PHILADELPHIA — The wind needs to start blowing before anybody knows where they are going. Daryl Morey and the Sixers are in the same boat as everyone else this offseason. The smoke is thicker than usual. The uncertainty is in the purple zone. Hazardous to short-term planning. I don’t know if there are more dominoes than usual, but there are more of them at the front of the line. James Harden, Damian Lillard, Karl-Anthony Towns, Bradley Beal, DeAndre Ayton, Kyrie Irving, Chris Paul. When you think about the amount of talent, money, and teams involved, the majority of the NBA’s offseason movement could be within two or three degrees of separation of those names.
Harden is Plan A for the Sixers. Morey actually used the phrase “Scenario A” when discussing Harden at his press conference a couple of weeks ago. Did he tip his hand with that semantic sleight of hand? More likely, it came from a combination of leverage and optics. However you word it, Harden is the Sixers’ best chance at building their best team. Scenario B would leave the Sixers needing, in Morey’s words, “to get creative.” They’ll still need to do that in Scenario A. Re-signing Harden only gives them the same team they had last season. They’ll have the same levers to pull to augment him as they would to replace him. They’d have the mid-level extension to spend in free agency. They’d have Tobias Harris’ contract to swap for more complementary part(s). They’d have a 2029 first-round draft pick to trade.
This might be a good offseason to be in the Sixers’ situation. When impact players are on the trade block, deals have a tendency to expand in a way that creates openings for teams who are looking to address more niche needs. Salary-matching and motivation can be a recipe for third-party value. You can bet Morey and his staff have a hard drive full of contingencies.
