The headline here speaks for itself. Heading into Thursday’s trade deadline, I simply implore the Philadelphia 76ers not to make ducking the luxury tax their priority. Now, you might say that this post is true Negadelphian: complaining about something that hasn’t even happened yet. But when something happens every year to the point where Joel Embiid feels compelled to issue a soft warning to ownership, you know there’s a decent possibility of recurrence. (Given how strongly Joel feels about the issue,
I feel like there’s a non-zero chance he reads this — in which case, ‘Hi, Joel’.)
The Paul George suspension has certainly complicated the anti-ducking agenda. His 25-game suspension resulted in a luxury tax credit for the Sixers, and the team is now just currently $1.3 million above the tax line. That’s so close that Josh Harris can smell that revenue redistribution money like a cartoon character drifting towards a pie cooling on a windowsill. Those $28 million, 12-bedroom, 22-bathroom homes in Washington D.C. don’t pay for themselves after all. From his perspective, just trade Andre Drummond and some draft capital to a team with cap space and let’s go fuel up the helicopter. He has a new favorite child down I-95 in the Commanders anyway.
But enough is enough. The East is so wide open that the Cleveland Cavaliers think James Harden is the missing piece to get them over the top. The Celtics are improving their roster despite their best player rehabbing a torn Achilles. Philadelphia has a healthy-ish version of Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey playing All-NBA-level ball, and a solid supporting cast, and would potentially downgrade the roster in order to save money, because why, you’re worried about the Pistons? The Detroit “starting Tobias Harris” Pistons? Let’s just see what can happen in late April and May.
I’ll even throw management an olive branch here. Feel free to make ducking the tax a consideration. Daryl Morey is a smart guy. If he can do something like move Drummond to New Orleans with some reasonable draft capital for 21-year-old center Yves Missi, thereby getting a player that upgrades the team today, provides potential future upside, and gets the team under the luxury tax in the process, I’m on board. I understand there are team-building restrictions for being in the tax, yada yada yada, and if it can be avoided, all the better. Morey probably has thought through a dozen or two different scenarios like the common example I just threw out, so let’s see one of them. The Quentin Grimes-Caleb Martin trade last year came out of nowhere. I’m ready to be wowed, Daryl.
I also don’t expect anything major. The Sixers’ inability to work out a deal with Grimes over the summer has severely limited the team in the ‘tradeable contracts’ department. Kelly Oubre Jr. is the only guy in the range where his salary could be a good connecting piece, but he has played terrific this season. Anybody you bring in would have to either be a clear upgrade over Kelly or provide similar production on a longer-term deal where you saw value in that future roster stability/flexibility, and those sorts of players aren’t readily being given away.
But so help me. If Thursday’s deadline comes and goes and all we see is a player shipped out to duck the tax, and the team tries to spin it as needing a roster spot to sign Dominick Barlow to a standard deal, when Eric Gordon and Kyle Lowry are taking up roster emeritus positions, I’m ready to pass out pitchforks across the river in Camden. Hopefully, it doesn’t come to that. I honestly remain optimistic that it won’t. But this had to be said.
