Philadelphia 76ers: The 10 craziest episodes in franchise history
June 1, 1986- On the same day, the 76ers decide to trade Moses Malone and the No. 1 overall pick for virtually nothing.
Teams make boneheaded trades all the time. However, to make two of them on the same day is pretty crazy.
The Philadelphia 76ers acquired Hall of Fame center Moses Malone in one of the more lopsided trades in franchise history. We acquired Malone’s services from the Houston Rockets for aging center Caldwell Jones and our first round pick in the 1983 NBA Draft. With the pick, the Rockets selected Rodney McCray, who had a solid career, but was nowhere near a player of Malone’s caliber.
Malone, of course, helped the 76ers win the 1983-84 NBA Championship, and was voted the regular season and Finals MVPs that season. He also has one of the more famous sound bites in NBA history when he predicted the Sixers playoff record, “fo, fo, fo,” before the playoffs began. He was one game off with his prediction but his words have still live on through the NBA history books nonetheless.
Malone is easily one of the best Sixers of all time and we likely would not have won that championship without him.
But what if I told you, only three seasons after acquiring Malone, the Sixers would trade him away, along with a No. 1 overall draft pick in a series of trades both more lopsided than the one we acquired him with? Well, that’s exactly what happened.
After an injury-plagued 1985-86 season and a couple of seasons where the Sixers did not go nearly as far as in 1983, the Sixers traded Malone, Terry Catledge (who had become a starter when Malone got hurt) and threw in two first round picks to the Washington Bullets in exchange for All-Star center Jeff Ruland and forward Cliff Robinson on draft day.
On the same day, the Sixers dealt the No. 1 overall pick to the Cleveland Cavaliers and received forward Roy Hinson and $800,000 in exchange. With the pick, Cleveland would select Brad Daugherty.
At the time, the Sixers felt pretty good about the moves, then-Sixers GM Pat Williams told Fox Sports later on:
"“We felt quite good,” said Williams, who had previously announced he’d be stepping down to join the front office of an expansion franchise that later became the Magic. “We felt that we had strengthened our team and had done good duty, and it was announced the next day to pretty strong media support.”"
Remember, analytics had not come to the NBA yet, so it was logical to assume that Malone’s numbers and productivity would continue to decrease and a trade for two up-and-coming players in Ruland and Robinson was a good move.
As for the No. 1 pick, the Sixers weren’t “in love” with either of the top-two players in the draft, Len Bias or Daugherty, so they traded the pick away.
But both trades turned out to be disastrous.
Hinson had his worst year since his rookie season in his first year in Philadelphia and he was traded to the New Jersey Nets just halfway through his second campaign with the team.
Daugherty ended up being a five-time All-Star and would have had more appearances if not for back injuries that curtailed his career after eight seasons.
Ruland played five games with the Sixers before a knee injury effectively ended his career, while Malone went on to average 20 points and 11 rebounds over the next four years with the Bullets and Atlanta Hawks, appearing in three All-Star games during that span.
By itself, the Malone trade is one of the worst moves the Sixers have made as a franchise. Couple that with sending the first overall pick away for scraps makes this single day, June 17, 1986, one of the very worst in the storied history of the Sixers, and that’s saying a lot.
It just goes to show that the Sixers are very familiar with bonehead moves. It’s almost as if it’s in their nature.
Unfun fact: In the 10 years before the 1986 draft day trades, the 76ers reached at least the conference finals seven times. In the 33 years since, once (2001).