After the Sixers' Christmas Day win over the Knicks, a Tobias Harris trade rumor emerged while you were guzzling egg nog or taking some time with the family (or perhaps doing both at the same time). According to Ian Begley of SNY, the Knicks have tossed around the idea of going after Harris, who is in the midst of a good year for Philly.
Here's what Begley had to say on Christmas:
One thing worth noting on the trade front, the Knicks have at least talked internally about the idea of acquiring Tobias Harris via trade before their winning streak started. And obviously, Harris, having a nice game against the Knicks on Christmas day, Tom Thibodeau spoke highly of him before the game. So that's just one name to keep an eye on...I know that he does have some fans in the organization, he's making a lot of money, it would be a big trade to pull off salary wise, but it's at least something the Knicks have kicked around internally prior to this past winning streak. [SNY]
Begley is plugged in when it comes to the Knicks, so no reason to doubt this is true. That leaves us with two main sticking points — where are the Sixers at with regard to the trade market, and do the Knicks make sense as a trade partner?
After making some check-ins on Christmas Day in the wake of the James Harden news, my takeaway (for the moment) is that the Sixers are not especially close to making a move of significance at the moment. Some of that comes down to the team's salary structure, which features a gaggle of players on small contracts alongside a few highly-paid players (Harris being one of them). De'Anthony Melton and P.J. Tucker are the only guys on contracts you could call "mid-sized" and they're each relatively unlikely to be moved right now for different reasons, with Melton growing in stature and Tucker struggling out of the gate for the Sixers.
That said, I don't believe anyone on the roster is a true untouchable save for Joel Embiid and Harden. Tyrese Maxey skews much closer to that designation than most of the roster, and the Sixers are excited to be getting him back as soon as this Friday against New Orleans. But if a golden deal for an in-their-prime star were to drop out of the sky, and Maxey was the player that made the difference, I suspect the Sixers would at least give the thought some consideration.
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In any case, Harris is decidedly not one of those two tentpole stars, and as we've discussed here previously, his inflated salary makes him a prime candidate for trade rumors, even if those all come from outside the house. But tying Harris to the Knicks actually helps us make another point — Harris has almost certainly moved out of "trade him just to trade him" territory, making it necessary to scrutinize any potential deal he'd be included in.
For example, the guys at the top of the salary sheet for New York are:
- Jalen Brunson — Not getting traded to Philly, not a fit in Philly
- Julius Randle — Not a good fit in Philly, which we'll touch on below
- Evan Fournier — Basically just a salary-matching piece at this point
- Mitchell Robinson — $17 million for a backup to Joel Embiid, lol
Throw out Brunson and focus on Randle for a second. He has been in a good run of form recently, but he is not at all what the Sixers need in a complementary player alongside the likes of Embiid and Harden. He has been a mid-to-high volume shooter for the last few years, and only has one good three-point shooting year to point to in his career, his 2020-21 All-Star season that got him his current contract. Otherwise, the numbers say (and say loudly) that he is a below-average shooter, a player whose value grows the more touches you can give him on offense. It's not to say Randle is untalented, but there are fair questions to ask about how he scales on a team with multiple ball-dominant stars.
Those same questions might have been asked about Harris prior to Harden's arrival, but he has answered them this season, Harris turning in an excellent season from deep in a fill-in-the-gaps role that many wanted him to play for a long time. When the Sixers have been down starters, Harris has also proven capable of stepping back into a central role, combining his off-ball shooting with the mid-post scoring and transition play that defined his tenure before this year. In other words, Philadelphia has gotten the best of both worlds, which makes you think a lot less about what he's making and more about his usefulness to the team.
Last season, a Harris for multiple role players deal would have made sense if Philadelphia could have made one, as it would have (theoretically) returned players more comfortable in the role they had asked Harris to play. What's the justification for that now? Harris has settled in and produced within the exact role you'd hope to slot a role player into, and unless a returning player was a monumental upgrade on defense, where Harris has been pretty good over the last nine months, you'd be shuffling pieces around for the sake of doing so.
If the Knicks were desperate to get Harris and willing to turn this into a larger, multi-team trade in order to make that happen, maybe you could find a path to a deal that works for Philadelphia. But as we get closer to the end of Harris' contract — he's owed roughly $39.3 million in the final year of his deal next season — moving money around becomes a much smaller priority, at least in-season. If the Sixers needed to move Harris' money for free-agency purposes this offseason, that's the sort of trade they would make after the year is over and their pursuit of a championship has either succeeded or failed.
Put it this way: it's nice to be able to discuss potential trade partners for the on-court merit of a move, and not just as salary-dumping grounds. I don't see it with the Knicks, and I think that will be the case for many other potential Harris partners.
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