Philadelphia 76ers: Daryl Morey clearly won the Tony Bradley trade Part II

When the Philadelphia 76ers traded Zhaire Smith to the Detroit Pistons for Tony Bradley straight up, it felt a tad underwhelming considering the circumstances.

Sure, landing Bradley was all well and good, as even after signing Dwight Howard in free agency and acquiring Vincent Poirier via trade, the Sixers can always use viable big bodies behind Joel Embiid, but Smith was a former top-15 pick the Sixers traded Mikael Bridges to acquire. Cashing out on a player Brett Brown compared to mini Kawhi Leonard during the pre-draft process for a player who was just acquired by the Pistons in addition to a second-round pick in exchange for cash felt rather underwhelming.

As Richaun Holmes’ mother will attest, trading any player for cash, especially if you have to include a pick to get it done, very rarely works out in a team’s favor.

Fortunately, any debate over which team won the Tony Bradley-Zhaire Smith trade would be short-lived, as the Pistons waived the latter shortly thereafter and instantly made Daryl Morey look like a savvy operator for turning, to paraphrase Marc Zumoff, garbage into gold.

If that was that, then that was that. The Philadelphia 76ers would at worst have a viable young center on a contract worth $3.5 million that they could use in a trade package for a better-fitting piece and at best be able to deploy the 23-year-old in garbage time, but as it turns out, Bradley may just be a whole lot better than anyone initially expected and could have a viable future with the franchise well past the March 25th trade deadline.

Could Tony Bradley be the Philadelphia 76ers’ backup center long-term?

More from Section 215

When Joel Embiid came up awkwardly in his first game back from the All-Star break, it left many a Philadelphia 76ers fan downtrodden.

After finishing out the first half of the 2020-21 NBA season with the best record in the Eastern Conference – an impressive feat considering they got hit particularly hard with a COVID scare – the Sixers were suddenly without their MVP favorite and would surely slide down the rankings as a result, right?

Not if Tony Bradley had anything to say about it.

Inserted into the starting lineup in the hopes of keeping Dwight Howard in his sixth man center role – a role he’s played very well as of late – Bradley has been a calming force at a position that’s been incredibly tumultuous during the Embiid-era.

In five games with five starts sans Embiid, Bradley has played arguably the best basketball of his career, averaging 4.8 points and seven rebounds in 19.3 minutes of action a night. While Bradley isn’t taking nearly as many shots as Embiid in the paint – because duh – he’s connecting on 64.7 percent of his 3.4 attempts per game, which is the highest mark on the team if extrapolated out to a full season.

Why is this relevant? Because both Bradley and Howard are set to become free agents at the end of the season – restricted for Bradley and unrestricted for Howard – and the Sixers probably won’t opt to retain both heading into the 2021-22 season, especially considering their status as a luxury tax team.

In theory, that question is a relatively tricky one, but in practice, it’s actually very black and white.

Because Bradley is a restricted free agent, the Sixers have three choices to make on his status heading into the offseason: Either sign him to an extension at whatever number they’d like, extend a $5.27 million qualifying offer with an $8.85 million cap hold, or allow him to test the open market as an unrestricted free agent.

That’s it; those are the three options unless some team wants to go buck wild and execute a sign-and-trade for Bradley’s services.

If the Sixers prefer Howard to Bradley, which they very well may, they can simply not tender the big man a qualifying offer and allow him to hit the open market. In doing so, the Sixers could keep Bradley’s cap hold off their books, rush to re-sign Howard to another one-year, vet minimum deal, and turn their attention elsewhere.

Alternatively, if the Sixers really like Bradley and think he can become a Howard-esque change of pace energy center coming off the bench, they can give him an extension at whatever range the two camps agree on and could theoretically fold him into their championship plans long-term. After trading Richaun Holmes for cash considerations only to watch him shine in the very same role with the Sacramento Kings as of late, the idea of letting Bradley, a first-round pick Kevin O’Connor compared to Taj Gibson and Jakob Poeltl coming out of college, walk for a player who will be 36 on the opening day of the 2021-22 season may be too risky for Daryl Morey’s blood.

Better to have an asset on the books than generating value elsewhere, right?

Then comes the most tricky evaluation the Sixers could find themselves in if they like Bradley well enough but aren’t totally sold on his fit long-term: Presenting a qualifying offer and allowing him to test the open market as a restricted free agent.

While I imagine there wouldn’t be too big of a market for a 24-year-old center who has averaged 4.5 points and 4.3 rebounds a game over his 89 game career and has never had a 20 point game, all it takes is one team to read Bradley’s FiveThirtyEight expected market value of $10.16 million, and suddenly the Sixers are scrambling to find a viable backup for Embiid a week into free agency.

Needless to say, how the Bradley situation breaks down when the season ends will be incredibly fascinating, but do you know who won’t have much to say on the topic? The Detroit Pistons, assuming, of course, they aren’t the team offering Bradley a four-year, $40 million deal, which they very well may be.

Next. Trading Richaun Holmes for cash was a mistake. dark

Because the Philadelphia 76ers were able to land Tony Bradley for a player they were planning on releasing heading into the 2020-21 NBA season – which isn’t a controversial opinion, considering the expected-to-be-back Detroit Pistons did it too – and give him a full preseason in their system, the 23-year-old Bartow, Florida native was given every opportunity to succeed if he had to see the court in the regular season. So far, so good. Whether he ultimately sticks around long-term remains to be seen, but either way, Bigshot Bradley has provided a whole heck of a lot more value in South Philly than Zhaire Smith brought to the Little Caesars Arena.