The 76ers' "Process" era would be incomplete without T.J. McConnell. From 2015 to 2019, the undersized guard was a key contributor who primarily came off the bench to keep the team afloat with his court vision, on-ball defensive prowess and unwavering hustle. Only Robert Covington played more minutes than him in that four-year span of Sixers mediocrity, and no one came close to playing more games than the 314 in which McConnell took the court over that time. In fact, he meant so much to the team...
...that then-president of basketball operations Bryan Colangelo apparently had no idea who McConnell was when he first joined the Sixers in 2016. McConnell recounted the story with Duncan Robinson and Davis Reid on "The Long Shot" from Cadence13 and ThreeFourTwo Productions.
"It's actually a funny story. After my rookie year, I was kind of on cloud nine, I was back home with my boys and in Pittsburgh, you drink beer. That's what it is. And I went home and me and the boys, we were drinking beers a lot," McConnell explained. "So I came back... probably a little huskier than I should have been. And we were playing pick-up one day and Bryan Colangelo (came in) — mind you this is his first year with the Sixers — and so I made a good impression, naturally, him walking in, and he was like 'why is an assistant coach playing pickup right now?' And they were like, that's T.J. McConnell. And when I heard that story I almost fell over laughing."
It appears that neither the Colangelo slight nor the weight gain hampered McConnell all that much in his second year, as he improved in a number of statistics from his rookie season. His point output increased from 6.1 to 6.9 per game, as did his assist number (4.5 to 6.6) and steals (1.2 to 1.7). However, his PER declined, so maybe a few less beers would have helped out after all.
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Since then, he's clearly become a better player — or the move to Indiana really helped him — as he was a defensive ace throughout the 2020-21 season and is living up to his contract extension so far in 2021. Over the past week, he's averaging 18.5 points, 6.3 rebounds and 5.0 assists in four games, with the best outing coming on Thursday night. How does a 6-foot-1 guy grab not one, not two, but five offensive rebounds?
No, really... how does he do it?
"Let's be honest. I'm not athletic. I'm not tall. I don't shoot the ball like you do," McConnell told Duncan Robinson. "So what I can do that I can control and not a ton of people do is just play my a-- off. Like, play incredibly hard and just make life miserable for people I'm playing against, and push the pace on offense and be as disruptive as I can on defense. I feel like that's something that I can totally control that... I kind of tip my hat to just get so locked into the game."
McConnell's next game is a date with the Sixers at home, and he'll be back in Wells Fargo Arena in Philadelphia for the penultimate game of the Pacers' 2021 season.
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