The Sixer Sense
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Are Stars On Bad Teams Worth Targeting in Trades for Sixers?

By Josh Wilson

Nov 9, 2015; Philadelphia, PA, USA; The Philadelphia 76ers logo on the warm up shirt of center Jahlil Okafor (not pictured) prior to action against the Chicago Bulls at Wells Fargo Center. The Bulls won 111-88. Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports
Nov 9, 2015; Philadelphia, PA, USA; The Philadelphia 76ers logo on the warm up shirt of center Jahlil Okafor (not pictured) prior to action against the Chicago Bulls at Wells Fargo Center. The Bulls won 111-88. Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports /
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There are some really good players in the NBA stuck on some really bad teams. Could the Philadelphia 76ers use that to their advantage in trades?

I was taking Philadelphia 76ers related Twitter questions for the newest episode of We Talkin’ Bout Podcast, and I received one on Twitter that I almost dismissed right away. I thought about it a little bit further, though, and realized that maybe the question wasn’t as far out as I thought. The question was in regards to the Sixers attracting trades involving stars that were on bad teams or teams that have not lived up to expectations.

Tuesday night was a bad night for John Wall. Tuesday afternoon was bad for me, in much of the same way.

Let me tell you my story first. The end of the college semester is coming up for me, which means that when I haven’t been blogging this week, I’ve been studying, doing projects, and writing final papers. Many of my projects due have been group projects, which are notoriously awful for 99 percent of college students.

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I showed up to a scheduled group project meeting with one of my groups, and we got working, expecting the last member to show up. He never did. We still got a lot of work done, but throughout the meeting, I wondered how much we would have been able to do if that last person had shown up.

Wall had a similar issue against the Orlando Magic on Tuesday night. He showed up and did much more than what was expected from him, but his team still fell short. In fact, they weren’t even that close, losing 124-116.

Wall scored 52 in that game, a career-high for the accomplished point guard.

The Wizards have had this issue all season. Wall has shown up while other players have really not. The roster has not gelled, and things are just not working. Their record is well below .500.

Does Wall want out? He’s certainly got to be frustrated with the Wizards performances up to this point. This was a season where the Wizards were supposed to come back and attack the league with Scott Brooks leading the way for the first season. It has not panned out like that, and because of that, the Wizards — and Wall — may be interested in a change of scenery.

The Philadelphia 76ers, on the other hand, have players to deal. They’ve got Jahlil Okafor and Nerlens Noel, one of which (at minimum) needs to be traded. They could potentially swoop in to some team’s bad situations and pick up players that could push them right out into competitiveness all of a sudden.

The Sixers are missing a star veteran player. Sure, they have players like Joel Embiid (who has already shown star potential) and Ben Simmons coming back, but no veterans on their squad just yet that have star potential.

The Indiana Pacers have a better record than the Wizards, but have not had the season they were expected to have. I don’t see them parting ways with Jeff Teague or Monta Ellis, but perhaps if they wanted to be bold they could deal Paul George.

The Minnesota Timberwolves, although still young and promising, have struggled, and have a young core that Ricky Rubio doesn’t quite fit with. The Sixers could be interested in him (and were interested in him during the NBA Draft).

Dennis Schroder could be moved by the Atlanta Hawks who had a slow start, but I see that causing more problems than solutions for the Hawks.

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The Mavericks have perhaps been the most disappointing team this season, and J.J. Barea is by no means a star in the league, but puts up decent scoring and passing numbers that the Sixers could use on a nightly basis.

As far as what the Sixers would have to give up for players like this, well, that’s unknown. The likelihood is that they’ll have to give up a lot, but they can possibly get them on a bargain depending on how desperate the team is to shake things up.

Some of these players are long shots, but some of the teams may be open to trades for the right place in order to relieve themselves of big contracts on players that can’t do all of the work. Other teams might be looking towards the future and still building around those players.

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The Sixers should at least make some calls and see if any teams that are having bad seasons, but have good players, want to make some deals happen. It doesn’t hurt to ask.