NBA rumors: 5 sensible Ben Simmons trades

Sacramento Kings

Sacramento is the most recent entrant into the Simmons sweepstakes, even going so as far as to leak their strategy to the press. Marc Stein first leaked the Kings’ interest in Simmons, but according to Jason Anderson of The Sacramento Bee, their original intent was to offer Marvin Bagley III and Buddy Hield for Simmons.

Yeah. Okay.

Anyway, Anderson also reported that Philly would only do business with Sacramento if De’Aaron Fox or Tyrese Haliburton were involved in the deal. Fox is almost certainly off the table, per Anderson.

Fox should be off the table for a Simmons trade; it’s nonsensical for both sides, but especially for the Kings. They push their timeline ahead a year but don’t get any better by doing it, while the Sixers would still face structural issues with a Fox-Embiid tandem.

That leaves Haliburton, who isn’t nearly enough of a return for the Sixers. Even when combining some of the other Sac-town salaries with Haliburton’s, a combination of Harrison Barnes, Delon Wright, Bagley and/or Hield doesn’t inspire confidence in terms of getting a deal done.

However, those contracts could be used to get what the Sixers want. Wright and Bagley’s deals are expiring and combine for $19.8 million, which is almost exactly what Zach LaVine of the Chicago Bulls makes. LaVine is an unrestricted free agent next summer, and with an extension unlikely to be agreed upon now (LaVine can make a lot more money if he waits until next year), the Bulls may not be comfortable with the uncertainty of it all. After all, this is a brand new front office (led by Arturas Karnisovas) that didn’t sign LaVine.

LaVine is the exact type of player the Sixers can get excited about. He can get his own shot, is a very good shooter off the ball, an excellent slasher thanks to his world-class athleticism and bounce, and consistently improves in the weak areas of his game. He’s a far better defender than he was in Minnesota, and he’s become a passable playmaker (no pun intended) when asked to run the offense. Everything points upwards for LaVine if he can get to the right situation.

What the Bulls would ask for in a LaVine trade is a complete unknown — they may even want Simmons directly, a swap that was first proposed by John Hollinger of The Athletic — but any team trading a good player on an expiring deal is likely doing so in search of certainty. Controllability. Picks may not be too appealing either, given that they just traded two first-rounders for Nikola Vucevic. They’re in win-now mode, but also have to mitigate for the variance surrounding their star.

Haliburton presents a nice middle ground, a plug-and-play guard who still has three years of control left before restricted free agency. Combined with the ninth overall pick, that’s a pretty good return package for an expiring contract. Should No. 9 not be satisfactory for the win-now Bulls, they can certainly reroute it for a good player that better fits their timeline.

Also: Indiana Pacers get No. 9 overall pick (via SAC), Shake Milton, Marvin Bagley III, Delon Wright

The Indiana Pacers get involved here in lieu of their own personal Simmons interest (more on that in a second). They hit the reset button and maximize Brogdon’s value, with the expectation that a Domantas Sabonis or Myles Turner trade is nigh.

The Kings essentially give up Haliburton and 9 for Simmons, which is an okay value proposition given how intent they are on keeping their starting lineup intact. The Sixers flip Simmons for LaVine, using Milton as a sweetener, and get back Thaddeus Young to make the money work. The Bulls are probably the biggest winners here, getting Haliburton and Brogdon for LaVine.