Are the Sixers better without Jimmy Butler and JJ Redick? No, but they will be. | Marcus Hayes

Jimmy Butler brought a measurable measure of defensive genius, a mental toughness, abrasive leadership, the best one-on-one breakdown skills since Allen Iverson (first edition). JJ Redick was the best long-range shooter the Sixers ever had.

So, are the Sixers better without Butler? Without Redick?

Today, no. Tomorrow? Yes.

The Sixers locked up Tobias Harris for five years, paid 33-year-old Al Horford for his twilight tour, and acquired 6-foot-6 swingman Josh Richardson, who will be 26 when he begins his fifth season, and who has improved in each of his first four, and who is under contract for the next three seasons for an average of less than $11 million.

Can this team make a title run this coming season? Sure. Will that be more likely a year from now? Absolutely.

That’s because the two principals, Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons, are still at least two seasons from realizing their potential. Embiid needs to become more polished in the post, smarter and fitter. Simmons, who joined Embiid as an elite defender last season, needs to develop a 17-foot jump shot, and he needs to learn to run a half-court offense more efficiently. Both have played just two full seasons in the NBA, so these deficiencies are understandable. They are deficiencies, nonetheless.

Clearly, this isn’t a one-year plan. It’s a three-year plan. That might not please long-suffering victims of The Process, which after six years has netted just two playoff series wins, but this is how responsible general managers operate. General manager Elton Brand, in his first year, is proving responsible.

Brand didn’t sign a highly talented, highly popular, highly questionable player and give him the time and the money to ruin the franchise, which is what signing Butler to a five-year, $190 million max contract would have done. Instead, Brand remade the roster to reflect coach Brett Brown’s defense-first fixation.

Extending Butler might have seemed inevitable in November, when the Sixers traded Robert Covington and Dario Saric to the Timberwolves. If you recall, during Butler’s over-the-top introductory press conference, both he and the Sixers made clear that his remaining past last season was not a certainty.

Butler and the Sixers enjoyed a six-month courtship that didn’t work out. It wasn’t a failure, exactly. Both parties profited: Butler helped Embiid and Simmons mature, and he showed them how to close out games, and he rehabilitated his image.

This isn’t divorce. It’s a text-message breakup.

If the Sixers could have signed Butler for, say, two more seasons, that would have made sense. Butler will be 30 in September. He has averaged fewer than 67 games the last six seasons. He reportedly agreed to a four-year, $141 million sign-and-trade deal with Heat that landed Richardson, but will Butler be worth $75 million over the third and fourth years of that deal? Not unless he’d already helped his team win a title before that.

Godspeed, Jimmy Buckets.

Brand and managing partners Josh Harris and David Blitzer instead have chosen to build a culture, a system, an identity. They have chosen to be the Spurs and not the Rockets.

Harris is three years younger than Butler, has the potential to improve as a shooter and defender, and is a better breakdown player than he is given credit for; Brown should have featured him more against the Raptors.

Horford is a better leader than Butler by miles and is a perfect, ego-less mentor for Embiid and Simmons.

Richardson, the 40th pick in the 2015 draft, has averaged 13.5 points, 3.5 rebounds, 3.2 assists, and 1.3 steals and hit 35.8 percent of his three-pointers the past three seasons. Butler was the 30th pick in 2012 and averaged 13.5 points, 4.8 rebounds, 2.3 assists and 1.5 steals and hit 33.6 percent of his threes in his first three seasons as a steady contributor. Richardson might not go to four straight All-Star Games, but he can play.

Will these changes make the Sixers better in mid-October, when the season begins? Probably not.

But they might be better in mid-April, when the playoffs begin. And they will definitely be better this time next year after a playoff run. The starting five will have gelled. They will know better what second-year players Zhaire Smith, Jonah Bolden, and Shake Milton will become.

They will assess how much they miss Redick, a 35-year-old, dead-eye gunner and perhaps the most professional Sixer in history — but, at the same time, a crippling defensive liability who somehow persuaded the Pelicans that he’s worth $26.5 million for the next two seasons. Too much for too long for the Sixers.

Godspeed, JJ Redick.

The Sixers are better without you, too.