Another day, another trade suggestion. This is what life in quarantine has done to everybody in the NBA world. There have been trade suggestions and fantasy trades everywhere and here we are bringing you another one.
This one for the Philadelphia 76ers involves moving Al Horford’s contract, which will take some work to move in real life, to the Houston Rockets in order to grab a shooter in Eric Gordon. This one is brought to you by Bleacher Report who is in the middle of their Fantasy GM NBA League in their effort to pass the time until the NBA returns. Their staff takes over all 30 teams and they run them as they see fit.
The entire deal is the Sixers sending Horford, Furkan Korkmaz, Shake Milton, and a 2020 second-round pick via the Atlanta Hawks to Houston for Gordon, Austin Rivers, Nemanja Bjelica, Chris Clemons, and Isaiah Hartenstein. Their Rockets GM acquired Bjelica from the Sacramento Kings in another deal. Just a reminder, this is all fake. It is just something to entertain right now.
Not sure why the Rockets would do this. They don’t believe in big men.
(Kidding, kidding) pic.twitter.com/O8qQtiW8WO
— Ky Carlin (@Ky_Carlin) May 14, 2020
Again, the focus of the deal is getting more shooting for Philadelphia. That’s the biggest need for the team, obviously, and Gordon is a career 37.0% shooter from deep so that would make him a good fit next to Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid. Bjelica, who backed out of a deal with the Sixers in the summer of 2018, shoots 42.4% from deep on 4.6 attempts per game so there’s a stretch-4 option.
The only thing is, the Sixers are unlikely to move both Korkmaz and Milton. They would probably include just one of those guys, but not both. The team will undoubtedly have to include an asset for any team to take Horford’s contract, but Korkmaz has morphed into the team’s 3-point bomber off the bench and Milton is on his way to being the team’s backup point guard whenever play does resume after a strong showing in their West Coast road trip in early March. So a decision would have to be made.
The idea of the deal does make some sense for Philadelphia. The team needs shooting in the worst way to make the Simmons-Embiid duo work on the floor and the pieces they get in this deal would work. Again, just a fake trade, but it’s fun to entertain these types of deals. [lawrence-related id=30993,30978,30986]