We Can't Trade for Another Excuse This Year

Andrew Unterberger is a famous writer who invented the nickname 'Sauce Castillo' and writes for The Rights To Ricky Sanchez, as part of the 'If Not, Pick Will Convey As Two Second-Rounders' section of the site. You can follow Andrew on Twitter @AUGetoffmygold and can also read him at Billboard. 

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It's been fascinating listening to Mike and Spike backslide on Zach LaVine on the pod this past month. In November it was "no one-way players, no losers," and now every week, they're doing more and more Well If and OK But hedging about the possibility of bringing him on board. They're talking themselves into the idea, because it could be low-cost, because it could come as part of a bigger deal, because it could really kinda fit a need and because... well, it's Zach LaVine. Just a couple years ago, we would've contorted ourselves into a misshapen mess trying to make the case for him being a plausible target to bring over and pair with Joel Embiid. He's good. He's available. He's ever so tantalizing.

And to be fair to Mike and Spike, they're far from the only ones falling into old patterns with LaVine. Sixers Twitter is considering it. MOC is considering it. Hell, I'm considering it -- particularly after watching Tyrese Maxey struggle through a few Embiid-less games, and particularly when contemplating the Celtics and their absurd arsenal of offensive firepower. I think of LaVine torturing the Sixers over the years and just reverse the negative on the memory, and it looks pretty good. Embiid, Maxey and LaVine. I'd be scared if I was lining up on the other side. 

But ultimately I'm still against trading for LaVine -- even for cheap, even with other pieces coming our way, even with future flexibility maintained -- and I think we all should be, really. And that's because I can't stand the thought of bringing another player in who we may very well end up blaming if and when things go wrong in the playoffs, and then needing to figure out what to do with them in the summer. Not again. Not this year. 

For six years, Embiid has been saddled with a co-star who was near-pre-destined to pull up short in a playoff game. Every year we had a guy leading things from the backcourt whose entire postseason history was one of disappointment, one of their shit not working the way it did the regular season, one of them shrinking from the biggest moments at the worst times. And every year we still went into the playoffs going well... maybe this year it will be different. And every year -- with the exception of three James Harden miracles, which he would more than make up for with his later sins -- it was the same. 

And I don't think we were necessarily wrong to do it. That's sports a lot of the time: You have a lot of guys who have never done something, and your best hope is that they somehow still figure out a way to do it. And sometimes, it happens -- Dirk tears through the playoffs, Giannis shoots 17-19 from the FT line in Game Six, LeBron finally breaks the Celtics' spell over him in the conference finals. But after too long, you keep doing the same thing, the definition of insanity, blah blah blah. You gotta try something else besides Maybe This Year. 

And that's what these Sixers are set up to do. With this version of Embiid and Maxey, they have their best, most dynamic 1-2 of the Process era. There's no guarantee that it'll be good enough to get the Sixers to the next level -- and in truth, there's no guarantee that Maxey's production will be any better in his first real look as a main guy on a contending team. But from all indications with Maxey, we at least don't need to worry about him disappearing, about his game proving ill-suited for the playoffs, about him succumbing to the infamous Sixers playoff foe of loser energy. We'll bunker down with Embiid and Maxey, and if shit happens then shit happens, but at least we (hopefully) won't feel like assholes for following these guys to the end in the first place. 

Does Zach LaVine have loser energy? I couldn't say. It might not even be fair to compare him to James Harden and Ben Simmons when those guys' playoff reps have been earned over a combined 35 playoff series and LaVine has played in all of one. But... playing a decade in the league, with at least five years as a legitimate top-two option and borderline All-Star, and only having five total playoff games to show for it? Not a great sign. And the Bulls going 9-4 this year without him after starting the season 5-14 with him? Also not a great sign. It doesn't mean he's doomed to never win anything meaningful -- and certainly Embiid and Maxey would be an absurdly significant upgrade over Nikola Vucevic and DeMar DeRozan in terms of co-stars -- but it does mean he's sorta in loser-until-proven-winner territory as a player. 

Darryl Morey might still think the calculated risk to roll the dice on him is worthwhile given the upside, and he wouldn't necessarily be wrong. But this year, I find it unacceptable. We've waited a long time for a Sixers team like this one, and we need to see how far it can go. We need to see what it looks like when Embiid enters the playoffs with a true supporting co-star, someone unquestionably lower than him in the pecking order who won't poison the vibes when things get tough. We need to know that whatever happens, it's on our guys -- not a guy who we just traded for a few months ago and have built no level of trust with, not a guy who might not be here six months later if we decide it wasn't really the right fit to begin with. 

This is about Zach LaVine, but it's not really about Zach LaVine. It's about holding strong to the principles and goals we set out at the beginning of the season, once it became clear that this team was going to be legitimately competitive in a way beyond what we anticipated without Harden. And those were about letting this year play out with Embiid, Maxey, a good supporting cast and better vibes and just seeing what happens. Maybe it falls apart in the second round again, but if it ends in a way where we can look at our two guys after the series and say we trust you with the future of this team, that would still make it our most successful postseason since at least 2019. And if they belly-flop in those roles... well, that'll stink out loud, but it's better we know that to be the case sooner than later. At least there'll be nobody else to blame it on, and there'll be some small degree of comfort in that too. 

You might counter that protecting the sanctity of our two-man core over the chance to go into the playoffs with as talented a roster as possible is, in itself, loser behavior. Certainly arguable, but I'm not saying the Sixers shouldn't try to make any kind of trades to improve the roster this season -- just ones that address the 3-9 spots in the rotation without potentially disrupting the 1-2, as it usually does when you add a guy who averaged over 27 a game in the recent past. Frankly, as much as it seems like we need a major offensive threat, I'm not sure that we really do -- we've had a top three offense pretty much all year, and the most explosive third option on a title-winning team this decade has been Jrue Holiday. There are upgrades to be made for sure, just not ones that could potentially alter the team's DNA. 

Not this season anyway. If the Sixers want to wait out the Zach LaVine sweepstakes and potentially re-enter them next summer if the Bulls don't find a buyer (or said buyer has remorse), that's fine. If at that point they decide they want to trade for any of the league's highest-paid, highest-upside losers -- LaVine, Bradley Beal, even Karl-Anthony Towns -- I'll at least entertain the notion. But this year, both team and fanbase deserve a chance to see how this thing goes with it all being on Joel and Tyrese. And then maybe we can even have an offseason where our biggest addition won't be made via subtraction.