Happy Monday! Like we do every week, let's kick off this week with another edition of 5 Sixers thoughts -- with a couple of musings related to the long-term outlook of the team and a few pertaining to the 2024-25 season.
Evaluating the Sixers' draft picks available for trade
Any team led by Daryl Morey is going to be active in trade talks during a season, particularly with the Sixers President of Basketball Operations overseeing a team that hopes to be perennial championship contenders for the next half-decade or so. You have to give to get, of course, so it's worth taking a look at what assets Morey has at his disposal to offer in trades. The Sixers currently do not own any picks in the 2025 NBA Draft, but after that are plus first- and second-round picks moving forward.
The Sixers' most intriguing asset, by far, is the Los Angeles Clippers' 2028 unprotected first-round pick, which was the crown jewel of the package that convinced Morey to finally trade James Harden at the beginning of last season. The Clippers do not have a single player under contract for the 2027-28 season -- which Kawhi Leonard will enter as a 36-year-old. They have very few enticing young players on their roster right now, and have few avenues to add any between now and then, with little to no control of their first-round picks for the next five years.
This pick should be protected at all costs -- unless it can give the Sixers a star-caliber player (or someone who could soon enter that conversation). It is always difficult to project the value of draft picks as distant as this one, but it has serious top-of-the-lottery potential with the way things have gone for the Clippers. Having this pick would make it easier for the Sixers to deal their own 2028 first-rounder, though.
While the Sixers do not own their first-round pick in 2027, they also have two of them in 2026 -- their own, as well as the least favorable of the picks belonging to the Clippers, Houston Rockets and Oklahoma City Thunder (also acquired from the Clippers in last year's Harden deal). It seems like a strong bet that they will end up with Oklahoma City's pick, which should be near the back end of the first round.
The Sixers also received swap rights in 2029 from the Clippers: if the Clippers' first-round pick does not fall in the top three, the Sixers have the right to swap their own pick for the Clippers' selection. That gives them the opportunity to move up in the 2029 NBA Draft should they choose not to make a trade involving that pick, but it also makes trading for that selection much more enticing for other teams, as it is essentially taking two shots at earning a particularly valuable pick.
The Sixers do not have ownership of their second-round picks in each of the next two drafts, but do control their second-rounders from 2027 and on. On top of that, they have the Milwaukee Bucks' 2027 second-round pick -- courtesy of the Patrick Beverley / Cam Payne trade -- and the Dallas Mavericks' 2031 second-rounder from the Buddy Hield sign-and-trade.
Adem Bona's team-friendly contract structure
As a team with three max players for the foreseeable future in the NBA's new restrictive salary cap environment, it will be imperative that the Sixers continually acquire and sustain cost-effective rotation pieces. They hope that rookie center Adem Bona -- drafted No. 41 overall earlier in the summer -- can be that, reportedly signing him to a four-year deal worth approximately $8 million.
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Months later, it appears we have the exact details of Bona's contract. Spotrac and Salary Swish, two reliable sources for NBA salary cap and contract information, each have the exact same terms listed for Bona's deal -- and they are remarkably team-friendly.
Not only is Bona's four-year deal only worth a total of $7,895,796, but only his rookie season is fully guaranteed. He has a hair under $1 million guaranteed for 2025-26, with the rest of the money guaranteed if he makes the opening night roster. Bona's 2026-27 and 2027-28 salaries are non-guaranteed until the day after those year's Free Agency Moratoriums.
When second-round picks sign multi-year standard NBA deals, they are typically extremely team-friendly. But as someone who has examined a painful amount of them over the years, Bona's contract strikes me as one that is particularly team-friendly.
The gauntlet run of 2025
The Sixers' 2024-25 regular season schedule was released earlier this month, and you can read about it with almost a painful amount of detail here.
Something that stands out from the schedule is an absolutely brutal 17-game, 30-day stretch that starts in the second week of January 2025. Take a look at this run the Sixers will have to go on in the winter:
• Jan. 10: vs. New Orleans Pelicans
• Jan. 12: @ Orlando Magic
• Jan. 14: vs. Oklahoma City Thunder
• Jan. 15 vs. New York Knicks
• Jan. 18 @ Indiana Pacers
• Jan. 19 @ Milwaukee Bucks
• Jan. 21 @ Denver Nuggets
• Jan. 24 vs. Cleveland Cavaliers
• Jan. 25 @ Chicago Bulls
• Jan. 28 vs. Los Angeles Lakers
• Jan. 29 vs. Sacramento Kings
• Jan. 31 vs. Denver Nuggets
• Feb. 2 vs. Boston Celtics
• Feb. 4 vs. Dallas Mavericks
• Feb. 5 vs. Miami Heat
• Feb. 7 @ Detroit Pistons
• Feb. 9 @ Milwaukee Bucks
There is an absolute ton of difficult matchups in this month of action and very few games that feel like surefire victories. It should be by far the most interesting stretch of the Sixers' regular season, particularly with the trade deadline falling at the end of it.
A potential trade target
At this point in an offseason, when folks try to identify future trade targets for the teams they root for or cover, they are typically thinking about filling holes that currently exist. But oftentimes, a team ends up making trades not to add new dimensions to their rotation, but to replace or upgrade an existing piece due to injury or subpar performance.
In that vein, it is worth thinking about which projected rotation pieces with the Sixers are most likely to need upgrading midseason. An obvious candidate is Eric Gordon, who for plenty of reasons has a chance to be a major help within Sixers head coach Nick Nurse's second unit. But Gordon will turn 36 years old on Christmas Day 2024 and has an extensive injury history. It is far from certain that he will be firmly cemented in the rotation by the time the trade deadline comes around.
An internal option to replace Gordon could be rookie Jared McCain, if the Sixers believe the youngster is prepared for a nightly role on a title hopeful. But a name that figures to be available around the trade deadline who could be a definitive upgrade is Malik Beasley. After thriving with the Bucks last season, Beasley signed a one-year, $6 million deal with Detroit that surprised many who expected him to command a higher salary if he took another short-term deal.
Beasley is an outstanding three-point marksman -- both off movement and as a spot-up shooter -- and made a significant leap on the other end of the floor last year, going from a noteworthy negative to a mostly passable defender. At his salary, it would not be remotely difficult for the Sixers to make the financial side of a deal work, and the rebuilding Pistons would likely play ball at a point in the season where they will almost surely be out of the playoff race.
Possible Sixers / Red October overlaps
If you haven't noticed, when Sixers activity is not occurring frequently, I often head over to the ballpark and cover the Phillies. But now that the Phillies are a perennial playoff team, there will always be a chance of some Sixers-Phillies scheduling conflicts in October -- especially if the Phillies can continue playing the way they did this weekend in Kansas City.
If the Phillies are hosting a Game 7 of the World Series, I would not want to be at that Sixers-Grizzlies game (I almost certainly would be). Getting out would be an absolute nightmare.
A good problem to have, I suppose!
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