The Philadelphia 76ers haven’t looked like one of the Eastern Conference’s top teams to this point of the season, particularly when facing other squads expected to be contenders in the conference. Double-digit losses to Boston, Toronto, and Milwaukee have shown there is an apparent gap between the Sixers and those teams, and on Saturday, they decided to do something about it.
The Sixers traded Robert Covington, Dario Saric, and a 2022 second-round pick to the Minnesota Timberwolves for Jimmy Butler and Justin Patton, making a major swing at bringing in a third star that can elevate them to legitimate contender status this season and beyond — the two sides are reportedly expecting to agree to an extension this summer. The Wolves reset their timeline to be more in line with their two young stars and finally removed the Butler headache, but this trade is, chiefly, about the Sixers.
Adding Butler shows that the Philadelphia front office felt the team was not equipped to be a threat this season as constructed. There’s no doubt that Butler makes them better, but there are some questions about Philly’s depth as a result of this deal. Saric was off to a miserable start to the season, boasting one of the Sixers’ worst net ratings, but he was a key contributor a year ago, and when he’s right, he was a great frontcourt complement to Joel Embiid offensively. The bigger question is how they’ll adjust their wing rotation without Covington, who is their best wing defender and is a quality (albeit streaky) three-point shooter.
Butler coming on board further tilts the balance of this roster to the backcourt, with Ben Simmons, J.J. Redick, and Markelle Fultz, plus rookie Landry Shamet, who’s played significant minutes this season. Covington played 34 minutes per game for a reason: They didn’t have much behind him at the three. Butler can play some small forward, but their rotations will be fascinating to watch, because this team isn’t especially well-balanced and Brett Brown will have his work cut out for him in figuring out how to get creative with his substitutions and cross-matching on defense — having Ben Simmons who can guard wings and fours helps this.
That depth issue is the major concern, but Philadelphia has a roster spot open to make a midseason addition on the buyout market and will likely ramp up Wilson Chandler’s playing time as he gets healthy. As for the positives of this move, well, they’re the things that were immediately obvious upon learning it happened. The Sixers get a secondary creator alongside Simmons in the starting lineup, and more importantly, Butler is someone who can get his own shot and has the threat of a jumper, unlike Simmons and Fultz. Butler is shooting 37.8 percent from three-point range on the season, which would immediately make him one of the shooters on the Sixers.
While it will get interesting how Brown structures his rotations, there are opportunities to play small on the perimeter and force teams into some difficult matchups and decisions. Pairing Butler and Redick could help the latter shake out of his early season slump, as the sharpshooting vet is only hitting 34.5 percent of his three-pointers this season because there’s no one else to draw the defense’s attention on the perimeter. Butler can do that, and the Sixers ostensibly should see their 20th ranked offense improve with this addition.
On the defensive side, losing Covington hurts, but Butler is capable of making up for much of what’s lost on the perimeter. Also, just as importantly, Butler gets to join a team that has a defensive identity, as Philly is currently ranked 10th in the league in defensive rating. This figures to keep him happier than in Minnesota, where he would get endlessly frustrated by the lack of effort from his young co-stars. Simmons and Embiid are young and will make mistakes, as we saw in last year’s playoffs, but their effort and abilities on the defensive end are rarely — if ever — in question, which should make for a better relationship between Butler and the young stars in Philly compared to the rocky relationships he had with Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins.
The question is where does this place them in relation to the top of the East. This certainly puts them in the conversation again with Boston, Toronto, and Milwaukee, but all three of those teams have stars on the wing that figure to ask a lot of Philadelphia’s thin wing rotation. There’s little doubt this improves the Sixers’ prospects of possibly getting to the Finals, but it’s hard not to think they’ll need to make another move to address depth before getting discussed as a favorite in the East.
