The Sixers are in an interesting spot as the trade deadline approaches. They look good enough on certain nights to be a real contender in an Eastern Conference that appears to be wide open.
While their record isn’t stellar, they’re still above .500 and the 2025-26 season has given fans a sliver of hope, both for the current season and that the future might not be super bleak. So, that leaves you with a team that’s probably not good enough to be an aggressive buyer within the next week, but certainly
isn’t bad enough to be an obvious seller which leaves Daryl Morey with some decisions to make.
The most obvious decisions for Morey would be to sell off a few of Philly’s veterans who are on expiring contracts and there are three names to discuss here. Quentin Grimes, Andre Drummond and Kelly Oubre are all set to become free agents this summer. Granted, lumping the 25-year-old Grimes in with these two players in their 30s is oversimplifying things a bit. However, dating back to last offseason when the Sixers and Grimes were seemingly never close to a long-term deal, it has felt like the Houston product has had one foot out the door.
Out of these three players, Drummond is the oldest and being paid the least amount of money for the season, so you would think he is the most likely to be traded. Joel Embiid has shown signs of looking like his old self of late and Adem Bona is a youngster that is playing about as many minutes as Drummond is anyway. The team also officially signed old friend Charles Bassey to a 10-day deal Monday.
That brings us to Oubre, who is the most complicated trade candidate on the roster. While the Sixers are Oubre’s fifth team in a decade of NBA service time, the 30-year-old journeyman wing player has been a constant for Philadelphia in his three seasons with the team. He appeared in 68 games in 2023-24, 60 games last season and could still end up playing in 50-60 games this year if he stays healthy in the second half after a knee injury early in the season. His numbers have been pretty steady in all three seasons as a Sixer, and this season, his 38% three-point field goal percentage is actually up significantly from last year’s 29%.
If there’s a team out there that is more solidified as a contender than Philadelphia is, it may call Morey about Oubre, especially considering an acquiring team would gain Oubre’s Bird rights. Oubre hasn’t played for many contenders in his career, but he feels like a prototypical deadline addition for a contender. For his career, Oubre has appeared in 677 games, starting 328 of them, making for almost exactly a 50-50 split between his time as a starter and a bench player. He’s been a pretty consistent scorer regardless of the team he’s played for and a team with championship aspirations would probably love to add a 15-points-per-game guy that is shooting the ball as well as Oubre is this season.
Whether the Sixers should bite and move on from Oubre is a different conversation. Surely, there’s a price on any player and if another team exceeds the price that Morey and his staff value Oubre at, then no one can blame the Sixers for moving on. But, there’s a lot of value in Oubre remaining in Philadelphia. First off, he can help them win games in the second half, climb in the standings and cement themselves as one of the top six seeds in the East and avoid the play-in tournament.
Secondly, a player like Oubre can certainly help bring Philly’s younger players along. Between Bona, VJ Edgecombe, Jabari Walker and Dominick Barlow, the Sixers have four rotation players in their early 20s who are still learning the ropes of life in the NBA. Oubre has been in so many different environments in his 10+ years as a professional, he could certainly help Philly’s younger players feel like they belong.
Lastly, while everyone knows about the money Philadelphia has committed to Embiid, Tyrese Maxey and Paul George for the future, there isn’t a lot of money on the books to other players in future seasons. To bring it back to Oubre in comparison to Grimes and Drummond, it feels like a no-brainer that Oubre should be the one out of these three that the Sixers are most interested in singing this summer.
We discussed the presence of Bona making Drummond a bit more expendable. While 2025-26 has not gone according to planned for Jared McCain, one would figure the Sixers still want McCain to be a big part of their future and the departure of Grimes would make it much easier to get McCain more playing time next season. Who’s replacing Oubre if Oubre is gone either at the trade deadline or if he walks in free agency? Philly doesn’t have another plug-and-play wing like Oubre and so keeping him for the rest of the season in hopes of going on a playoff run in the spring probably makes it easier to retain Oubre moving forward.
As we said, there could be an offer for Oubre that is too good to pass up. We’re certainly not trying to make it sound like the future of the franchise hinges on if Kelly Oubre sticks around or not. But Oubre has been a consummate professional in his time as a Sixer. He’s at the point in his career where he can be both a mentor to younger players and a remain a key contributor for whatever team he’s playing for. That team should continue to be the Philadelphia 76ers.
