2.3 points and 4.3 rebounds while shooting 51.3 percent from the field (on just 1.9 attempts per game) and 48.1 percent from the line (on 0.7 attempts). He managed double-digit points in just one game. He posted double-digit rebounds three times.

As late as mid-March, Aldemir was an afterthought in Brett Brown’s rotation. That’s troublesome if you had any expectations for Aldemir at all. If he couldn’t earn minutes on a thin roster for an organization gripped by a massive rebuild, it didn’t reflect well on his prospects for playing in the NBA.

“We want to see Furkan,” Brown said at the time. “He’s earned the right to play. He has unique skills in his rebounding and his screen-setting especially. We want to see what we’ve got.”

They saw Aldemir toward the end of the year. He was disappointing. He was also, as he admitted, out of shape. Brown said he came to the NBA with a “C-minus body.” Aldemir struggled to get up and down the floor and stay with quicker competition. He also didn’t contribute much beyond rebound and setting picks. Aldemir averaged 0.7 assists, 0.4 steals and 0.4 blocks. He had a well-below league average PER of 12.

Prospectus
In order to pry Aldemir’s rights away from the Houston Rockets, the Sixers took on Royce White for a time. They paid White $1.7 million and then cut him. It was the cost of acquiring Aldemir.

That’s not much money for the NBA equivalent of rolling the dice on a player. And next year, Aldemir will make $2.68 million. That works out to roughly four percent of the projected salary cap next season. That’s not much, either. But even at a relatively minor expense, the cost/benefit of having Aldemir on the roster appears lopsided.

He doesn’t move well. He doesn’t pass. He doesn’t protect the rim. He doesn’t score. He rebounds (a little). But you can find guys off the NBA discard pile to rebound (Thomas Robinson, for example), and many of them are going to be much more athletic on their worst days than Aldemir will be on his best.

Maybe Aldemir will get in shape. Maybe he’ll be a little quicker running the floor. But even in top condition, it’s hard to imagine Aldemir having an athletic advantage on a given night. He’s unlikely to become a rim protector or a consistent offensive threat. It would help the offensive flow if he became a good (or even average) passer, but we’ve seen no indication that he can grow on that front, either.

He rebounds (a little). He sets picks. That’s about it. That makes him a marginal NBA player at best.

On Furkan Aldemir…
“Every [NBA] player’s athletic, and every player’s strong. You need to catch them, or try to catch them. ... I try to catch them.”

Furkan Aldemir, the little engine that couldn’t.

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