Philly Front Office

Yesterday’s 3pm NBA trade deadline brought the best out of the accountants employed by your favorite basketball teams. Across the league second round picks and bloated contracts flew around from balance sheet to balance sheet all in attempt to get teams under aprons and relieve tax obligations. While a few teams did their heavy lifting to improve their rosters over the previous week, the Sixers worked to improve their “flexibility.” Let’s go over exactly what that means.

The cynical part of me defines flexibility as Josh Harris’s ability to save money on the Sixers so he can fund the Washington Football Team’s free agent pursuits. For example…

Sixers receive: Cash Considerations

Pistons receive: KJ Martin ($8m), 2027 2nd via Milwaukee, 2031 2nd via Dallas

To sum up, the Sixers give up 2 draft picks to get rid of a productive rotation player who was only signed in order to use as salary filler in a bigger trade. His salary next year is non-guaranteed. This move was purely to get under the tax line THIS SEASON. Two assets were sold for Josh Harris to save money. How much money? FORTY FIVE MILLION DOLLARS. According to Yossi Gozlan, by trading the Martins the Sixers save $14m in payroll, which saves them $17m more in tax payments, and allows them to receive around $14m in distribution from the actual taxpayers. Look, I am not saying it’s bad to save money, but when you know that that money actively makes your own team worse and will be used to fund your football team’s biggest current division rival, it’s a little annoying!

Speaking of the Martins, yesterday also saw an alteration to the Caleb Martin trade. Because he is a little more hurt than the Sixers let on, Dallas had the opportunity to void the trade completely. Instead, they just asked the Sixers to throw in an additional second round pick. The Sixers happily obliged, not wanting to ruin their tax savings, and sent their own 2030 2nd round pick to Dallas.

Well, this stinks. We are out 3 second rounders, aren’t any better (or worse), and could be funding Myles Garrett’s next contract. Not so fast says Daryl Morey. I know a place where second round picks grow on trees…WASHINGTON D.C.!

Sixers receive: Jared Butler, 2027 2nd via Golden State or Phoenix (most favorable), 2028 2nd via Golden State, 2030 2nd from Washington, and 2030 2nd via Phoenix or Portland (most favorable)

Wizards receive: Reggie Jackson and 2026 1st via OKC, Houston, or LAC (least favorable)

Wait, what? So, the Sixers are trading a 1st round pick in order to get 4 2nds? Pretty much. Most pundits are saying this is a win for the Sixers because the 1st we are giving up is likely to be at the back end of the draft and those 2nds belong to teams that are getting VERY old. Yeah, I guess. As long as you ignore the fact that we only had to get 2nds because we sold all of ours off already, sure, it’s fine. No, no, IT’S NOT FINE! That 2026 1st was likely not going to be very good, but it had a job as a placeholder. Due to league rules, you cannot trade picks from consecutive drafts. Due to many other deals, we now cannot trade another pick until 2028 according to me or 2029 according to Derek Bodner (he is probably right, but I don’t know exactly why). The Sixers own 2026 pick is now off limits until that draft night and it had value. All tolled we gave up 3 2nds and a 1st in order to get 5 2nds. Not awesome. I hate this team.

We did receive promising 2-way player Jared Butler though. I am told he should be a rotation player who actually knows how to throw a lob on the cheap. That’s at least much more productive than the corpse of Reggie Jackson.

Since I am incredibly good at math, I know that trading 3 players and only getting back 2 leaves room to sign 1 player (please take a second to catch your breath). The Sixers acted quickly to sign Chuma Okeke to a 10-day contract. You might remember Okeke as the Auburn Tiger who tore his ACL in the NCAA Tournament in 2019. The Magic still drafted him 16th overall even though he likely wouldn’t play that year. He has battled limited playing time and has bounced between the Magic and the G-League since then.

After weeks of wondering if the Sixers would be buyers or sellers at the deadline, they ended up neither, just cheaper. That’s it. It might as well be our fault for trying to believe in this team.