The Sixers’ Biggest Needs At The 2023 NBA Trade Deadline

After an up-and-down start to the 2022-23 NBA season, the Philadelphia 76ers have found their footing in recent months. They’ve won 22 of their past 28 games, putting them only 2.5 games behind the Boston Celtics for the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference.

With All-Star center Joel Embiid averaging a league-leading 33.4 points per game on a career-high 53.1 percent shooting and James Harden chipping in 21.3 points and a league-high 10.9 assists per game, the Sixers have the foundation of a championship core in place. Tyrese Maxey has adjusted well to his new role as a sixth man, while Tobias Harris has adapted his game to fit well alongside the Sixers’ other stars. Their new starting five of Harden, Harris, Embiid, De’Anthony Melton and P.J. Tucker is outscoring opponents by 13.1 points per 100 possessions, which ranks in the 81st percentile of all lineups leaguewide.

In other words, this isn’t last season, when the Sixers had Ben Simmons’ absence looming large over them leading into the trade deadline. Team president Daryl Morey recently hinted that the Sixers are eyeing more marginal upgrades ahead of this year’s deadline rather than another blockbuster.

Before diving into the Sixers’ biggest needs ahead of the trade deadline, here’s a brief refresher course on where they stand financially at the moment.

Because they used the non-taxpayer mid-level exception to sign Tucker and the bi-annual exception to sign Danuel House Jr. this past summer, the Sixers cannot cross the $157.0 million luxury-tax apron at any point between now and June 30. They currently have roughly $151.4 million in salary on their books, which leaves them slightly more than $5.5 million below the apron.

The Sixers are also only $1.2 million above the league’s $150.3 million luxury-tax threshold. Since they’ve been taxpayers in each of the previous two seasons, they would become subject to the more punitive repeater tax next season if they stay above the tax line this year, too. Their tax bill projects to be lower than $2 million for now, but ducking the tax would push the repeater clock back one year and make the Sixers eligible for a tax disbursement that projects to be around $16 million this season.

Ideally, the Sixers would find a trade that improves their playoff rotation while allowing them to dip below the tax line. That’ll be easier said than done, though. Considering that they’re currently +950 to win this year’s NBA Finals, per FanDuel Sportsbook, they should prioritize upgrades over tax savings if they have to choose between the two.

With that in mind, here’s a look at their major areas of need heading into the trade deadline.

Wing Depth

The Sixers signed Tucker and House this past offseason to round out their wing/forward depth, but neither has panned out quite as expected so far. Tucker has shown flashes of the defensive intensity that made him critical to deep playoff runs with the Milwaukee Bucks and Miami Heat over the past two years, although he’s been inconsistent offensively. Meanwhile, House has fallen out of the Sixers’ rotation over the past month.

The Sixers aren’t likely to find a taker for Harris, who’s being paid $37.6 million this year and is owed $39.3 million next year. Harris’ scalability has also been an asset to the Sixers this season, so they shouldn’t be in a rush to move him unless it’s for a clear upgrade.

The same can’t necessarily be said for fourth-year swingman Matisse Thybulle, the only other wing in the Sixers’ current rotation. He’s set to become a restricted free agent in July, and the “level of organizational trust” in him “isn’t high,” according to Kyle Neubeck of PhillyVoice.

The Sacramento Kings, Golden State Warriors and Atlanta Hawks are among the teams who’ve been linked with Thybulle in recent days, according to multiple reports. Longtime NBA insider Marc Stein reported Saturday that the “prospect of Thybulle getting traded before Thursday’s buzzer is very real.”

If the Sixers do trade Thybulle and don’t receive a wing in return, they’ll be woefully thin at that spot behind Tucker and Harris. Furkan Korkmaz is their only other option beyond House at that spot, and he’s been relegated to mop-up duty for most of the season.

Thybulle can be a game-wrecker defensively, but his offensive woes made him a liability during last year’s playoffs. If the Sixers don’t expect to lean on him in the playoffs and/or re-sign him this summer, they might be better off moving him now to cut their losses. Swapping him for a better-shooting, worse-defending wing might be appealing if they’re looking to limit their potential weak spots in their playoff rotation.

