Sheridan: Analyzing Thursday’s Trade Deadline Deals — Sixers Win

I have written this before but I haven’t written it in quite some time.

When all is said and done on the Sam Hinkie Era, the Philadelphia 76ers will be counting up their multiple titles. Yes, multiple.

But no, I do not expect JaVale McGee to be a part of any of that. Emmanuel Mudiay? Yes. Jahlil Okafor or Joel Embiid? Yep.

The mad scientist in Philadelphia may just be a mad genius. Yes, it was fashionable to make fun of the young and strange GM as he was taking out the dynamite while also spending money like he was LeBron James doling out tips to restaurant staff. Hinkie built a team that was designed to tank, and in the meantime he picked up Nerlens Noel and Joel Embiid, flipped Jrue Holiday for a No. 1 pick and installed a replacement, Michael Carter-Williams, who won Rookie of the Year. Both of those guys are now gone, and the draft lottery is now all about Philly.

Hinkie on Thursday found a way to get two additional first-round picks (he might have two of the top 6 selections this June) and an additional first-round draft pick, Oklahoma City’s, as a reward for taking McGee’s onerous contract off of the Denver Nuggets’ hands and sacrificing Carter-Williams.

One day, they will put his statue up there with Rocky’s. Be patient Philadelphia. Your starting five in two years could be Jahlil Okafor/Joel Embiid, Nerlens Noel, Dario Saric, D’Angelo Russell and Emmanual Mudiay.

It is common for everyone to declare winners and losers after trade deadline day. I have made my decision. The winner is Sam Hinkie. Second place goes to Sam Presti. Third place goes to John Hammond.

Check out the Sixers’ draft pick future:

2015 _ Their own No. 1 pick, Lakers’ No. 1 pick (top 5 protected); Heat’s No. 1 pick (top 10 protected); Thunder’s No. 1 pick (top 18 protected), Second-round picks originally belonging to the Magic, Pelicans, Rockets and Warriors. Heck, Hinkie might pick No. 1 overall and No. 60 overall. And that’s just this year.
2016 _ Sixers’ own No. 1 pick. The Nuggets’ No. 2 pick.
2017 _ Sixers’ own No. 1 pick, y nada mas. But give Hinkie time.
2018 _ Sixers’ own No. 1 pick. The better of Brooklyn or Cleveland’s second-round pick; the better of the Knicks’ or Clippers’ second-round pick.
2019 _ Sixers own No. 1 pick. The Knicks’ second-round pick. The better of the Bucks’ or the Kings’ second-round pick.
2020 _ Sixers own No. 1 pick. The Nets’ second-round pick.

There are hoarders profiled on reality TV who do not have this amount of stuff stashed away.

Let’s run down the rest of today’s deals, in the order in which they were learned.

Sixers acquire JaVale McGee from Nuggets along with Oklahoma City’s first-round pick (Top 16 protected) and the draft rights to F Chukwudiebere Maduabum for the draft rights to Cenk Akyol.

Somebody has to pay McGee, and the Sixers have to pay somebody. They are doing it this year with Jason Richardson and Luc Richard Mbah a Moute. If they get this pick, they will have three of the top 17 picks, plus they’ll own the second round. And in case you are wondering, no, I have never met or spoken to Sam Hinkie. But I should negotiate his next contract.

Wizards acquire Andre Miller from the Sacramento Kings for Ramon Sessions. 

Look, Miller wasn’t going to help Washington down the stretch in the event John Wall gets injured, or even in the few minutes each game when Wall is getting a breather. Miller was a very nice NBA player back in 2002 when Karl coached him on Team USA. But that was 2002. Miller isn’t going to do bupkus to make Karl’s Kings any better. Now in his eighth season, Sessions now becomes a member of his eighth NBA team.

Portland acquires Arron Afflalo and Alonzo Gee from the Nuggets for Thomas Robinson, Victor Claver, Will Barton, a future lottery-protected first-round pick and a second-round pick. If the first-rounder is not conveyed by 2017, it becomes two second-round picks. 

It seems to me that Neil Olshey could have gotten Wilson Chandler for this package of rejects and misfits, but hey, the guy still came away with something to give Portland some depth on the wings, where Wes Mathews leads the NBA in 3-pointers but is putting a ton of miles on his odometer, and where Nicolas Batum has somehow managed to regress (Both Mathews and Batum are averaging 34 minutes per game).  The West’s third-best team now has some options behind those guys, adding to the depth they possess at center with Chris Kaman and Meyers Leonard. Guess we have to stop saying they are the NBA’s least-deep team.

Brooklyn acquires Thaddeus Young from Minnesota for Kevin Garnett

Well, we all get to hear Garnett blather on and on again about he was always all about ‘Sota. Gimme a break. What this trade means is that the Nets surrendered three first-round picks and the right to swap a fourth for Thaddeus Young. Now, that being said, Young will be a more productive player for the Nets over the remainder of this season than Garnett was in his entire year and a half stint in Brooklyn. But when they write the definitive book about worst trades ever, there will be a picture of KG on the cover — or a picture of Danny Ainge with a Cheshire Cat grin. Get this: Among Garnett’s teammates when he was a rookie in Minnesota were Sam Mitchell and Terry Porter, now combined to appear to be 115 years old. And Andrew Wiggins now will go down in NBA lore as a player who was a teammate, however briefly, of LeBron James and KG.

