3 reasons the Philadelphia 76ers won’t make any NBA Trade Deadline moves
By Josh Wilson
Could a trade really fix road issues?
The truth is, the Sixers are a great team. It just so happens that they are only a great team at home. The Sixers have a league-leading record of 22-2 at home, but a pitiful 9-18 record on the road.
The Sixers have a net rating of 10.0 at home (third in the NBA) and -4.8 on the road (23rd in the NBA on the road).
Home is comfortable. Playing on the road is hard. This is true for all 30 teams in the NBA, not just the Sixers.
Let’s think critically about this for a second and consider whether or not a trade fixes the issue.
Here is where the Sixers home numbers rank among all NBA teams at home:
- 48.3 percent from the field (fourth in the NBA on home floor)
- 46.8 rebounds per game (eighth in NBA at home)
- 27.0 assists per game (fourth in NBA at home)
- 14.8 turnovers per game (15th in NBA at home)
Sure, a big swing, if the Sixers were able to swing a deal without giving up key components, would help them in their strive for greatness, but the alternative is they maintain their group and move forward as-is.
If we approached this blindly and were shown a team that puts up a net rating good for third in the NBA at home, shoots the fourth-best field goal percentage and has the fourth-best per game assist rate in the NBA on their home floor, you’d probably suggest they have all the tools to make wins happen in any city in the world.
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That’s probably right. Does swapping out Al Horford for David Bertans — I’m not proposing that as a trade, but that might be what the incoming and outcoming looks like for the Sixers in a multi-team trade — help the Sixers fix all of their road woes?
Unlikely.
A more pragmatic solution is that the road concerns are something the Philadelphia 76ers need to work through and get over, trade or not. Even if you can secure home-court advantage in the playoffs, you almost certainly will need to win on the road at least once.
Certainly, more talent helps teams avoid capricious performance trends based on location, but this Sixers team is not at all devoid of talent. And they sure aren’t bringing in a ton more talent than they’ll be sending out without attaching considerable draft capital or saying goodbye to a foundational piece of the roster as we discussed on the previous slide.
A trade is not the solution to the road losses which has been the biggest issue for Philadelphia.
I don’t know exactly what is. Here’s what Tobias Harris said on the issue recently to HoopsHabit:
"“It’s just a matter of us generating energy, and we realize though that on the road it’s tough to win. And you got to be really good, really locked in. Our defense has for sure slipped on the road, and our mental toughness has got to be better in road games,” Harris said. “That’s something that we will continue to grow on and get better at but it’s something that we’ve addressed as a team.”"
My modest suggestion: Maybe Matisse Thybulle has not been bringing enough biscuits to make traveling enjoyable.
The playoffs are also friendlier than the rigors of the regular season to teams with travel issues. The 2-2-1-1-1 format allows for at least one day of rest with no travel within the first four games of the series and at least a day off in between each of the final three games of the series where at least one of which will be played at home so long as the series goes to six games or more.