Can't wait to see what he has to say about the Knicks. We need to bookmark this somehow to go back to it after the season is done to see if he's right.
The trade for Bynum was a major coup, but the Sixers preceded that with a series of disastrous decisions that essentially undid all of the positives of the Bynum trade. They have an $80 million payroll, once you factor in the $16 million they're paying Elton Brand to play against them. Had there been an overarching plan rather than a series of one-off fire drills, they could have a better team, with a payroll between $60 million and $70 million.
Drafted Moe Harkless; traded the No. 45 pick and a future first to Miami for the No. 27 pick; draft Arnett Moultrie: I thought both of these picks were reaches, although Moultrie has enough size and athleticism that he could overcome his deficient ball skills and become a halfway decent big man, similar to what Lavoy Allen did last season.
But the Sixers traded a future first-round pick to Miami to move up 18 spots and grab Moultrie, and I'm still not sure why. It's a classic loan-shark trade, with an absolutely ginormous implied interest rate. The pick they obtained was No. 27 overall; the one they gave up is likely to be in the high teens a year later (it's top-14 protected each of the next three years), and in the meantime Miami still got to use Philly's second-rounder. Moultrie didn't solve any pressing roster need, either.
Re-signed Lavoy Allen for two years, $6 million: Here's the quiet, unrecognized, year-old stink bomb that was the catalyst for the disastrous moves below: Coming out of the lockout, Philly gave Allen, a second-round pick, a one-year deal with no team option for a second year. There was no reason to do this. No other second-round pick has a deal this player-friendly, and as the 50th overall pick, Allen had zero leverage.
So instead of having Allen at the second-year minimum for his sophomore season, he was a restricted free agent and the Sixers, being over the cap, had to dip into their midlevel exception to re-sign him. Like a butterfly flapping its wings to start a hurricane, Allen's deal led to the following ...
Amnestied Elton Brand, let Lou Williams go, signed Nick Young for one year, $5.6 million: This move was so bad on so many levels it's hard to know where to start. The Sixers got a sudden yen for Nick Young -- no, I don't know why either -- and decided they had to have him. But with half of their midlevel gone to Allen (see above), the only way to get Young was to create cap space.
And the only way to create cap space was to unload two of their most productive players from the previous season. Williams led the team in scoring and PER and is just 26, and ended up signing for reasonable money in Atlanta. Brand, though fading, was still quite useful, especially at the defensive end. Certainly, both players are better than Young by a substantial margin.
This actually cost the Sixers a bit of money rather than saving it, as they still owe Brand $16 million for this season after his amnesty auction only shaved $2.1 million of the price, and they still had to pay for a replacement. All so they could pay Young more money than Atlanta paid Williams.
Wait, it gets worse ...
Signed Kwame Brown for two years, $5.8 million: For reasons that aren't entirely clear, Philly has been obsessed with getting more size the past two years. The Sixers were the No. 3 defense and fifth in defensive rebound rate, but decided they needed to overpay for Kwame, a non-solution to a non-existent problem. He's not one of their 10 best players, but there's a worry he'll play anyway.
Let Jodie Meeks go, signed Royal Ivey for one year, minimum: Nobody has really commented on this, but the Sixers don't have a backup point guard this season and don't seem terribly troubled by the lack of one. The closest thing is Ivey, who is neither a backup nor a point guard; he is at best a fifth guard, and that's only on a really sunny day if the lighting is just right.
Traded nothing for Dorell Wright: Finally, some good news. Using their remaining cap space after the Brand amnesty, Philly took in Wright from Golden State. Hard to argue with the price, obviously. Technically it wasn't "nothing," as Philly gave up the rights to Edin Bavcic, a 2006 draftee who will never play in the league, but effectively Wright was free. He's a better player than people think, too. I'm not sure why he fell out of the Warriors' plans, but he can shoot 3s and is a decent defender.
Re-signed Spencer Hawes for two years, $13 million: This wasn't a bad price to pay for a starting center, especially because the Sixers didn't know at the time that they'd be getting Bynum. Although there's a fair amount of skepticism that Hawes can re-enact his outstanding play in the first month of last season, he's young enough to get better and he's a decent player even if you throw that month out.
Traded Iguodala, Nikola Vucevic, Moe Harkless and a future first-round pick for Jason Richardson and Andrew Bynum: This was the big move that should have put Philly in position to contend in the East, were it not for all of the other assorted silliness above. The Sixers parlayed a pretty good wing player into a dominant big man, and Richardson isn't dead weight, either.
Besides Iguodala, all they had to give up was Vucevic -- a quality backup center who had fallen out of the rotation by season's end -- and two late first-round draft picks (if you count Harkless as one of them). There's a risk here because Bynum is an unrestricted free agent after the season, but he's from the Philly area and has hinted that he'd like to stick around.
