The past has a way of forecasting the future, and that certainly applies within the world of NBA team-building. An overwhelming majority of the league’s significant roster changes occur within the week of February’s trade deadline and the stretch in which June’s NBA Draft bleeds into free agency. That has organically split the calendar into two effective periods for team executives to tweak here and deal there, with leftovers from the previous negotiating table resurfacing at the next meal. Predicting that upcoming menu can be an exercise as simple as spotting what’s left for the taking.
The Sixers, once upon a time, attempted to move Ben Simmons for James Harden in January 2021, only for Simmons to request a trade from Philadelphia when his representation met with team officials at the NBA Draft Combine.