It’s fun to play the “What if…” game sometimes in sports. Sometimes, certain scenarios are worth remembering in the event of future transactions that would serve as a reminder of one team’s initial interest in a particular player. If for nothing else, it creates some fun dialogue amongst fans.
As we prepare for Philadelphia’s clash with Orlando Wednesday night at Xfinity Mobile Arena, let’s rewind about two years to the summer of 2024. It was then that Paul George opted to walk right into the massive
amount of cap space Daryl Morey had to negotiate with after finally being done with Tobias Harris and his huge contract. Do you remember who the reported runner-up to the Sixers in the George sweepstakes? In case you forgot, we wouldn’t blame you, but it was the Orlando Magic.
Orlando, not often thought of as a top free-agent destination in the NBA, was coming off a loss in the first round to Cleveland in seven games at the time. Rewind two more years and the Magic were busy drafting Paolo Banchero first overall in the 2022 draft and it didn’t take long for the Magic to ascend into postseason play. George was likely thought of as a veteran that still had some juice left to help Banchero and the rest of Orlando’s younger players mature while also helping them on the court in an effort to rise up to a higher position in the East.
Well, we know what happened and George picked Philly and barring an upset of either Boston or Detroit in the first round this year, the Sixers are going to go the first two years of George’s contract without winning a playoff series with George on the roster. Orlando has stayed in the bottom half of the Eastern Conference’s playoff seeds in the last two years without George and will have to figure out a different way to get out of NBA purgatory.
But what would the Sixers have done if George picked Orlando? Well, it seemed like Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, who ironically ended up in Orlando, would have been their next target. Caldwell-Pope didn’t get anywhere near the money that George got in the summer of 2024, and he also got one less year on his contract, but his three-year, $66 million contract flopped quickly for the Magic and they flipped him to Memphis last summer. The trade certainly came at a cost for Orlando who decided to add Cole Anthony, four unprotected first-round picks and a 2029 first-round pick swap to bring in Desmond Bane from the Grizzlies.
It was certainly an understandable pivot from a Magic team looking to maximize every season they have Banchero under contract for, but think about if the Sixers were in that position. Philly already has outgoing first-round pick debts to Oklahoma City and Brooklyn that have not been paid. It simply would not have been possible for the Sixers to shed the final two years of a hefty deal to Caldwell-Pope while still adding a player like Bane to improve their chances of contending.
So, what would the Sixers have done with the rest of the money they would have saved from not signing George had they brought in Caldwell-Pope? It’s possible they would have just given more of it to Caleb Martin. Morey ended up landing Martin anyway, and then trading him in his first season with the Sixers.
Somehow, we have now landed in a world in which it was better to simply sign George than pivot to such alternatives that would have likely made the 2024-25 season even worse. Granted, the Sixers were able to survive all the losing last season by keeping their first-rounder and delaying the debt to Oklahoma City and drafting VJ Edgecombe. But just when you thought last season couldn’t have possibly gone worse, there’s a scenario in which it just might have and all it would have taken was George to have picked Orlando instead of Philadelphia.
To revisit an aforementioned point, maybe the Magic have seen the resurgence from George after his suspension this season. Perhaps it has served as a reminder for the Orlando brass of the player they thought they could get two years ago. Would the Magic possibly be interested in engaging with the Sixers and taking the final two years of George’s contract? It’s at least food for thought.
