Philly Front Office

I wrote this headline last year after the deadline. Despite remembering the past, we are still condemned to repeat it.

The Sixers have not technically finalized their end of season roster yet, so there is still room for some variance, but we already know the deal. The Sixers made their deadline trades with the intention of avoiding the luxury tax. Mission accomplished. That’s 4 consecutive Luxury Tax Avoided banners hanging from the rafters of the XMA (pronounced like eczema). Here’s what happened.

NBA Trade Deadline News and Rumors – Full Recap

A few days before the deadline, the Sixers were around $7m over the luxury tax. Then, Paul George was suspended and the team received a near $6m tax credit. This did not pull them away from the 1st Apron, but it did bring the team within around $1m of the tax. I assumed this would make things much easier for Daryl Morey to maneuver allowing him to get below the tax line AND improve the team. Previously, I glumly assumed they would just send out Kelly Oubre in a 3-way deal that would only benefit the team in terms of salary relief. He was likely safe now.

Jared McCain Trade

The deadline kicked off for the Sixers when Jared McCain was traded to the Thunder for a 2026 Houston Rockets 1st round pick. It was a shock, but only in theory. Anyone who has watched the Sixers this season knew that he was not in their future plans. He came back from injury not playing well, went down to the G-League, then couldn’t get any run once he came back. He was good as gone. The problem with the trade wasn’t so much the return, but the optics. Let’s look at both.

Getting a mid 20s 1st round pick wasn’t ideal for someone who looked like the rookie of the year last season and has an elite shooting skill. It wasn’t terrible though. You have to assume that they made him available to the whole league and no one else was willing to give up that much. Considering it wasn’t much to give up, that is pretty damning.

The optics are terrible for two reasons. First, the Thunder own the Sixers 1st round pick this year which will likely be better than the Rockets pick. The Sixers couldn’t get it. That means the Thunder put a line in the sand and not only did they not cross it, but the Sixers couldn’t do better. That had to be pretty humbling for Daryl Morey. Second, by taking nothing in return, the Sixers ducked the luxury tax. We’ll get into this later, but for a 24 hour period, we had to hope the Sixers had another card up their sleeve but with the sinking suspicion that they didn’t. We were right.

Was it giving up on a player too soon? Maybe. I know a lot of people think this is an unequivocal yes, but McCain is a 6’3″ shooting guard without a great handle. What’s his ceiling? We all want to say he’s a lead guard, but that’s a 6th man skillset at best. Can he even be on the floor in a playoff series? Small one-way guards tend to get picked on in the playoffs. At the press conference, Morey said that he thinks he sold high on McCain and everyone laughed. However, if McCain bombs in the playoffs, his trade value tanks. Everyone sees this as a “giving up on McCain before he fully gets right” situation while it could be a “don’t let everyone see that he is a rich man’s Seth Curry” situation. A first-round pick isn’t a bad hedge.

A Definitive Ranking of Obscure Sixers Injuries

Ducking the Tax

As the hours ticked by, it became pretty clear that the Sixers were not going to make any real moves. They were now armed with 4 first round picks to trade plus around $16m in possible salary to move. Then word came out that they were moving Eric Gordon for basically nothing. While that wasn’t a bad move on it’s face, it signified that his salary would not be needed for matching purposes; our deadline was over.

It was very clear that the team was not interested in improving. There is a contingent out there flippantly asking, “well what move could the Sixers have made???” It’s obnoxious. They are myopically looking at this like the Sixers couldn’t make any big moves therefore there were no moves to make. Yes, we would have loved a star, but this team needs depth. Who is the backup point guard? Who is the backup power forward? Who is the backup center? The Knicks got Jose Alvarado. The Atlanta Hawks got Jock Landale as a throw in. The Wolves got Ayo Dosunmu. Coby White moved. Collin Sexton moved. Any of these guys would have improved the team and none of them went for a 1st round pick. Who else was out there but beyond our grasp because they did not want to take on salary?

In the end, the Sixers ended up around $4.5m below the tax line with no incoming players at the deadline.

Sixers Trade Deadline History: Feel the Excitement!

What Else?

If you want to get technical, the Sixers did sign Dominick Barlow to a rest of season deal with a team option for year two: 2/$6.8m. Barlow outplayed the crap out of his 2-way deal and the Sixers had to pay for it a little bit here. His $3.4m salary for this season is NOT pro-rated. It’s $3.4m for the rest of the season. The media spun the moves like they were necessary to sign Barlow. They were not. The Sixers signed Barlow using their non-taxpayer midlevel exception. While that still counts towards the luxury tax, it allows the Sixers to go over the minimum salary to sign a player. None of this was necessary. They could have signed him at any point.

The weird thing was that they made it a point to sign Barlow and not Jabari Walker. Barlow still had 12 games of eligibility while Walker has reached his 50-game limit under NBA 2-way rules. Because of the trade deadline, the Sixers have 2 open roster spots that are currently held by Charles Bassey and Patrick Baldwin on 10-day contracts. These two are unlikely to get roster spots in favor of players on the buyout market.

The buyout market is for released players who are likely to sign for the minimum. The max that a minimum deal can be is $2.3m against the cap (the player can make more, but we only care about tax purposes). That amount is prorated for the rest of the season meaning that the Sixers would only be taxed on 30 games worth of salary (29 after tonight). If they were to sign 2 players, they would cost around $800k each for the rest of the season. Since we have just over $1.5m of room below the tax, that means they are going to wait at least another game or two assuming they have two in mind. One may be Walker for all we know.

Does this sound shitty to anyone else? They could be waiting an extra few games to not have players JUST TO AVOID THE TAX BY A FEW DOLLARS!!! I almost hope they get into severe foul trouble just to prove a point.

The Future

The Sixers have avoided the luxury tax 4 straight years now. This has resulted in some bad deals for the team; moving draft picks and players just to avoid paying extra cash. It’s incredibly frustrating. While we did not have any chance last year, the Sixers are currently just 3.5 games out of 2nd place in the East in a very vulnerable conference. Joel Embiid is back to playing at offensive levels that were supposed to be impossible in his knees, VJ Edgecombe is playing beyond his years as a rookie, and the whole team is at its healthiest…ever? Ownership still did not feel the need to go for it. They just wanted to save a few dollars. It sucks. We do have those 4 tax dodging banners though!