1 Trade That Makes Too Much Sense for the Sixers

The Utah Jazz pulled off a blockbuster trade Tuesday by sending Walter Clayton Jr., Taylor Hendricks, Kyle Anderson, Georges Niang and three future first-round picks to the Memphis Grizzlies for Jaren Jackson Jr., Jock Landale, John Konchar and Vince Williams Jr.

According to Tony Jones of The Athletic, the Jazz now plan to "build a dynamic frontcourt around Jackson, Lauri Markkanen and Walker Kessler." What's less clear is if Landale is in their long-term plans as well. The 30-year-old is on an expiring contract and is set to become an unrestricted free agent this summer.

If the Jazz aren't committed to keeping Landale, the Sixers should call them between now and Thursday's trade deadline. He could help the Sixers solve two problems at once.

Why Landale should be on the Sixers' radar

Before he got traded to Utah, Landale was on our initial list of Sixers trade targets. The 30-year-old played an unexpectedly large role for Memphis this year with second-year center Zach Edey sidelined for most of the season, and he took advantage of that opportunity.

Prior to this season, Landale had started only 11 games across his first four years in the NBA. This year alone, he's started 25. He's averaging career highs in points (11.3), rebounds (6.5), assists (1.7), made three-pointers (1.1) and steals (0.6) in only 23.6 minutes per game, and he's shooting 51.4 percent overall and 38.0 percent from deep.

If the Sixers do trade Andre Drummond to get under the $187.9 million luxury-tax threshold, they'll need another big man, if only for the games that Joel Embiid doesn't play. Landale could be the solution.

The trade

Sixers get: Jock Landale

Jazz get: Andre Drummond, 2028 Warriors second-round pick

Landale is on a one-year, veteran-minimum contract, so he's earning roughly $2.3 million this year. Drummond is earning $5 million flat. A straight one-for-one swap would shave roughly $2.7 million off the Sixers' payroll, which would leave them roughly $1.44 million below the luxury-tax line and $3.6 million below the apron.

We recently estimated that it will cost the Sixers roughly $1.425 million to convert Jabari Walker and Dominick Barlow from two-way deals to standard contracts, provided that both are willing to except a rest-of-season minimum contract. The Sixers also wouldn't convert Barlow until March 3, when his 50-game limit runs out.

Flipping Drummond for Landale would leave them just enough room under the tax to convert both without going back over. If they also salary-dumped Eric Gordon to open another roster spot, they'd be well below the tax line.

So, that's the rationale from the Sixers' perspective. They'd flip Drummond for a replacement big man while ducking the tax. If it only costs them one second-round pick to pull it off, that's a far better use of resources than burning two just to salary-dump KJ Martin at last year's trade deadline.

The Jazz are under the apron, so they're allowed to take back 200 percent of the salary they send out in a trade, plus $250,000. Unfortunately, since Landale is only making $2.3 million, they couldn't take back more than roughly $4.85 million via a standard trade exception.

Luckily, there's a way around that.

The Jazz already spent a majority of their $14.1 million non-taxpayer mid-level exception to acquire Anderson via trade this past offseason, so they don't have enough left over to absorb Drummond into. However, the Jazz do still have $18.4 million of their John Collins trade exception left. They could absorb Drummond into that and still have $13.4 million left to play with between now and July 7.

Would one second-round pick be enough to convince the Jazz to eat into that trade exception? What if they were able to re-route Drummond for additional assets elsewhere? (Indiana, perhaps?)

Either way, a Drummond-for-Landale swap would not only give the Sixers additional insurance at center for whenever Embiid misses time, but it would also help them get out of luxury-tax territory. As long as the Jazz don't demand VJ Edgecombe or Jared McCain as part of the deal, it'd be worth spending one or two second-round picks to swing a trade like this.

Unless otherwise noted, all stats via NBA.com, PBPStats, Cleaning the Glass or Basketball Reference. All salary information via Spotrac and salary-cap information via RealGM.

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