If the Sixers want to make a huge splash at the trade deadline, dealing George might be their only option.
When the Sixers signed Paul George to a four-year, $211.6 million max contract in free agency this past offseason, they thought he was the missing piece to their championship puzzle. Franchise legend Julius “Dr. J.” Erving compared him to Moses Malone, who helped the Sixers win a title after they traded for him in 1982.
Halfway through the season, the Sixers are 11th in the East at 19-29. They’re one game behind the Chicago Bulls for the final spot in the Eastern Conference play-in tournament.
Injuries are largely to blame for the Sixers’ misfortune this year. Through 47 games, George, Tyrese Maxey and Joel Embiid have shared the floor for only 192 minutes in total. They showed their ceiling in the 118-114 Christmas Day victory over the Boston Celtics, but Embiid hasn’t played since Jan. 4 because of foot and knee injuries.
Even if the Sixers sneak into the play-in tournament, there’s little reason to believe they’ll be able to stay healthy enough for two months to make a deep playoff run. Embiid has played in only 13 games this year because of his balky knee, a facial fracture and a foot injury. George has suffered two bone bruises in his left knee this season, which he recently admitted is still bothering him. He’s also missed the past three games with a finger injury, and it’s unclear when (or if?) he’ll return this season.
Here’s the bigger question that the Sixers need to ask themselves between now and the Feb. 6 NBA trade deadline: Was this year just an outlier? Can they reasonably expect Embiid and George to stay healthier next season? Or is this just a sign of things to come?
If it’s the latter, this year’s trade deadline may be their best chance to pull the ripcord on their new Big 3. It’d be a painful about-face given the immaculate offseason vibes around the team, but this season should be forcing a deeper reevaluation of this core’s outlook moving forward.
If the Sixers are looking to make a big shakeup by the trade deadline, it almost has to involve George. Embiid isn’t eligible to be traded until the offseason, and trading Maxey is likely a non-starter for now (although TrueHoop’s Henry Abbott recently made a case for it).
Since the Sixers are over the first apron, they aren’t allowed to take back more salary via a standard trade exception than they send out. They can aggregate two smaller contracts to acquire someone with a bigger salary since they’re under the second apron, but George, Embiid and Maxey are their only players who are earning at least $10 million this season.
To land someone earning more than $17 million, the Sixers would either have to aggregate KJ Martin’s $8 million balloon deal with Caleb Martin ($8.1 million), Kelly Oubre Jr. ($8.0 million) or Andre Drummond ($5 million) and two minimum contracts. That’s why it’s not even worth discussing the likes of Cam Johnson ($22.5 million) as a realistic trade target this year.
Unless the Sixers were willing to trade George, that is.
George is earning $49.2 million this season. If the Sixers are having second thoughts about the viability of their Big 3 moving forward, they could seek to break his contract up into several smaller salaries. That could give them additional flexibility to tweak their roster moving forward, as they’re currently hamstrung by being so top-heavy salary-wise.
They could always use George’s contract to pursue a different Big 3, too. Yahoo Sports’ Vincent Goodwill said this week that the Sixers “quietly could be a suitor for Jimmy Butler.”
This isn’t the first time that Goodwill has linked the Sixers to a possible Butler reunion. George is earning roughly $400,000 more than Butler this season, so the Heat would have to send out one additional minimum contract (which the Sixers could take in separately via the minimum player salary exception) to make the trade legal, but it’d be relatively easy to construct a legal framework.
The bigger question is whether the Heat would even want George. After all, they’re balking at giving Butler a two-year, $110-plus million extension, and he’s led them to two NBA Finals appearances in the past five years. George is turning 35 in May, has missed at least 16 games in five of the past six seasons (including this one) and still has three years and $162.4 million left on his contract. The Sixers might need to loop in a third team to make a George-Butler blockbuster come to fruition.
Now that the Sixers have shown signs of life in recent games, they seem increasingly likely to stand pat with their Big 3 and make tweaks around the edge of the roster (if anything). They’ll presumably want to see a larger sample size of George, Maxey and Embiid together before deciding whether to proceed with that trio moving forward.
Health is the major unknown variable in that equation, though. Can the Sixers realistically expect both George and Embiid to stay healthy enough through the grind of the 82-game regular season that they’re able to go on a deep playoff run? Or are they just wishcasting?
Because Embiid and/or the Sixers refuse to release any concrete information about his balky knee, it’s impossible for any of us to know what to expect from him long-term. One would hope the Sixers have a better grasp on his future outlook, particularly after signing him to a three-year, $192.9 million extension this past fall. If it’s reasonable to expect better fortune on the health front next year, they could easily justify sticking with this core.
But if Embiid’s availability projects to be a major question moving forward, it’d be reasonable to quietly explore what they could get for George before his contract becomes a complete albatross.
Unless otherwise noted, all stats via NBA.com, PBPStats, Cleaning the Glass or Basketball Reference. All salary information via Salary Swish and salary-cap information via RealGM.
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