3 teams who should call the Philadelphia 76ers about Tobias Harris

The Philadelphia 76ers could provide Portland with a Big 3 forward.

Have any two teams been more connected so far this season than the Philadelphia 76ers and the Portland Trail Blazers? Seriously, it feels like a week hasn’t gone by without a Sixers-Blazers rumor, whether that be surrounding Ben Simmons, Damian Lillard, CJ McCollum, or even our old pal Robert Covington.

Are most of these potential deals bunk? Sure. No offense to Bobby Marks, but Portland will never agree to a deal for Lillard centered around Tobias Harris and Tyrese Maxey, but that doesn’t mean there couldn’t be a deal around the peripheries worth exploring.

Would Portland have any interest in making Harris a Blazer, either for McCollum straight up or in a three-team deal that brings back role players like Covington or Larry Nance Jr. to the City of Brotherly Love?

Theoretically, Harris would be the best forward to wear a Blazers uniform since LaMarcus Aldridge left the Pacific Northwest for San Antonio in 2015 and could provide a different look at both ends of the court for a team barely treading water in the West. He’s a bigger and better defender than McCollum, a better offensive option than any forward on the Blazers’ roster, and may even be able to form a viable two-man game with Lillard if Chauncy Billups commits to running the 1-4 pick and roll as a core tenant of his offense.

Assuming the Sixers’ reported disinterest in McCollum holds over to a non-Ben Simmons deal, this one might be harder to pull off, but in the modern-day NBA, where teams have no issue with rolling over half of their roster in the middle of the season, there could be a market for players like Covington, Nance, and Jusuf Nurkić in three-team deals, especially if the Trail Blazers really like Andre Drummond as a replacement starting center.