The Philadelphia 76ers have endured several months desperately clinging to their choice of first round. If the choice had landed outside the first six, he would have gone to the Thunder of Oklahoma City, so the 76ers spent the second half of last season in order to keep it.
Last week, this choice officially landed at No. 3 in total, and now that The 76ers really secured itThey must decide what to do with it.
After the NBA recovery lottery, the director of the 76ers Top 76ers Daryl Morey said that the “plan was to keep” the choice. The rest of the league, however, does not seem to trust him. Jonathan Givony d’Espn reports that “some teams expect the Sixers to be active in commercial conversations” now that they know where they choose. Two Givony names mention the candidates? Kevin Durant and Lauri Markkanen.
Daryl Morey is about as aggressive a star hunter than in the NBA. Last summer, he obtained his man when he landed Paul George on a maximum free salary agent contract of four years. This agreement has so far been badly aged. George has decreased due to age and struggled to stay healthy. This contributed to Philadelphia Tanking in a season that started with the ambitions of the championship.
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These championship ambitions probably did not disappear. The choice of choice could do two important things for the 76ers. The first, of course, would be to help repel this team to claims next season by exchanging George decline for an upgrade. The second part, and undoubtedly more important, would be to leave the last three years of the George contract before becoming too expensive to move.
Of course, this would not exactly clean their books. During the opening evening for 37 years and will probably want a contract extension. Markkanen is in books for four more years, one more than George, at Max Money. Any player that the 76ers take in a George agreement will be expensive. He would just need to justify this financial investment.
The advantage of simply using the choice at n ° 3 would be that the player taken there would be relatively cheap. The first round choices are delivered with four years of control of the team at a reasonable price. If the 76ers land the right player in this slit, they would add young people along younger basic parts like Tyrese Maxey and Jared McCain and potentially create sufficient excess value thanks to this cost control to compensate for the too pane of George and Joel Embiid.
When you pay maximum silver stars subject to injuries, it is useful to have a young star locked in a cheap offer.
Of course, it actually means writing a young star. It is not a guarantee in n ° 3, so Morey would not do his job if he did not explain at least what was on the commercial market for his choice. For the moment, it has an optionality. If he thinks that Embiid is able to stay healthy for four playoff series in the future, this choice could make him the last piece he needs. If he does not do so, the choice is his best chance of finding Maxey a long-term co-star for the next 76st basketball era. His choice will probably depend on the commercial value that this choice ends up having.
