76ers eligible to make major trades following important deadline

With their season slipping away, the Philadelphia 76ers have been urged to make some trades. That is perfectly reasonable, but certain restrictions held them back from trading players like KJ Martin.

Because of rules with the NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement, Martin could not be traded at the same time as some of the other free agents who signed with the Sixers. They became trade-eligible on December 15 because they were unrestricted free agents. However, that’s not a problem anymore.

ESPN’s Bobby Marks revealed that the Sixers can trade Martin now that it’s January 15. They also can technically trade Tyrese Maxey, but it’s fair to suggest that they won’t do that.

Martin’s appeal as a trade asset goes without saying. He is in the first year of a two-year, $16 million contract, the second year of which is completely non-guaranteed.

Now that he’s trade-eligible, the Sixers have until Feb. 6 to decide what they want to do with him.

But should the Sixers trade him?

Enough time has passed that the Sixers have to ponder if their best move is to trade him or to see if they’re better off moving him in the offseason.

While they have done somewhat better after their bad start, the Sixers are still the No. 11 seed in the Eastern Conference. Expecting them to catch their strongest competitors in the conference when they’re still struggling with injuries is unrealistic at this point. If the Sixers were higher in the standings, this would be an easy move to make, but they’re not.

So if they decide that it’s not worth it to make a playoff push, there may not be much incentive to trade Martin during the regular season as much as there would be during the offseason.

76ers team president Daryl Morey is one to make moves that no one sees coming. Keeping Martin around could give him more options to make a move like that in the offseason.

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