Following Sunday’s walloping in the hands of the LA Clippers, the Philadelphia 76ers now find themselves at the absolute nadir of the NBA. Through 16 games, the club can only muster three, meagers wins — a far cry from overarched, lofty expectations levied on them prior to the season.
Truthfully speaking, there’s not really a lot the 76ers can do to improve drastically using their in-house solutions, primarily because these solutions tend to be unavailable for the most part. Joel Embiid and Paul George have already missed significant time due to injury, and there’s no telling that this won’t be the status quo any longer.
As a result, the 76ers have no choice but to venture out and tackle the trade market head-on, just like they have been doing in recent years. The front office should have no shortage of attractive options in the pool of available players, and what plays to their favor is the fact that they actually have assets of their own that should be more than enough to entice sellers.
The 76ers should trade for Donte DiVincenzo
One player who has been making rounds lately as a potential trade candidate is Donte DiVincenzo, who was just traded to the Timberwolves as part of the blockbuster trade centered on Karl-Anthony Towns and Julius Randle shortly before the season began.
DiVincenzo was one of the best role players in the NBA last season, but eventually — reportedly — lamented his new role in Minnesota as one of their nominal sixth men alongside Naz Reid. But now, there’s apparently some trade chatter involving the 27-year-old.
If this holds water (and it certainly seems like it does), the 76ers should immediately come calling the Timberwolves brass about getting a potential deal done. While his shooting numbers have dipped this season, DiVincenzo is a proven volume three-point shooter who touts some secondary playmaking and reliable perimeter defense.
DiVincenzo would be a big upgrade over the likes of Eric Gordon and Kelly Oubre Jr., who have both immensely struggled this season, really, on both ends. He would help ignite a stale 76ers scoring attack that has become pretty predictable, especially whenever their full slate of stars fails to mobilize.
In return, Philly can dangle the likes of Oubre and KJ Martin, and it should not take a lot of pot sweeteners to allure the T-Wolves. There’s bound to a be a bidding war for DiVincenzo, though, meaning that the 76ers will have to put up their best offer to beat the others.