Sure, they’ve had some frustrating losses get away from them, but halfway through the season, the Sixers are in as good a spot as any optimist could have hoped for before the season. At 23-19, they have set
themselves up to not just make the playoffs, but potentially nab a top-six spot to avoid the Play-In tournament.
Not only has No. 3 overall pick VJ Edgecombe flashed more star potential, but their two star veterans, Joel Embiid and Paul George, have been relatively healthy and available relative to last season — the former has already appeared in more games this season than the 2024-25 campaign.
So what will their trade deadline look like? For starters, any big splashy move doesn’t seem likely. Not just because the trade market seems so bare that players demanding trades are looking like they’ll stay put.
A franchise cornerstone plus two massive contracts the majority of the league still likely views as albatrosses are already good enough reason to stand pat, but the Sixers also still have some roster shuffling to sure up their front court rotation, and they’ll have to do so before the Feb. 5 deadline.
One of the best Sixers’ stories this year has been not just two-way forward Dominick Barlow looking like an NBA player, but earning a spot in the starting lineup. Jabari Walker, also on a two-way, has also been integral, appearing in 40 of their 42 games so far this season. Barlow has missed a little more time due to injury, but has started in 29 of the 32 games he’s been available for this year.
Anyone who followed last year’s team — or SixersAdam on Twitter — knows that two-way appearances are limited to just 50 games. Jeff Dowtin Jr. actually ran out of available dates before the last game of last season. Those appearances are even more limited when a team is rostering less than 15 players, which the Sixers currently are.
Teams like the Sixers are limited to just 90 two-way games as long as they have under 15 players on the roster. Those 90 count for all two-ways — in other words, every time Barlow and Walker play in the same game, that counts as two towards the 90.
Tallying up their appearances, plus the 12 games Hunter Sallis was active for, the Sixers are down to just four days remaining. Assuming they both play, that covers the Sixers through the end of their homestand to Jan. 24 against the Knicks. After that Knicks games, the shuffling will have to begin.
The first, most likely move was posited by national reporter Keith Smith, who said that the Sixers could sign someone to a 10-day contract, which would put the 90-game rule on pause for at least a week and a half.
That doesn’t reset the individual days for Barlow and Walker, both of which are also quickly waning. Heading into these last two games of the homestand Walker only has eight games left while Barlow has 18.
It feels likely Daryl Morey will sign a 10-day to keep Walker and Barlow on two-way salaries as long as possible. At some point though, that 15th roster spot will have to be used to convert one of those two to a full-time deal.
For the Sixers to keep both they’ll have to free up another roster spot somehow. They have plenty of expiring contracts to dump, some of which are hardly in the rotation as it is. Eric Gordon is not really at all, but he only makes the veteran’s minimum. Andre Drummond tends to only play on nights Embiid does not these days, and has a slightly higher salary at $5 million.
Each making over $8 million dollars, Kelly Oubre Jr. and Quentin Grimes are both technically options as well, but it’s hard to see any possible return for Oubre being better the production he’s given them when healthy this season. Grimes may be the trickiest to trade. Given that he’s on the qualifying offer, teams potentially acquiring him wouldn’t acquire his Bird rights, making it tricky to re-sign him in the offseason.
There are a number of ways Morey can get creative to solve this, but he’ll have to make this choice soon as the days dwindle. Rearranging things for two players already in the organization won’t headline any “Who won the trade deadline?” articles. Converting Walker and Barlow to full-time roster spots without shuffling up the rotation in any major way is a perfectly fine deadline for the Sixers this year.
