The Philadelphia 76ers are fair from a finished product. One thing that the team could never be short on is 3-point shorters when their two best players are center Joel Embiid and non-shooting point guard Ben Simmons.
That being said, the franchise has linked to veteran sharpshooter J.J. Redick. The aforementioned Redick was once a member of the Sixers and Christopher Kline of The Sixer Sense wrote that Redick should be a target of the franchise under the right circumstances.
While hopefully, the right circumstances become available for the 76ers, the club shouldn’t put itself out in any sort of way to acquire Redick in a trade. In fact, it’s fair to say that the best circumstances for Philly to have Redick join the roster would be as a free agent assuming he gets bought out by the New Orleans Pelicans.
The Philadelphia 76ers should be patient for a J.J. Redick buyout.
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It’s no secrete that the Pelicans are in a rebuilding year. Despite Lonzo Ball only entering his fourth season, he, along with Redick and Eric Bledsoe have been shopped by New Orleans to make room for their younger guards like Nickeil Alexander-Walker and Kira Lewis Jr to get playing time, per Brian Windhorst of ESPN.
It’s clear that teams know this and while there will be a market for Ball as he’s still young and Bledsoe has two more years on his contract after this season so he’s not getting bought out. Redick has every reason to be a buyout candidate around the trade deadline.
He’s 36 years old and is having the worst shooting season of his career. He’s not even in the Pelicans rotation and is on the last year of his contract. Yes, there’s a way to get Redick and his $13 million contract to the Sixers, but it seems unlikely another team would send a number of contracts and/ draft capital out for a guy who might be washed up.
I don’t think Redick is done being an efficient shooter, but why pay that much if most teams will probably also wait for the Pelicans out until after the trade deadline. Sam Deveney of Forbs also wrote something along the same vein regarding the trade market for Redick and how a buyout is likely.
The 76ers could easily just sign Redick to a veteran’s minimum or the mid-level exception they have if he gets bought out. Then they could save players like Mike Scott and draft picks for another trade for a player who’s not on an expiring deal. On top of that, Philadelphia would probably be a favorite place for Redick to sign as a free agent considering that he’s stated in the past that he wanted to retire with the Sixers.
Losing out on Redick wouldn’t be the end of the world for the Philadelphia 76ers as they are already playing great basketball. Waiting for him to get bought out would be the smart move by the front office as it would give the franchise the ability to make another trade before the deadline.