Backup Big

Montrezl Harrell and Paul Reed have been battling throughout the season to claim the primary backup center job behind Embiid. Harrell appears to have the leg up over his younger counterpart for now, as Reed has more DNPs (nine) than he does games with 10-plus minutes (five) since the start of December.

However, Harrell’s limitations as a pick-and-roll defender and rim protector have been on full display in recent weeks, perhaps never more so than in Sunday’s abominable loss to the New York Knicks.

The Sixers jumped out to a 21-point lead in the first quarter, but the Sixers’ all-bench unit (including Harrell) gave nearly all of it back before halftime. Reed wound up playing over Harrell in the second half, although he didn’t fare much better. The Sixers got outscored by 15 points in Harrell’s three minutes (!) on the floor, while Reed was a minus-14 in eight minutes. All of that happened against a Knicks team without starting center Mitchell Robinson, one that was on the second night of a back-to-back.

Sources told Neubeck that the Sixers would be “interested in acquiring a safer/more traditional backup to Embiid for certain matchups in the playoffs,” even if they keep both Harrell and Reed past the trade deadline. Jake Fischer of Yahoo Sports mentioned Utah Jazz big man Jarred Vanderbilt as a possible target, although Utah’s price for him may be out of the Sixers’ range, according to Paul Hudrick of Liberty Ballers. The Sixers have also recently called the Detroit Pistons about backup center Nerlens Noel, whom they originally drafted with the No. 6 overall pick in 2013, per James Edwards III of The Athletic.

Whether the Sixers add another backup big by the deadline or peruse the buyout market, they clearly still have some unresolved questions at that spot.

Looking Ahead

As much as the Sixers should focus on a potential title run this year—particularly after the Brooklyn Nets perhaps fell out of the running by trading Kyrie Irving to the Dallas Mavericks on Sunday—they also need to be mindful of their long-term outlook.

Thybulle isn’t the Sixers’ only notable free agent this summer. Shake Milton, Georges Niang and Reed will all join him in free agency, and Harden, House and Harrell can become free agents as well by declining their respective $35.6 million, $4.3 million and $2.8 million player options for the 2023-24 season.

The Sixers already have $117.1 million in guaranteed salary on their books for next season. The current salary-cap projection is $134 million and the luxury-tax projection is $162 million. Re-signing Harden alone could push them close to taxpayer territory, as his maximum starting salary on a new contract is $46.9 million.

If Harden is either willing to pick up his player option or re-sign for far less than his maximum salary, it could enable the Sixers to re-sign some combination of Milton, Thybulle, Niang and Reed without dipping too far into the tax. But unlike this past summer, when his opting out and taking a discount came with a tangible benefit—giving the Sixers access to both the non-taxpayer MLE and bi-annual exception—they figure to only have the taxpayer mid-level exception at their disposal this offseason.

The Sixers will have Bird rights on Harden, Thybulle, Milton and Reed, which allows them to exceed the salary cap to re-sign any of them on a salary up to their respective maxes. They have Early Bird rights on Niang, so they can offer him a contract with a starting salary that’s 105 percent of the average salary for this season. (That should come out to roughly $11.3 million, which is right around the projected non-taxpayer MLE.)

If the Sixers aren’t optimistic about their chances of re-signing some of their impending free agents, they might look to flip them for someone on a longer contract. Then again, they could always decide to go all-in on this year’s title run and deal with the consequences this summer, even if it means losing some of their free agents for nothing.

Having to balance the long-term outlook and luxury-tax concerns with the potential of a deep playoff run will make this a tricky few days for the Sixers to navigate, even if they don’t have a Harden-esque blockbuster up their sleeve again.

Unless otherwise noted, all stats via NBA.com, PBPStats, Cleaning the Glass or Basketball Reference. All salary information via Spotrac or RealGM. All odds via FanDuel Sportsbook.