Kings would get a fascinating project on a rookie contract (Fultz), a bonafide gonna-be superstar (Simmons) also still on his rookie deal and an expiring veteran (Muscala). Fultz gets back to the West Coast in a low-pressure media town; Simmons becomes the undisputed king of Kings, the centerpiece of the team for at least the next 5 years; Muscala walks next summer leaving that much more salary cap to dangle for free agents.
Going forward they'd have a core of Simmons, Fultz, Hield, and Bagley and they'd still have a pile of talented youngsters (Yogi Ferrell, Harry Giles, Justin Jackson, Frank Mason, Skal Labisserie) to fill out the roster. Next summer they'd have roughly $55m to offer for free agents: how about DeAndre Jordan, Nikola Mirotic and Tobias Harris to go with the youth? Or a collection of reasonably priced vets like Patrick Beverley, Ed Davis, Trey Lyles, Elfrid Peyton and Al-Farouk Aminu. The Kings don't have their draft pick for 2019 (1st or 2nd round, if I'm not mistaken), but after that they keep picks for the foreseeable future. This gives the Kings a legit star to build around going forward with an interesting collection of youth that can still bloom and a pile of money for free agents.
Sixers trade away two #1 picks (one a consensus superstar in the making, the other quickly becoming a cautionary tale) but get back a dynamic lovable PG (Fox), a DPOY-esque freak athlete to fit between Butler and Embiid (Cauley-Stein) and an under appreciated ball handler, playmaker and 3-point threat (Bogdanovic). This gives them a core of Fox, Reddick, Butler, Cauley-Stein, Embiid with McConnell, Bogdanovic, Korkmaz, Landry Shamet. Wilson Chandler and Amir Johnson coming off the bench.
In the off-season the first priority would be re-signing Butler, Cauley-Stein and McConnell (and possibly Justin Patton), but parting ways with Reddick, Johnson and Chandler would leave them with about $40 million to spend. They'd be a young team (not unlike the Kings) with a strong core of Fox/Butler/Embiid, a bench with McConnell, Cauley-Stein and Bogdanovic and a nice collection of youth (Shamet, Korkmaz, Zhaire Smith, Bolden, possibly Patton) on the bench.
You may think trading Simmons away is madness, but though he's already a terrific player, his lack of scoring is kinda frightening and I think Fox can be almost as good as Simmons (and probably even more fan-friendly) Bogdanovic and Cauley-Stein are both under appreciated; Fultz has to go and Muscala is not a building block, so those are basically sunk costs, adding Simmons brings back three young players that can thicken the Sixers rotation without skipping a beat.
Who says no to this deal?
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