Sixers likely to trade Jahlil Okafor or Nerlens (Rumor)

[CoachBo]

ESPN bulletin says Okafor is on the market.

[LarBrd33]

Well that's called great GM'ing. Draft three centers and not wanting to keep neither of them. lol sixers

Its a sound strategy and I would have done the same thing.  Big men traditionally are a premium in the NBA.  Philly just took the best player available with two goals in mind.  First and foremost, they wanted to keep losing so that they could have an outcome like this season (#1 pick).  Second, by taking the best player available they hoped that the player would maintain trade value when they were ready to finally construct a real roster.  They could have very easily taken lesser players who would have helped them win. That would hurt them in two fronts.  First, they wouldn't be sitting with the top pick.  Second, the player might not have the trade value of a super prospect like Okafor. 

Right now the general consensus seems to be that Philly's worst case scenario is to sell low on Noel by trading him for Marcus smart or sell low on Okafor by trading him for the #3 pick.   Let's see if that Intel is correct, but the next couple months will go a long way towards cementing whether Philly's method was foolish. If they sell them for less than assets like Smart and the #3 pick, you can call the method bad.  But if that's the type of assets they can flip Noel and Okafor for, you can certainly make a case that Philly made excellent decisions in the draft.

Except that they should have taken Porzingis over Okafor.

In hindsight, maybe.  Porzingis is a bit overrated right now while Okafor is a bit underrated.  We'll see how they pan out.  Yes, popular opinion is that in retrospect Philly should have reached for Porzingis instead of taken the clear 2nd best prospect at the time (Okafor).   But these people forget that many Knicks fans were upset about taking Porzingus as high as 4th and nobody really anticipated he'd be that effective that early.   So it's the equivallent of people bellyaching that we should have taken Giannis instead of Kelly Olynyk.  Yeah, in retrospect we really blew it.  But at the time, there was a reason Giannis slipped all the way to 15th.  And unlike Philly, we can't have a do-over on our mistake by trading Kelly Olynyk for a top 3 pick - a luxury the 76ers apparently have with Okafor.  That's why it made some sense for them to take an obvious desirable prospect.  Even after a full season of frustration, there are still teams that will pay a pretty penny for Okafor.   Had Porzingus busted, they wouldn't be in as great a position. 

[PickNRoll]

Well that's called great GM'ing. Draft three centers and not wanting to keep neither of them. lol sixers

Its a sound strategy and I would have done the same thing.  Big men traditionally are a premium in the NBA.  Philly just took the best player available with two goals in mind.  First and foremost, they wanted to keep losing so that they could have an outcome like this season (#1 pick).  Second, by taking the best player available they hoped that the player would maintain trade value when they were ready to finally construct a real roster.  They could have very easily taken lesser players who would have helped them win. That would hurt them in two fronts.  First, they wouldn't be sitting with the top pick.  Second, the player might not have the trade value of a super prospect like Okafor. 

Right now the general consensus seems to be that Philly's worst case scenario is to sell low on Noel by trading him for Marcus smart or sell low on Okafor by trading him for the #3 pick.   Let's see if that Intel is correct, but the next couple months will go a long way towards cementing whether Philly's method was foolish. If they sell them for less than assets like Smart and the #3 pick, you can call the method bad.  But if that's the type of assets they can flip Noel and Okafor for, you can certainly make a case that Philly made excellent decisions in the draft.

Except that they should have taken Porzingis over Okafor. And I simple don't buy Okafor for 2016 #3 pick as an Ainge trade... he virtually never gets taken advantage of in trades. Sixers leverage = poor. Celtics leverage = not poor. 

Meanwhile, since you raised it, I reiterate the same old discussion from the 2015-16 season: who wins in a Smart-Noel swap? Both teams? Maybe thats just wishful thinking on my part. But I suspect with some small assets sprinkled in, Philly would be interested in that deal. And the Celtics absolutely should be.

I wouldn't trade Smart for Noel in a million years, but I know many people would.  It's a polarizing trade for some reason.  Smart helps you win games, Noel doesn't.  That's my oversimplified take.

[boscel33]

Fakers have more to offer than we do. Would hate to see either of those guys with them.

For us, if I had my preference, I'd take Noel, but if it had to be Okafor, we could always flip him as our "Al Jeff" in a trade for a big fish ("KG").

Thought though, if the Fakers do it, still think Sixers are taking Dunn, so that means Simmons or Ingram are there at 3.  Therefore, I'm OK if the Fakers do it.

