The Sixers are signing big man Willie Cauley-Stein to a 10-day contract, a team source confirmed to PhillyVoice on Tuesday evening. NBC's John Clark was the first to report the news.
Cauley-Stein, who had been with the Dallas Mavericks for the last two and a half seasons before being waived in mid-January, is not necessarily the sort of player you would have expected the Sixers to bring in. At 28 years old, Cauley-Stein has struggled to find his place in the league not because he lacks talent but because embracing the role he's meant to play has been a struggle since he made the leap to the pros in 2015.
The Kentucky product has this much going for him — he's a prototypical rim-running, rim-protecting big when he is at his best. Cauley-Stein has athleticism to spare, and will make a dunk from a lobbed pass look pretty effortless with runway in front of him. Being light on his feet is arguably his best quality, and that makes him a good potential partner for James Harden in pick-and-rolls.
Harden's presence on the roster has to be at least half, if not more of the justification to sign Cauley-Stein. If he comes in here with the expectation that he'll battle for a role as the backup center and be way down the pecking order during his time on the floor, Cauley-Stein might just carve out a role in Philadelphia. Harden will get him easy shots, and the threat of Cauley-Stein on his way to the rim will be enough to take just a little bit of pressure away from Harden, who is a master of exploiting those gaps.
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The problem is that this is what people have been saying about Cauley-Stein since he entered the league, and he is without a home in his physical prime because buying into that role has not always been straightforward for him. Defensively, his focus just hasn't been there as often as it needs to be, which is a major problem anywhere on the floor but especially as the rim protector. On the other end, Cauley-Stein also tends to use more possessions than he ought to on things he's not very good at, leading to some slapstick comedy moments not unlike those we witnessed with Andre Drummond in town.
If you're hoping that Doc Rivers can somehow channel the same improvement in approach that he got out of Drummond for most of this season, the main difference between Drummond and Cauley-Stein is that at least the former had a decent-sized track record of production that led you to believe he could dominate his role as a secondary player. If Caulie-Stein is prepared for that step in his career arc, he hasn't shown it (or really come close) yet. Stops in Golden State and Dallas allowed him to play with some high-level creators on the perimeter around him, and he doesn't look much closer to being an impactful role player yet.
On a 10-day contract, it's not a crazy gamble to make strictly because of what Harden might be able to get out of him. But you could make a credible argument that Harden could do as much for, say, Charles Bassey as he could for Cauley-Stein, with age and propensity for foul trouble the only noticeable points of separation at this stage.
It's a low-risk reclamation project, so even if he busts here, there's no downside (yet) to bringing him in. Another writer will have to supply you with the rays of sunshine for this signing, though.
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