Loser: Philadelphia 76ers
The prevailing thought heading into Thursday’s trade deadline was that Nerlens Noel would provide Philadelphia more in return than Jahlil Okafor. If that’s the case, Okafor himself isn’t seen as anywhere near a valuable commodity around the NBA.
Philly dealt Noel to the Dallas Mavericks on Thursday in exchange for Andrew Bogut, Justin Anderson and a first-round pick. That selection is protected from picks 1-18, which means Dallas would have to earn a playoff spot for the Sixers to collect. If not, it reverts to a second-round pick in each of the next two drafts. Ouch.
It’s reasonable that the Sixers would want to move Noel and/or Okafor. They have a log jam at power forward and center. Add in the fact that Noel is slated to become a restricted free agent, and this is magnified even further.
The issue here is that general manger Bryan Colangelo got no real value for Noel. Anderson, a first-round pick of the Mavs in 2015, is averaging just 6.5 points in 13.9 minutes per game this season. He might end up being a fine rotational player, but that’s not the haul you’d expect for a youngster in Noel that plays a premium position and offered a tremendous amount of upside.
This came on the heels of Philadelphia sending Ersan Ilyasova to the Atlanta Hawks for Tiago Splitter. The idea behind that trade was to give rookie Dario Saric more playing time. While Anderson can play the two, his presence may end up limiting Saric’s minutes as well.
Philadelphia has a young core upon which to build. The likes of Joel Embiid, Ben Simmons and Saric is a really nice starting-off point. Unfortunately, the team didn’t receive any real value in the two trade deadline deals it made. This will obviously lead to questions about Colangelo’s strategy moving forward.