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Philadelphia 76ers Won’t Trade Jahlil Okafor

By Bret Stuter

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Nov 16, 2015; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Philadelphia 76ers center Jahlil Okafor (8) grimaces as he

Philadelphia 76ers Wont Trade Jahlil Okafor

One point does not a trend make. Unrelated date do not make a correlation. There are rules regarding the plotting of data points. These are but two. But when it comes to trying to outguess the strategy of Philadelphia 76ers president and general manager Sam Hinkie, rules are tossed out the window in the race to get a headliner that will grab your attention. On a winless team in a passionate town, the national media knows that the right button will explode the city of Philadelphia into a million hits a minute… arguing for and against absurd scenarios that they hope take on a life of their own. A modern day legend that will someday become the “Philly fans snowball Santa” story that will sweep the nation for decades to come.  The rumors have begun: Jahlil Okafor will be traded for future draft picks.

Don’t bite, Philadelphia.  Don’t bite.

The timetable for the perfect storm is currently set at 2016-2017 season.  The team will likely have four first round picks in the 2016 draft, will welcome Joel Embiid back from injury and Darior Saric, who should be back from playing overseas.  The team will also have plenty of players who are on the roster this season who will not project onto the 2016-2017 roster.  Those players could be traded for second round picks or rights for international players who may decide to play in the NBA in the future.   Some players will simply find their contract expired or not extended.  Such is the business of the modern day professional sports team.

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But there is a timeline in place.  That timeline has not changed a great deal, with the delay of Joel Embiid’s availability somewhat delaying when the team plans to cash in a majority of its NBA draft assets.  It was that injury assessment of Joel Embiid’s foot that likely set the machinery in place to initiate trade talks for the services of point guard and rookie sensation Michael Carter-Williams.  You see, his rookie contract could only be written through the 2017 season.  To hold him in place in 2017, his salary would balloon to $4.3 million.  One player.

The problem with this is the fact that the team had another excellent player projected on that same time line:  Nerlens Noel.  Noel is contracted through the 2017 as well, and his contract in 2017 balloons all the way up to $5.8 Million.  With an NBA Salary cap in excess of $70,000,000 and growing, there should be plenty of money to go around to pay everybody, right?  Well, now we start complicating matters.    To break into the top 40 players in the NBA, you better be prepared to shake loose a minimum of $13,500,000 in today’s dollars.

ALSO ON SIXER SENSE: The Philadelphia 76ers Are Good For The NBA

The goal of the Philadelphia 76ers is to grow, train, incubate NBA skilled players whose production compares with those who are in the top echelon of the NBA.   As players performance improves, their contract renewals become more expensive, more incentivized, more robust.   The larger contracts are just another layer of the planning phase for the Sixers in Sam Hinkie’s blueprint.  Too many expiring at the same time with potential star performers become a salary cap nightmare.  Of the two players, MCW or Noel, MCW’s value to the rest of the NBA had peaked above the value the team had him assessed at.   In the short version, if one had to go, that player would be MCW.   In Sam Hinkie’s plan, one had to go.

But today is a different time, and the timetable has been reset for the 2016-2017 season.   So let’s look at who we have:

In the 2016-2017 season, the Philadelphia 76ers have $32,484,469 committed on 12 players, and the team can hold onto Tony Wroten Jr., Isaiah Canaan, Phil Pressey, and T.J. McConnell for an additional $6.7 Million.   With a salary cap of $89 Million, the Sixers will have nearly $50,000,000 to spend.  That will pay for the new faces arriving on the team via the draft and internationally.

In the 2017-2018 season, the Philadelphia 76ers have $22,074,003 committed on 9 players, and the team can retain the services of Carl Landry, Nerlens Noel, and Hollis Thompson for an additional $14.4 Million.  The salary cap will grow to $108 Million, so the team will have approximately $72,000,000 to spend.  Some of that will be committed to 2016 acquisitions or renewals, but the team can shop for difference-makers in 2017-2018.

In the 2018-2019 season, the Philadelphia 76ers have $10,345,136 committed on just 4 players.  The team can retain the services of Joel Embiid, Nik Stauskas, Robert Covington, Jerami Grant, and JaKarr Sampson for a projected $16.2 Million.  If the salary cap grows on par, the amount could approach $120 Million that year.   Dollars for players to be signed between today and that period approach nearly $94 Million.

As you see, dollars come on line just as the 76ers will harvest talent from the draft.  The question becomes whether this could work in the favor of the Philadelphia 76ers.  From the perspective of where the team sits today, it should.  You see, the Sixers have been richly compensated to swallow the contracts of under-performing veterans by other NBA teams with future draft picks.  When the NBA salary cap increases as it is projected to do, the need for such services should diminish. Simultaneously, the Sixers will now be able to use the numerous draft picks amassed over the past three years.  When their rookies come onboard, they will be moderately priced.   Rookies who overperform that first contract will be paid handsomely.  Rookies who fail to develop will simply be allowed to test free agency, or be offered a more modestly priced contract.  Meanwhile, rookies will continue to come aboard the team.  The process simply becomes a rinse and repeat function.

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To get there, the team needs to become successful soon.  The 2016-2017 roster infusion of so many new young faces cannot hope to succeed without someone on the team to show them the ropes, calm them down as they struggle, remind them of tougher times when they win and remind them of better times when they lose.  Jahlil Okafor is one such player who can fill the needs of this team for years to come.

So no, the Philadelphia 76ers wont trade Jahlil Okafor for the foreseeable future. But they will tell you it could happen.