Oklahoma City acquires Enes Kanter and Steve Novak from Utah in a three-team trade sending Kyle Singler and D.J. Augustin to Oklahoma City, Reggie Jackson to Detroit and Kendrick Perkins to Utah.

Pardon me for tooting my own horn, but I called this one on Tuesday. To me, it made so much more sense for the Thunder to go after Kanter than Brook Lopez, who has a player option for next season and could have become a rental. Kanter and Steven Adams now give OKC a duo of big men they can keep for the long-term; Jackson gets to show his value (he believes he is a max player) under Stan Van Gundy — without Augustin lurking in the wings, and Kendrick moves to the top of the Most Likely to Take a Buyout list. Excellent trade for Sam Presti, who is desperate to win a championship this season or next season in order to convince Kevin Durant to stick around long term. He just picked up two shooters, a backup PG and a center. Wow.

Miami acquires Goran Dragic and Zoran Dragic from Phoenix in exchange for two No. 1 draft picks, Danny Granger and Justin Hamilton.

Pat Riley gave up the proverbial bag of hammers for a guy who was third-team all-NBA last season and whose agent, Billy Duffy, pulled off a remarkable power play by insisting Dragic would only sign long-term with the Knicks, Lakers and Heat. Miami owes its No. 1 pick this season (top 10 protected) to Philadelphia, but this move should put the Heat in the playoffs and ensure that the future No. 1s go to Phoenix in 2017 and 2019. Dragic can get a four-year max deal in Miami that will have female Slovenian journalists flocking to South Beach. And that is a good thing. But by the latter half of this decade when those picks are being conveyed, nobody will be touching the Sixers. Mark my words.

Milwaukee acquires Michael Carter-Williams, Miles Plumlee and Tyler Ennis from Phoenix in a three-team deal sending Brandon Knight to the Suns and the Lakers’ No. 1 draft pick (top 5 protected in 2015) to the Sixers.

Every year there is a deal that goes down at the last minute that makes you scream “Damn” out loud, and this one did it this year. The Bucks were a very nice team with Knight, but he will be a restricted free agent at the end of the season, and they’ve swapped him out for a guy who has been flirting with triple-doubles nearly every night for the wretched Sixers. They also get Plumlee, who can replace Larry Sanders, and a Ennis was a pretty highly touted PG coming out of Syracuse before he became the fourth wheel in Phoenix behind Eric Bledsoe and the now-departed Isaiah Thomas and Goran Dragic. The Suns are now going to have to max out Knight for four years, and frankly I liked them better before. The big winner here is in the short term is Milwaukee. Long term, it is Philly.

Houston acquires Pablo Prigioni from New York for Alexey Shved a pair of second-round draft picks in 2017 and 2019.

Hey, wait a minute … did Phil Jackson just make a nice trade? Sure seems that way. Prigioni was worthless to the Knicks, whose previous regimes had traded away every second-round draft pick between now and 2019. Can’t understand why Rockets GM Daryl Morey didn’t opt instead for Jose Calderon, who is making 3s at a 43 percent clip and would have been a perfect addition to the league leaders in 3-point attempts. Another busy day for Morey, but should we expect any less from the likes of him and Hinkie?

Celtics acquires Isaiah Thomas from Phoenix and Jonas Jerebko and Luigi Datome from Pistons for Marcus Thornton and Cleveland’s 2016 first-round draft pick (to Suns) and Tayshaun Prince (to Pistons).

Has any team in playoff position ever shaken things up to the degree the Suns did today? The new backcourt is Brandon Knight and Eric Bledsoe, and Thornton might actually have some value now. The guy has been rotting on the vine for two years now. As for the Celtics, hey, if they weren’t going to be able to get Dragic, at least they got a heckuva point guard with a nice contract that declines in value each year. You knew Ainge was going to turn one of his bushelful of first-rounders into a real player. Now he’s done it. Kudos. There is a reason why his colleagues consider him perhaps the best GM in the business. The Cleveland pick in 2016 might be No. 30 overall. As for the Pistons acquiring Prince, it will further the conspiracy theory that if you are a European player and you are working under a coach named Van Gundy, he is predisposed to dislike you.

Rockets acquire K.J. McDaniels from Sixers for Isaiah Canaan and a second-round draft pick.

There has to be more here than meets the eye. McDaniels was having a nice season in Philly. I guess somebody has to play PG in Philly, and Tim Frazier wasn’t cutting it. Trick now is to finish behind the Knicks for worst record in the NBA. As for the Rockets, they picked up a nice young player who is fourth in our current Rookie Rankings. He’ll help more than Prigioni.

Chris Sheridan is publisher and editor in chief of SheridanHoops.com. Follow him on Twitter.