Sixers load up in backcourt
SIXERS RECEIVE: Lonzo Ball, Eric Bledsoe
PELICANS RECEIVE: Danny Green, Mike Scott, Terrance Ferguson, 2021 Sixers first-round pick, 2023 Sixers first-round pick (lottery protected), 2025 Sixers second-round pick
I have written about Lonzo Ball’s clear fit in Philadelphia. If the Sixers can get him and re-sign him for $15-20 million a year, there are far worse uses of that money. It would require a true willingness from ownership to spend big, but if that is the case, Ball would boost the starting five. Eric Bledsoe, for all his faults, would make an elite sixth man.
For New Orleans, this comes down to stockpiling first-round picks. This is a hefty investment on Philadelphia’s behalf — three of the next five years’ first-round picks would be out the door — but Ball is 23 years old, while Bledsoe was in the All-Star conversation just last season. Both players, even if imperfect fits, would drastically improve the Sixers’ immediate title odds in possibly the most wide-open season of Joel Embiid’s career.
The Sixers would start Ball and move Bledsoe to the second unit, where he would still get plenty of playing time. He would cut into the minutes of Shake Milton, Furkan Korkmaz, and Matisse Thybulle. That said, a situational five man group of Bledsoe-Thybulle-Simmons-Harris-Embiid will give up very few points in crunch time.
The salary cap implications make this particular trade very unlikely, even if it seems much more contained than the other hypotheticals on this list. That said, Ball and Bledsoe are both considered available, and the Pelicans’ ability to get multiple picks — plus remove themselves from under Bledsoe’s three-year deal — could make this reasonable for both sides.