Philadelphia 76ers: 3 players most likely to be traded in 2018-19
By Simon Smith
After failing to land a significant name during free agency, here are the three players most likely to be traded in 2018-19 for the Philadelphia 76ers.
Following a 52-win season that culminated in a second round playoff exit at the hands of the Boston Celtics, there were high hopes within the Philadelphia 76ers that the recent free agency period would land them the requisite player capable of taking them to the next level.
Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case, as the likes of LeBron James and Paul George fielded offers elsewhere, leaving the Sixers’ re-signing of veteran shooting guard J.J. Redick as their only notable player activity. Not only did they come up short in the free agency stakes, they also lost a couple of their own in Marco Belinelli and Ersan Ilyasova during this period.
As a result, the Sixers had to find alternate ways in which to restore their roster, and did so with a pair of trades that landed them veteran forward Wilson Chandler and stretch-big Mike Muscala.
While they were also active at the draft, landing exciting prospect Zhaire Smith and a future first round pick as a result of a draft-night deal, this move is not expected to make an immediate difference to the fortunes of the franchise.
The 76ers starting 5 of Ben Simmons, JJ Redick, Robert Covington, Dario Saric & Joel Embiid was +268 in 600 minutes.
— Andy Bailey (@AndrewDBailey) April 12, 2018
2nd-best total in +/- belonged to the Jeff Teague/Jimmy Butler/Andrew Wiggins/Taj Gibston/Karl-Anthony Towns. +169 in 1,131 minutes.
That's a LARGE gap.
Entering the 2018-19 season, the Sixers will clearly be banking on their starting five of Joel Embiid, Ben Simmons, Robert Covington, Dario Saric and Redick, who excelled over the course of last season as a lineup in producing an elite net rating of +21.7 — the best return in the league among all five-man lineups that played at least 600 minutes.
However despite the incredible return of this quintet, almost no player is immune from trade talk. Furthermore, given the high expectations of the Sixers entering the upcoming season after their rapid improvement last year, future player movement certainly can’t be ruled out if things aren’t going quite as planned.
With this in mind, here are the three most tradable players on the Sixers’ roster entering the 2018-19 season.