National Basketball Association

5 Reasons the Sixers Will Get a Bad Deal at the Trade Deadline

Updated Mar. 4, 2020 8:40 p.m. ET

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Fansided, Josh Wilson/FanSided via The Sixer Sense

The Philadelphia 76ers are sure to be big players in this year’s NBA trade deadline, but they are likely to get a bad deal by February 23.

The Philadelphia 76ers are expected to be big players in the trade deadline this year, and in all reality, were expected to be big players in the trade market all season. While they have been players so far this year — earlier trading Jerami Grant for Ersan Ilyasova — they have yet to clear their frontcourt logjam.

With free agency looming over one of their bigs — Nerlens Noel will become a restricted free agent this summer — the team needs to make some choices, bolster down, and trade a big man. One of the big things holding the team back is that team president Bryan Colangelo has maintained a philosophy of wanting a really good value for his players.

In one sense, that is really respectable. The Sixers’ bigs do have a lot of potential, and the fact that Colangelo is not willing to sell them short is cool. That said, he does also need to realize that waiting around for a high value trade given the circumstances is not smart, because the value will only depreciate.

The Sixers saw low value firsthand in the initial rumors of the season. The team is rumored to be in talks with the New Orleans Pelicans. Some outlets report that a deal is close, while others maintain that nothing is imminent.

The Pelicans offered the Sixers reportedly a 2018 first round pick along with Alexis Ajinca. The Pelicans also want that pick protected within the lottery, and are firm on not offering Jrue Holiday to the Sixers as part of the deal in hopes that he can push the team to the playoffs this season.

The Sixers might get that offer at best, and any other offers they get will be incredibly low value.

Needs are broadcasted

The Sixers needs have been very much broadcasted over the NBA airwaves this season. While the team has been much better this year than in the previous year, the biggest struggles they have had have been in the backcourt and the frontcourt.

The backcourt issues have — more or less — been solved temporarily with the change of starter going to T.J. McConnell. McConnell has proven to be a much better starter than we thought he could be, as he continues to prove us wrong night in and night out.

The frontcourt, however, has remained an issue. It’s been clear that the Sixers need to move a big man, as Jahlil Okafor, Nerlens Noel, and Joel Embiid are just too many lottery pick big men to have on one roster. Additionally, let’s not forget about Richaun Holmes, who is having himself an impressive season and making improvement compared to last year. All the while, he seems to be gathering more interest than his lottery pick teammates in the frontcourt.

With the Sixers almost having to move a big man, teams around the league are looking to get a good deal. When you’ve got something someone else needs, it’s pretty easy to get a bargain. Other teams that have room for a big man can look at them taking a big from the Sixers as a service of sorts, and offer a low value in return for the bigs, despite how high the ceilings may be.

The team having this obvious issue hurts them tremendously, and because they’ve got such a clear blemish, they shouldn’t expect a whole lot.

Jan 21, 2017; Atlanta, GA, USA; Philadelphia 76ers president of basketball operations Bryan Colangelo watch a game against the Atlanta Hawks in the third quarter at Philips Arena. The Hawks won 110-93. Mandatory Credit: Brett Davis-USA TODAY Sports

Waited too long

The biggest issue with this whole cluster of bigs is simply that the Sixers waited way too long to have an effective trade take place. If the Sixers could have foreseen this issue coming at some point last year, especially when Okafor was more effective on offense, they could have gotten a much higher value in return. Now that the Sixers have played it out, there are many reasons that teams are not willing to pay out as much.

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For one, the teams around the league are realizing, as detailed in the first point, that the Sixers have to make a trade. This is not completely the Sixers fault, because a lot of this is derived from the emergence of Joel Embiid. Trading a big last season seemed foolish because it was widely unknown what Embiid would be, and if he would even be healthy enough to play.

Now that Embiid can play, it has shown that the Sixers need to move a big. But if the Sixers took a gamble and traded a big before Embiid proved himself to the Sixers and the league, the risk would have been higher, but so would the trade value.

Additionally, now that they’ve waited this long, it’s allowed the individual flaws of the players to be looked at under a microscope, and perhaps quite unfairly. Often, we’re looking at the performances of these players out of context.

For instance, Noel and Okafor have often been on limited minutes this year due to a tough situation of working out the roster. Because of that, they have been unable to get in a groove, and what we’ve seen from them as far as performances are concerned is that they are not doing very well.