[ssspence]

Well that's called great GM'ing. Draft three centers and not wanting to keep neither of them. lol sixers

Its a sound strategy and I would have done the same thing.  Big men traditionally are a premium in the NBA.  Philly just took the best player available with two goals in mind.  First and foremost, they wanted to keep losing so that they could have an outcome like this season (#1 pick).  Second, by taking the best player available they hoped that the player would maintain trade value when they were ready to finally construct a real roster.  They could have very easily taken lesser players who would have helped them win. That would hurt them in two fronts.  First, they wouldn't be sitting with the top pick.  Second, the player might not have the trade value of a super prospect like Okafor. 

Right now the general consensus seems to be that Philly's worst case scenario is to sell low on Noel by trading him for Marcus smart or sell low on Okafor by trading him for the #3 pick.   Let's see if that Intel is correct, but the next couple months will go a long way towards cementing whether Philly's method was foolish. If they sell them for less than assets like Smart and the #3 pick, you can call the method bad.  But if that's the type of assets they can flip Noel and Okafor for, you can certainly make a case that Philly made excellent decisions in the draft.

Except that they should have taken Porzingis over Okafor. And I simple don't buy Okafor for 2016 #3 pick as an Ainge trade... he virtually never gets taken advantage of in trades. Sixers leverage = poor. Celtics leverage = not poor. 

Meanwhile, since you raised it, I reiterate the same old discussion from the 2015-16 season: who wins in a Smart-Noel swap? Both teams? Maybe thats just wishful thinking on my part. But I suspect with some small assets sprinkled in, Philly would be interested in that deal. And the Celtics absolutely should be.

I wouldn't trade Smart for Noel in a million years, but I know many people would.  It's a polarizing trade for some reason.  Smart helps you win games, Noel doesn't.  That's my oversimplified take.

That is pretty oversimplified, considering one plays on a playoff team, and other on one of the worst in NBA history.

[PickNRoll]

Well that's called great GM'ing. Draft three centers and not wanting to keep neither of them. lol sixers

Its a sound strategy and I would have done the same thing.  Big men traditionally are a premium in the NBA.  Philly just took the best player available with two goals in mind.  First and foremost, they wanted to keep losing so that they could have an outcome like this season (#1 pick).  Second, by taking the best player available they hoped that the player would maintain trade value when they were ready to finally construct a real roster.  They could have very easily taken lesser players who would have helped them win. That would hurt them in two fronts.  First, they wouldn't be sitting with the top pick.  Second, the player might not have the trade value of a super prospect like Okafor. 

Right now the general consensus seems to be that Philly's worst case scenario is to sell low on Noel by trading him for Marcus smart or sell low on Okafor by trading him for the #3 pick.   Let's see if that Intel is correct, but the next couple months will go a long way towards cementing whether Philly's method was foolish. If they sell them for less than assets like Smart and the #3 pick, you can call the method bad.  But if that's the type of assets they can flip Noel and Okafor for, you can certainly make a case that Philly made excellent decisions in the draft.

Except that they should have taken Porzingis over Okafor. And I simple don't buy Okafor for 2016 #3 pick as an Ainge trade... he virtually never gets taken advantage of in trades. Sixers leverage = poor. Celtics leverage = not poor. 

Meanwhile, since you raised it, I reiterate the same old discussion from the 2015-16 season: who wins in a Smart-Noel swap? Both teams? Maybe thats just wishful thinking on my part. But I suspect with some small assets sprinkled in, Philly would be interested in that deal. And the Celtics absolutely should be.

I wouldn't trade Smart for Noel in a million years, but I know many people would.  It's a polarizing trade for some reason.  Smart helps you win games, Noel doesn't.  That's my oversimplified take.

That is pretty oversimplified, considering one plays on a playoff team, and other on one of the worst in NBA history.

I oversimplified because I've discussed ad nauseum elsewhere, but I don't think Noel is a winning player on (almost) any team.  His game is so narrow it puts a lot of constraints on the type of players he can play next to.

[jr_3421]

I would do a Kelly + pick for Noel but that's pretty much it. We don't have have anyone else that would make sense for both teams.

[OldSchoolDude]

Noel makes the most sense in a trade because he is the worst pairing with Simmons offensively and defensively Simmons would mask some of Okafor’s weakness.   Noel is a much cheaper trade target then Okafor too.  So, it is reasonable to think he can be had on the cheep, especially if Embiid actually starts to play basketball again and is still good at it.