Here's a little experiment of mine. Each Wednesday "Wednesday GM" will appear on Liberty Ballers and it will be a weekly platform for me, and you to weigh in on some options the Sixers have in regards to tweaking the team. Every Wednesday I'll conjure up a transaction I'd the like to see the Sixers make and explain why it would work. Some trades may be more realistic than others, so bare with me. With that said, let Wednesday GM begin...
Philadelphia 76ers
Incoming Players
PTS: 3.5 REB: 1.8 AST: 1.8 PER: 9.84
PTS: 3.0 REB: 0.0 AST: 0.0 PER: -1.86
Outgoing Players: Reggie Evans
Los Angeles Lakers
Incoming Players
PTS: 2.1 REB: 4.0 AST: 0.4 PER: 9.44
Outgoing Players: Luke Walton, Sun Yue
Why the Lakers do it: The Lakers lack a tough post player, a player that comes off the bench and battles. All great teams have one and the Lakers had one last year in Ronny Turiaf. This year they don't and it doesn't help that their two stud big men are a little softer than you would like. Don't get me wrong, Pau Gasol is a fantastic player, but he just doesn't have that Reggie Evans, Ronny Turiaf, Dennis Rodman, Leon Powe-type toughness to him. As for Andrew Bynum, he's also a talented player, but I think he's gone from an underrated player with huge upside to an overrated player. The jury is still out on whether he can handle the hectic atmosphere in the post during an intense playoff game and the Lakers are going to be in quite a few of those in the coming months.
Enter Reggie Evans. He sucks on offense. He couldn't hit a jumper to save his life, unless it's a clutch free throw line fadeaway against the Pistons in the playoffs. He's a horrible free throw shooter. But the Lakers don't need any of that, especially with such a deep bench. They need a player who's willing to come in and battle in the post and energize the crowd. That's Reggie Evans. Trevor Ariza often fills the energizer role for them, but Reggie wouldn't hurt. He'd probably play sparingly for the Lakers, but he fills more of a need than Luke Walton does at this point and when you have such a deep team, minor moves like this might not seem meaningful, but often are. How important were Leon Powe and P.J. Brown to the Celtics run last season?
Why the Sixers do it: We are all aware of the Sixers shooting problems. Luke Walton shoots 33.5% from behind the arc for his career which would put him behind Kareem Rush and Donyell Marshall as best career percentages on the Sixers. Luke can shoot and can contribute to the team in more ways than Rush and Donyell. Along with Luke's shooting ability, he's also an above average passer and has a high basketball IQ. Combine that with a good contract and the Sixers have themselves a player. His passing ability would be extremely on important as a Sixer because he could help "run the show" on the second unit, while Miller takes a rest, since no one else seems to be able to.
As for Sun Yue, my question is why not? Why wouldn't the Sixers take a chance on the young shooting guard/point guard? And why wouldn't the Lakers be willing to part with him? They're the deepest team in the league and their extremely young too. Sun will probably never get a chance to contribute as a Laker. I haven't seen much of the dude, but it wouldn't hurt to take a flier. Here's 47 seconds of Sun.