How The Sixers Could Pull Off A Ben Simmons/James Harden Sign-And-Trade

It’s appearing increasingly likely that the standoff between Ben Simmons and the Philadelphia 76ers won’t be resolved by the NBA’s Feb. 10 trade deadline.

“Philadelphia officials maintain their major stakeholders—from ownership and [team president Daryl] Morey’s front office to Doc Rivers and Joel Embiid—are aligned in waiting for someone on par with [Damian] Lillard, James Harden, Bradley Beal or Jaylen Brown to become available either before this deadline or later this summer,” Bleacher Report’s Jake Fischer reported last week.

Unless a player of that caliber unexpectedly becomes available in the next few weeks, the Sixers appear willing to keep Simmons beyond the trade deadline and re-evaluate their options during the offseason. Given Morey’s extensive history with Harden during their time together in Houston, he might be the Sixers’ most likely target.

Harden could become an unrestricted free agent this summer by declining his $47.4 million player option for next season. If he does, he’d then be eligible to sign a five-year, $269.9 million deal with the Brooklyn Nets or a four-year, $200.1 million deal with any other team. Either way, Harden’s starting salary on a new contract will be $46.5 million, which is 105 percent of his salary this year ($44.3 million).

The NBA is currently projecting next year’s salary cap to come in at $119 million and the luxury-tax threshold to be $145 million. But for the Sixers or any other team interested in acquiring Harden via a sign-and-trade, the most important number to keep in mind is $151,583,000. That’s the projected tax apron, according to a league source, which teams cannot cross at any point during a season in which they acquire a player via a sign-and-trade. (They become “hard-capped” at that line.)

So, to recap: If the Sixers hope to acquire Harden, they can’t have more than $151,583,000 of salary on their books at any point next season. If Harden wants his full $46.5 million max salary, that means the Sixers would need to have no more than $105.05 million of other salaries on their books.

That’s where it starts to get complicated for the Sixers.

As currently constructed, the Sixers have $150.0 million on their books for next season. Even if you remove Simmons’ $35.4 million salary (since he’d be sent out for Harden), they still have $114.6 million in salary commitments.  

Tobias Harris ($37.6 million) and Joel Embiid ($33.6 million) will combine to make more than $71 million on their own next year. Add in Harden’s $46.5 million salary, and that trio alone would make nearly $117.8 million, leaving roughly $33.8 million to spend on the rest of the roster.

The Sixers have been “attempting to attach” Harris to Simmons trade talks, according to Sam Amick of The Athletic, although they’ve found no willing takers yet. Harris is owed $37.6 million next season and $39.3 million in 2023-24, so it’s fair to wonder whether he has positive trade value at the moment.

However, the Sixers wouldn’t have to salary-dump Harris to be able to squeeze in Harden this offseason.

Danny Green has a fully non-guaranteed $10 million salary next season, provided the Sixers waive him by July 1. (They could always try to get him to push back that deadline by a few days if needed, too.) Regardless of whether the Sixers waived him or sent him to Brooklyn as part of the sign-and-trade, they can get out of his contract easily.

Seth Curry is the next-highest-paid Sixer at $8.5 million next year, but he’s a major bargain at that price. The Sixers shouldn’t be looking to dump him unless the Nets insisted that he was part of the deal.

Instead, Furkan Korkmaz would be the other key swing piece to making a Harden sign-and-trade work. He’s in the first year of a three-year, $15 million contract, and he’s set to earn $5 million flat next season.

If the Sixers traded Simmons for Harden and traded/waived Green but moved no one else on their roster, they’d have $151.1 million in salary on their books, leaving them less than $500,000 in breathing room before they hit the apron. But if they flipped Korkmaz—either to Brooklyn in the Harden sign-and-trade or as a salary-dump elsewhere—they’d have room to sign three players to veteran-minimum contracts (worth slightly less than $1.8 million each) and would be slightly less than $200,000 below the apron.

Here’s how their cap sheet would look:

If the Sixers do find a taker for Harris either before the trade deadline or during the offseason, they’d have far more financial flexibility to pull off a Harden sign-and-trade without having to worry about the tax apron. But if they’re OK with losing Simmons, Green and Korkmaz, they wouldn’t have to dump Harris to bring in Harden.

If the apron concerns became prohibitive, the Sixers could always try to go another route: convincing Harden to pick up his $47.4 million player option and then force a trade. That’s what Morey did in Houston when he acquired Chris Paul from the Los Angeles Clippers in 2017.

If Harden picked up his player option, the Sixers wouldn’t have to worry about the apron anymore. Teams only get hard-capped if they acquire players via sign-and-trade, but that doesn’t apply to normal trades.

However, there are a few potential drawbacks to going that route.

For one, Harden would need the Nets to guarantee that they’d be willing to move him after he picked up that option. Otherwise, he’d be under contract with them for the 2022-23 season and would have no way to force a trade.

Even if the Nets agreed to move Harden, the Sixers would only have him under contract for the 2022-23 season. They could sign him to an extension six months after acquiring him, but they’d have to take the risk of him otherwise walking in 2023 free agency.

All of the sides—the Sixers, the Nets and Harden’s camp—would presumably negotiate those terms before agreeing to one path or the other (opt-in-and-trade or sign-and-trade). The Sixers should prefer the opt-in-and-trade to avoid any hard-cap concerns, but the Nets might demand additional compensation to comply.

Either way, Harden landing on the Sixers this summer is a long shot. The Nets are the current championship favorites, and they should remain clear title contenders as long as they have Harden, Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving on their roster.

However, Marc Stein of Substack recently reported that Harden is no sure thing to stay in Brooklyn beyond this summer.

“There is enough noise circulating leaguewide about Harden’s reported openness to relocation this summer—after he turned down a lucrative extension from the Nets in October—to give Morey the encouragement he needs to wait,” Stein wrote.

Will that embolden the Sixers to keep Simmons beyond the trade deadline in the long-shot hopes of a Harden deal this summer? We’ll find out soon enough.