Just one crazy idea but first what I think is going on with the Pelicans trade, if that guy had any of it correct is Cronin negotiating the contingencies for the protections on the two first rounders. I'm betting that on the Lakers 2022 first, if it doesn't convey (which it won't) Cronin wants one of the three first rounders in 2024 and he should be willing to accept the worse of the Lakers and Milwaukee. If the Pelicans 2023 first doesn't convey he should accept the other of the two additional picks in 2024. That being said here is my crazy idea...
I know it almost has no possibility of working out because of all of the teams and moving parts but if we can work out something reasonable on what the concessions are if the supposed two firsts from NOLA aren't initially conveyed, then I think the Pistons part of the trade will be easy to get them to agree to, the Philly part really all rides on how they value Ant. Grant is a good piece, so if they project Ant as an all star and believe he gives them a much better chance than their current back court to win a chip, especially with that back court coming off the bench, then I think they'd pull the trigger... even though it means having to pay up this off season.
I won't get into what this means for NOLA because supposedly this is their offer. I'm not going to get into what it means for the Pistons because they get picks, are tanking and in the middle of a youth rebuild. I won't even get into what it means for our roster this season because guys are injured. The Sixers though would have a rotation of Ant, Thybulle, Grant, Harris, Embiid, Maxey, Seth, Green, Shake, Niange, Drummond and Korkmaz. That team is a lot better and deeper than what they have right now. Obviously they can't play all of those guys.
I will say that they should get this done as soon as possible because they should then trade Nurk for a better fitting piece but next season assuming we don't move Nurk we would have: Dame, Hart, Nas, Simmons, Nurk, Larry, Hayes, MLE, GB3, Johnson, Murphy and Reed under contract assuming we can keep Nurk.
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The follow up trade with Nurk is difficult to know what to do with. I know that Toronto is the team that has been most connected to him. We would likely waive Watanabe. Assuming we re-signed Boucher we would go into next season with: Dame, Hart, Nas, Simmons, Hayes, Boucher, Larry, MLE, Toronto FRP, Flynn, Murphy, Reed, Johnson and GB3 that's a full roster. Like I said, extremely unlikely but I do think that squad would be terrible for any team to have to deal with... so much shooting, so much defense, so much versatility and so much depth. An experienced rotation with a nice amount of young guys behind them.
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