Sixers: 3 potential trades involving Furkan Korkmaz

Potential Sixers-Hornets Furkan Korkmaz trade

Due $8.5 million in the last year of his contract, Mason Plumlee is the kind of immediate veteran upgrade the Sixers might be searching for. There’s no long-term commitment and he fills a clear need on the roster (I’m Team Just Play Paul Reed, but so long as Doc Rivers is head coach there’s going to be an unavoidable hurdle there).

Plumlee isn’t the most exciting name, but he’s a legitimate starting-caliber center who would immediately cross the very low bar of becoming the best backup center of the Embiid era (save for Al Horford, maybe, whose tenure was weighed down by too much baggage to qualify for this particular honor). Plumlee is a forceful interior defender with nimble feet and a high basketball I.Q. On the offensive end, he’s a strong finisher who would work comfortably out of pick-and-rolls with James Harden.

He’s not without flaws (Plumlee is a notoriously bad free-throw shooter and he’s mostly limited to the paint offensively), but the Sixers would finally have a veteran backup center who can both survive in the postseason and quench Doc Rivers’ thirst for vague old-man intangibles.

Meanwhile, the struggling Hornets get their own pick back and make positive negative progress in the Tank for Wemby campaign. Furkan Korkmaz would be right at home firing 3s off of LaMelo Ball passes and Montrezl Harrell was in Charlotte just last season, so he’d be right at home.