This is an unfair estimation of both of the players, but one that was raised because of the over-patience of the Sixers actions to trade a big.

Jun 24, 2016; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Philadelphia 76ers President of Basketball Operations Bryan Colangelo during an introduction press conference at the Philadelphia College Of Osteopathic Medicine. Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports

Not clear what the team wants

Another easy to see reason that the team won’t get good value is that they don’t even seem to know what they consider good value for their bigs. Since the value has been diminished on the bigs so much, the team has reverted to not looking for specific positional players — the only thing they wouldn’t accept right now seems to be another big (obviously) but aside from that, the Sixers are open to anything.

The only thing that’s been put on their shopping list is “value.” While that allows them to be broad and talk to a numerous amount of teams that have players on the trading block, it might not be the smartest way to approach things.

A narrow approach to the trade deadline will allow the Sixers to let teams know exactly what they want in return for their bigs, and will allow the Sixers to take a focused approach to the deadline, rather than one that’s all over the place, and quite frankly, not getting much done.

If the Sixers are unable to change their mindset about what they want their focus to be like when it comes to making trades, they won’t be able to get good value, which is ironically the only focus of their current trade endeavors.

Jun 23, 2016; New York, NY, USA; A general view of a video board displaying all thirty draft picks in the first round of the 2016 NBA Draft at Barclays Center. Mandatory Credit: Jerry Lai-USA TODAY Sports

May be unwilling to part with future assets

One of the most attractive things the Sixers have to offer aside from their big men — because it’s likely that the Sixers will have to provide some supplementary pieces to get a deal done — are their assets. Anything, really, can be classified as an asset in a trade. Players, cash considerations, things like that. But the thing the Sixers have to offer is more of a future asset — draft picks and stashed players.

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The Sixers have a pick that is very attractive this year because it comes with a potential pick swap with the Kings, and they also have the Los Angeles Lakers pick if it falls outside of the top three. The Sixers also have multiple draft picks in the next few years.

On top of that, the team has draft rights to Furkan Korkmaz, which seem to be getting more attractive this season than when the Sixers initially picked him up this year already.

If I’m a team looking to deal with the Sixers, I want something thrown in that the Sixers have stockpiled to make my future better. Those things are highly attractive, and the things the Sixers have done with draft picks and stashed overseas players solids the worth of them even more.

That said, the Sixers probably won’t be willing to part with those things, and they really shouldn’t be willing to, either. Those assets, although not as important in laying the foundation of the future anymore, are going to be really solid in keeping the Sixers good for years to come, because the team will be able to filter in youth underneath their veterans who presumably will become great.

Without those assets included in deals, the Sixers won’t get as much value.

Dec 26, 2015; Phoenix, AZ, USA; Philadelphia 76ers forward Nerlens Noel (right) talks with center Jahlil Okafor against the Phoenix Suns at Talking Stick Resort Arena. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

Rookie deals

This notion ties in with the previous slide, but at its core, the Sixers really can’t do much with trades and expect much value if they’re only trading rookies. The way trades currently work in the NBA is that the salaries have to match up to a certain degree for them to go through. This is to avoid teams trading players as a salary dump.

Still, salary dumps happen (we saw this firsthand when the Sixers acquired Carl Landry and Nik Stauskas from the Sacramento Kings two offseasons ago) but they have to be done with a workaround. Things like draft picks and pick swaps don’t really have fixed dollar signs attached to them, so those things can make up for the gap in cash transferred when the salaries are put up against each other.

Since the Sixers are going to be dealing players who are all still on their rookie deals, they can’t exactly dream big with what they want in return (unless more players are included in the deal). For instance, Noel this season is making just over $4 million, something that players who have gone past their rookie deal are making significantly more than right now, unless they are deep bench players. Okafor is making $4.7 million.

So if the trade ends up being player-for-player, then the Sixers have to either settle for a low bench player, or they have to trade for another player on a rookie deal. This may be the best option for the team, considering they have a lot of youth and could work with whatever young player on a rookie deal they get in return and really develop them as they’ve been doing with the rest of their young guys.

The Sixers options are much more limited with rookie deals. Yes, the players they are looking to deal are good and do have high ceilings, but the salaries just don’t show that.

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