Things have gone pretty well for the Philadelphia 76ers this season. Despite the fact that the team had to figure things out on the fly following James Harden’s trade to the Los Angeles Clippers, Philly sits in third place in the Eastern Conference with a 19-8 record and have the best point differential in the league by some margin, all while Tyrese Maxey is turning into one of the brightest young stars in the NBA and Joel Embiid is playing better than he did during his MVP campaign last year.
From the moment the Harden trade happened, one major question that popped up around the team is whether they’d be able to take what they got back and turn all of that into another star. Their success has put those questions on the back burner, but according to Shams Charania, Philly is still keeping tabs on the market and has particularly kept an eye on a pair of players: Chicago Bulls guard Zach LaVine and Toronto Raptors forward O.G. Anunoby.
"Zach LaVine, OG Anunoby, those are two names to keep an eye on as guys that Philadelphia has monitored."@ShamsCharania on the Sixers monitoring the marketplace.
📺: https://t.co/wdT8I0ST8g pic.twitter.com/exXkQINeYh
— Run It Back (@RunItBackFDTV) December 21, 2023
LaVine is a tricky nut to crack, because while both he and the Bulls are apparently open to a change in scenery, the team has won seven of the 10 games they’ve played ever since he’s been sidelined with a foot injury, and the market for his services does not seem to be particularly robust. At his best, LaVine — who might be open to a move to Philadelphia — can provide another scoring punch and some shooting to stretch the floor around Embiid, and he is under contract for the next few years, although it’s worth wondering how he would fit alongside Maxey and if it’s worth acquiring a player who would take the ball out of the hands of the Sixers’ two stars.
Anunoby would not need the ball nearly as much, as he is the exact sort of wing that every team covets right now. Anunoby is one of the best perimeter defenders in the league, hits 37.2 percent of his 6.3 attempts from three a game, and would give Philly a hand-in-glove fit alongside their two stars. Plus as an added bonus, he played under current Sixers coach Nick Nurse in Toronto. It’s unclear if Toronto, which is known for driving a hard bargain and has reportedly turned down lucrative offers for him in the past, is willing to move on from Anunoby, who is also slated to become an unrestricted free agent at the end of this season if he declines the player option in his contract.
