Philadelphia 76ers: Patty Mills is great but not worth Josh Richardson

Patty Mills is a great fit with the Philadelphia 76ers… for the right price.

A year ago, there wasn’t a player better suited to lead the Philadelphia 76ers‘ bench into the future than Patty Mills.

He had it all. He’s a career 39-percent shooter from beyond the arc, a lightning-fast finisher around the hoop, and has the rare distinction of having a pre-existing relationship with both Brett Brown – from his time with the Australian National Team and the San Antonio Spurs – and Ben Simmons. At 31-years-old, the former second-round pick would have been the Sixers’ second-most tenured player with 11 seasons in the league and could have even split time at the two-guard spot alongside Simmons in one of the most hilariously composed backcourts in NBA history.

Well, despite Brown officially being relieved of his duties what feels like a year ago – my goodness, 2020 feels endless – a legitimate interest between Mills and the Sixers has materialized, according to Kevin O’Conner.

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That’s right, tucked away in The Ringers’ latest mock draft is a few little tidbits about the San Antonio Spurs’ desire to get ‘up to something’ moving forward. While that could include trading DeMar Derozan to the Los Angels Lakers for Kyle Kuzma and old pal Danny Green, or moving up to acquire Israeli point guard Deni Avdija – reportedly their favorite player in the entire draft – O’Conner informs that talks have in fact happened between the Spurs and both the Bucks and the Sixers about acquiring the 6-foot-1 point guard.

Alright, alright, alright, sounds good. Talks. But what would the Sixers be hypothetically be giving up to acquire Mills? Mike Scott? Zhaire Smith? Oh no, not everyone’s favorite bubble blogger, Matisse Thybulle?

Fortunately, O’Conner has that information too, and it’s maybe not the most thrilling part of his otherwise excellent read.

According to O’Conner’s sources, the Sixers’ proposed deal would center around 27-year-old shooting guard Josh Richardson, the player Philly acquired in the Jimmy Butler sign-and-trade deal last summer.

… what?

Now again, Mills is a great fit with the Sixers. He’s a great shooter, a good scorer, and a willing playmaker, but he’s not what most would call a two-way player. While his offense is undoubtedly effective and largely makes up for his defensive woes, Mills still finished out the 2019-20 season with a -1.73 Real Plus-Minus according to ESPN, the 77th highest mark of any point guard in the league.

Fun fact: Trae Young had the highest-offensive RPM and the lowest-defensive RPM in the league last season. Is that a record? I have no clue, but from watching a few Hawks games last fall, I can believe it.

Richardson, by contrast, is a really good two-way player who, in this writer’s humble opinion, is the team’s best trade asset to add a difference-maker to their roster. With a very reasonable $10.8 million cap figure for the 2020-21 season and a player option that he will all but certainly turn down for 2021-22, Richardson could conceivably be moved for all sorts of packages.

Instead of Mills, the Sixers could, financially speaking, trade Richardson to the LA Clippers for Lou Williams, the Brooklyn Nets for Spencer Dinwiddie, or the Toronto Raptors for Norman Powell. They could also package together Richardson’s contract with other players to pull off bigger deals, like acquiring Buddy Hield and Harrison Barnes from the Sacramento Kings or Will Barton and Gary Harris from the Denver Nuggets.

Heck, if you squint and really force it, there’s even a world where the Sixers could put together a package centered around Richardson to acquire Victor Oladipo from the Indiana Pacers, even if the Masked Singer-alum didn’t explicitly ask the team’s players if he could ‘come play with y’all’ during his bizarre recruiting tour last season.

Factor in the sheer volume of similarly skilled point guards available on the open market like D.J. Augustine, Langston Galloway, and Doc Rivers’ literal son Austin who maybe aren’t as good as Mills but could fill a similar role for a fraction of the price, and the idea of surrendering a premium starting asset like Richardson for a top-tier backup point guard is maybe not the best allocation of the team’s assets.

Look, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the Sixers have some grand plan for Patty Mills that I can’t foresee and the 32-year-old Canberra native will blossom into a 20 points per game starter in his 12th professional season. Mills remains a great fit playing next to or in relief of Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid and could add some much-needed range to an at times offensively-challenged team. But trading away a premium player, arguably the team’s best moveable piece, for a backup point guard who averages less than 10 points per game in less than 20 minutes of action is a beyond head-scratcher.