Philadelphia 76ers: 3 potential trade packages for P.J. Tucker

P.J. Tucker and Eric Gordon for Danny Green, Furkan Korkmaz, and two Philadelphia 76ers second-round picks.

In a perfect world, this would be a pretty seamless trade proposal.

Eric Gordon and P.J. Tucker are both Daryl Morey guys, and the idea of bolstering the team with the two former Rockets would be like the god-tier equivalent of signing Marco Belinelli and Ersan Ilyasova off the buyout market in 2018.

The duo have played 3,885 regular season minutes together over the past four years, innately know each other’s games by heart, and could all but surely provide the bench with a serious boost – at least, unless one or both is inserted into the starting lineup.

Unfortunately, we do not live in a perfect world, and a pair of injuries make this deal a whole lot harder to envision actually going down.

With Joel Embiid out until early April and Gordon on the mend from a pulled groin that could keep him sidelined for a few weeks longer, trading away a starter like Danny Green, an upside shooter in Furkan Korkmaz, and a pair of picks for one immediate contributor isn’t the kind of move a team in the midst of a “championship or bust” season often pulls.

Would the deal look a whole lot better once Gordon becomes fully healthy? Most definitely, but can the Sixers really afford to play that sort of long game when they have the Nets nipping at their heels for the first overall spot and teams like the Bucks and the *checks notes* Heat following up close behind?

Then again, the Sixers would be trading a pair of players on expiring deals for a 32-year-old wing scorer who has averaged 16.6 points per game over the past season with three years and change left on his contract, all the while securing the Bird Rights for Tucker as he’s set to hit free agency this summer. That sort of deal is the kind of move a GM like Morey typically likes to prioritize from an “endowment effect” standpoint – as evidenced by the Josh Richardson-Seth Curry swap – and could guarantee a solid core from which to compete with moving forward as youngsters like Paul Reed, Isaiah Joe, and Rayjon Tucker find their NBA sea legs.

I still see this move as doubtful (more on that here), but the more you really think about it, the more this one feels like it could have some serious legs.

Alternatively, the Sixers could pull off a similar trade for Gordon and Tucker in exchange for Korkmaz, and Terrance Furgeson, and Tony Bradley, and Mike Scott, but that’s a lot of moving parts and thus a whole lot harder to see actually happen.