Sixers' Justification for Controversial Trade Isn't Holding Up

If there's one thing the Sixers have been elite at in recent years, it's getting under the luxury-tax threshold at the NBA trade deadline.

Last year, they spent two second-round picks to salary dump KJ Martin in what amounted to a complete and total waste of resources. This season, they sent Jared McCain to the Oklahoma City Thunder for a late 2026 first-round pick and three future second-rounders without taking any salary back.

In their defense, the Sixers weren't the only team to duck the tax at the deadline this year. The Boston Celtics' tax-ducking maneuvers took multiple months to pull off. Other teams swung minor salary-shedding deals at the deadline to get below the tax line, including the Denver Nuggets, Phoenix Suns and Orlando Magic.

None of those teams traded a promising second-year player to get under the tax, though.

While team president Daryl Morey is convinced that the Sixers sold high on McCain, the draft picks weren't the only reason why they made that trade.

"The CBA pressures were felt up and down the league," he told reporters in his post-trade deadline press conference. "To do the [Dominick] Barlow move, to get him on a good, long-term deal because of the first apron, we had to do moves to create that opportunity. But that was the primary reason for the Jared deal."

To be clear: Based on the Sixers' ensuing moves, the first apron had zero bearing on why they traded McCain. It was a tax dump, plain and simple.

Coincidence? Hardly

After signing Barlow to a two-year, $6.8 million contract and signing both Cam Payne and Jabari Walker to rest-of-season minimum deals, the Sixers are now roughly $165,000 below the luxury tax. They now have 15 players on standard contracts, so this should be it for their roster this season.

Do you think it's a coincidence that they finished that close to the tax line? Or, knowing what they needed for Barlow, did they have to work backward to plot out what moves they had to make at the trade deadline?

If they knew Barlow was getting an above-minimum contract, that changed how much salary they had to move to ensure they could finish below the luxury tax. The Sixers and Barlow's camp might not have settled on the exact specifics until after the trade deadline, but the Sixers presumably went into the deadline with that ballpark in mind.

Morey did say the Sixers hoped to sign Barlow to a longer-term contract, which would have required them to use the non-taxpayer mid-level exception. Had they done that, they would have been hard-capped at the $195.9 million first apron.

Either way, that ultimately would have been a non-issue. They're currently $2.3 million below the first apron after filling out their whole roster.

The Sixers presumably used the taxpayer MLE to sign Barlow, so they still have nearly $1 million of it left. (It began prorating downward by roughly $32,000 per day starting on Jan. 10.) They could have used the rest of it on Barlow or to sign an impactful buyout player.

But rather wait out the slow-developing buyout market, the Sixers instead signed Cam Payne and converted Jabari Walker from a two-way deal to a standard contract. Why? Because spending the remainder of the taxpayer MLE would have put them right back over the luxury-tax line.

The first apron isn't why the Sixers traded McCain. The luxury tax was.

Was the McCain trade an obvious mistake?

The tax isn't the only reason why the Sixers swung that trade, though. Morey said the front office felt that the package they received for him "sets us up better to set up the team in the future better."

If McCain returns to his rookie-year form in OKC, that stance will age like spoiled milk. Watching him score a team-high 21 points in 23 minutes against the Brooklyn Nets on Friday night—one day before the Sixers' bench combined for 31 points in an inexcusable loss to the New Orleans Pelicans—isn't helping on that front.

But thanks to the emergence of VJ Edgecombe, McCain effectively had no pathway to a starting spot in Philly. If he topped out as a high-end backup with the Sixers, that could have limited what they landed for him in an eventual trade.

"Our path here is a little bit muted relative to where his path could be on another team," Morey added. "It would be hard to get to starter quality, which is the return we got."

So, two things can both be true:

The Sixers genuinely believe they sold high on McCain.
The Sixers were motivated to make that trade so they could duck the tax.

The first is defensible, albeit arguable. The second is reflective of the pressures of the aprons era, but the Sixers didn't have to get under the tax.

Boston and Phoenix ducked the tax in an attempt to reset the repeater-tax clock. The Magic ducked it because they're about to be in apron prison starting next year. The Sixers haven't paid the tax since 2021-22.

Even if the Sixers had finished in the tax this year, they couldn't be subject to the repeater tax until 2028-29 at the absolute earliest. By that point, Paul George's contract will have expired, and Joel Embiid will be on an expiring deal.

Besides, the league's latest CBA made the first two tax brackets less punitive than they were before, at least for teams that aren't in the repeater tax. The Sixers' tax bill would have been miniscule this year, although they would have forfeited their payout from the taxpaying teams had they finished over the tax line this year, too.

The tax and apron concerns aren't going away for the Sixers as long as they have all three of Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey and Paul George on max contracts. Unless the bottom falls out on Kelly Oubre Jr. and/or Quentin Grimes' free-agent markets this offseason, it'll be tricky for the Sixers to re-sign both of them and stay below the tax.

Not to worry, though. They can use the three second-round picks that they got in the McCain deal to facilitate another tax dump at next year's trade deadline.

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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