76ers are reportedly out on Paul George and Zach LaVine, so who exactly is their primary offseason target?

The NBA Draft hasn’t even arrived yet and a handful of top Philadelphia 76ers are already seemingly off of the table. On Thursday, The Athletic’s Shams Charania reported that their interest in Paul George had waned in recent days. Kyle Neubeck of PHLY Sports reported that the 76ers aren’t interested in pursuing Zach LaVine either. 

Though he isn’t a star, the 76ers took a blow when the Bulls traded Alex Caruso to the Thunder. Caruso had frequently been mentioned as a Philadelphia trade target because of his low salary. In theory, an optimal offseason for them would have involved sending picks to Chicago for Caruso and then still fitting a max-salary free agent into their cap sheet. That option is off the table with Caruso gone. There simply aren’t other role players that are valuable in earning a low enough salary to make that plan possible. Even if there were, George is considered by many to be the best free agent that is truly available. If he’s out, mapping out Philadelphia’s offseason becomes a lot harder.

Of course, their general manager is Daryl Morey. That means mapping out their offseason is always going to be difficult. He has a bit of a history of pulling superstars out of thin air. It’s entirely possible that the 76ers think they have a path to a player we might not otherwise consider available to them, as he did when he landed Chris Paul in 2017. Nothing is off of the table for the 76ers.

And then, of course, there is the timing of this reporting. It would make no sense for the 76ers to leak. Even if it is true, Philadelphia should want the world to believe it is ready to offer George the max (and that he is ready to take it) because that is the leverage they can exert in negotiations elsewhere. The likeliest reason that this gets out probably has less to do with George than the rest of the field. If the 76ers have cooled on George, it’s probably because they think they have a path to someone else. The question here is who?

Two names come to mind here, at least at first glance. Dan Woike of the LA Times reported…

Source link : https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/76ers-are-reportedly-out-on-paul-george-and-zach-lavine-so-who-exactly-is-their-primary-offseason-target/

Author : Sam Quinn

Publish date : 2024-06-21 20:29:09

Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.