According to NBA rumors, the New York Knicks have hopped on an opportunity to sign Chasson Randle after the Philadelphia 76ers had to temporarily waive him.
Can you say déjà vu? That’s what the Philadelphia 76ers are going through right now after the trade deadline has recently passed. The team has lost their point guard Chasson Randle to the New York Knicks after they waived him on Thursday, the day of the trade deadline.
The Sixers waived Randle in order to make room for Andrew Bogut and Justin Anderson, players brought on as a part of a trade that sent Nerlens Noel to the Dallas Mavericks. The Sixers also got a protected first-round pick that will almost definitely turn into two second-round picks.
The plan was probably to buy out both Andrew Bogut and Tiago Splitter‘s (who was acquired in a trade surrounding Ersan Ilyasova earlier in the week) contracts, and once one of them was bought out, to re-sign Randle and bring him back to the Sixers.
The slow process of getting that figured out, however, let the Knicks swoop in.
Randle had played through two 10-day contracts with Philly, and was signed to a partial contract for the rest of the season prior to being waived. Still, he was typically the last man off the bench and the most expendable due to his low trade value and low cost.
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That, however, does not guarantee that he won’t gather interest from other teams. And on Monday morning, he gathered enough interest to be signed by the New York Knicks.
Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports (The Vertical) reported first that the Knicks were not, “enamored with Jennings’ mindset amid the team’s struggles this season.” Because of this, they decided to waive him and go after Randle, who has been nothing but positive since joining the Sixers, often notably the first player off of the bench to celebrate his teammates’ success.
This situation is very similar to last year’s trade deadline. The Sixers were a part of a three-team trade surrounding Donatas Motiejunas last year and were going to take on a contract to get themselves closer to the salary floor, getting paid for doing that in the form of a draft pick. They had to waive JaKarr Sampson to make room for the deal to go through, and the deal ended up falling through because of a failed physical.
Before the Sixers had a chance to re-sign Sampson, he was picked up by the Denver Nuggets. It was a loss that didn’t mean too much, but was disappointing considering the trade the Sixers wanted to compete didn’t even go through.
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This year, they got their trade done, but still lose the player they gave up temporarily in Randle. Unfortunately there are no dibs in the basketball business.
As for Randle, he has had an interesting season, starting in the D-League, getting a few temporary chances with the Sixers, and finally, playing in one of the largest markets in the NBA.