Sixers Trade Value Rankings, Part 1: Help Me Help You

Trade value rankings, popularized by Bill Simmons but in existence on various blogs and websites beforehand, tries to answer the question of who is the most valuable player when combining actual on-court value and team-friendliness of contracts. Usually, he highlights the top players. Here, because it's the offseason, I'll cover every 76er and even non-players.

If you are wondering what the criteria for selection is, just ask the following question: can the Sixers use you in a trade? Okay you're eligible. JaVale McGee would not be, because he was waived and is dead salary on the 76ers' books. Gerald Wallace is still on the roster and thus eligible. So is every first and second round draft pick the Sixers own through 2022 per the Seven Year Rule for trading draft picks. So is cap space, which can be used with a placeholder (like a virtually unconvertible draft pick). Adding everything into that bucket gives us 48 tradable things.

This will follow the same general format as Simmons'. Trade value is determined by the market in any situation - this is a guess as to how the NBA market will value the players, rights to players, cap space, and future draft picks that the Sixers currently hold.

In the modern NBA, players not in the upper echelon are highly discounted, mostly because the player pool is very deep and flexibility to sign top players is considered more important than having good role players. The Sixers have few good NBA players just in general, but even their "bad" contracts aren't that bad.

I'll start with the "bad" contracts. The Sixers intentionally took on a couple of these, and the others aren't hazardous at all. However the below players will need to be traded with something else, likely a draft pick or two, in order to get rid of the contract if traded on their own.

48. Carl Landry

Contract: 2 years, $13 million, split evenly. Fully guaranteed.

Jason Thompson's trade illuminates exactly how little teams like dead weight contracts more than a year in length. Thompson, a productive rotation player on a good team, netted cash, a semi-worthless draft pick swap, and a bigger year one commitment just to dump under $3 million in guaranteed 2016-17 money. Now: double the money for an older and significantly worse player coming off injuries. That's Carl Landry right now in a nutshell.

Landry might not have the worst contract in the NBA, but upon his signing it was destined to become a bad situation. Undersized power forwards without shooting range or athleticism don't have a great history of production in their 30s. They also don't have a great history of production in their 20s, but that's another story.

47. Gerald Wallace

Contract: 1 year, $10,105,855. Fully guaranteed.

Poor Crash Wallace. The guy had a tremendous career, the rare all-star after being picked in an expansion draft, and lived up to his nickname in many ways. On the boards, defensively, as a dunker, he just collided with things all the time. Unfortunately he relied heavily on his athleticism and never developed a perimeter shooting game, and a big contract from the Brooklyn Nets was predictably ill-fated for the team.

Because of the toxicity of his contract, Wallace has been traded three times since signing it with the Nets three summers ago. First, he was sent to the Celtics in the Paul Pierce/Kevin Garnett mega-deal. Then he was traded straight-up to the Warriors for David Lee, and the chance for postseason success seemed feasible. Unfortunately for Crash, he was shipped off here as soon as Golden State found a productive player and salary cap savings. Now he's in Philadelphia, though who knows for how long. If he leaves Philly before the end of the year, it won't be in a trade.

46. Furkan Aldemir

Contract: 3 years, $8,457,378 total. First remaining year is guaranteed at $2,836,768. Other two years are not guaranteed.

Our favorite cat-loving, pick-setting center may have a special place in our hearts, but his on-court play to-date doesn't justify his $3 million guaranteed salary for next year. Aldemir has focused on improving his shooting range this summer and showed it off with a trio of three pointers in Utah.

Even with the expanded range, Aldemir is too small to play center and not athletic enough to consistently play at a smaller position. He fouls entirely too much to make up for his size and speed deficiencies. He's a non-entity on offense until he proves his shooting improvement over an extended sample, and even then I'm not sure he's a net positive player. Add on a surprisingly large year 2 guarantee and Aldemir isn't going to fetch anything useful in a deal without attaching a sweetener.

45. Tony Wroten

Contract: 1 year, $2,179,353. Fully guaranteed.

It hurts me personally to put Wroten down this far on the list, but with a guaranteed contract, no shooting improvement to date in his NBA career, and a recovery from ACL surgery ongoing, this is about where he fits. Wroten was traded to the Sixers for nothing in 2013 after one year in the league and less guaranteed money. Since then, he's played more minutes and been highly ineffective despite having NBA athleticism and skills.

Most importantly, at last check Wroten's shot form did not make the same progress that others' forms have made while part of the program. Even Michael Carter-Williams made simple fundamental changes, though highly ineffective. Hollis Thompson and Jerami Grant are the model students. Wroten still needs a complete overhaul on his shot. Wroten's shot, after two seasons in Philadelphia, was nowhere near fixed.

Wroten's status for training camp and the start of the season is unknown, with conflicting reports on his availability. An injured, ineffective young player with a guaranteed contract is not going to net anything positive in a trade.

44. Isaiah Canaan

Contract: 1 year, $947,246. Fully guaranteed as of 7/15/15.

Rounding out this list is Isaiah Canaan, who averaged nearly 13 points per game as a 76er but did so in an uninspiring, and often frustrating fashion. As an undersized point guard without great court vision or ball skills, he relies on his shooting to provide value. He unfortunately is only a 36% three point shooter for his career, in about 300 attempts, though his true shooting actually isn't bad because so many of his shots are threes and free throws.

That is still not enough to make up for his flaws. If he comes out next year and shoots 40%+ from three then maybe he has more value. Until then, with his fully guaranteed salary he's a bit less desirable.

Coming up in part 2: talking about the value of second round draft picks and contracts with no guarantees.