Philadelphia 76ers: Passing on Danuel House was a mistake

When news broke that the Philadelphia 76ers were trading Ben Simmons to the Brooklyn Nets for James Harden, it felt like a fantastic way to start trade deadline day.

Keyword? Start.

That’s right, with a few hours left to play with before the transactions window officially closed, more than a few Philly fans expected Daryl Morey to pull off another move following the Harden trade in the hopes of swapping out a few more assets for one more ready-made rotational player.

… except that didn’t happen. The deadline came and went, and the only new jerseys the equipment management staff had to mint up belonged to Harden and Paul Millsap, the 16th year forward who ultimately proved to be out of gas before his season came to an end.

On paper, it’s hard to fault Morey too much for that decision. Pulling off a deal involving multiple max contract players, multiple conditional draft picks, and three more role players to boot is certainly a tricky proposition, and then having to surrender even more assets in another deal thrown together at the last minute could have proved a risky proposition, but what if I were to tell you there was a player with experience playing for Morey who could have been had on multiple occasions without surrendering anything more than a few hundred thousand dollars?

In hindsight, Danuel House should have been a member of the Philadelphia 76ers.

The Philadelphia 76ers could have used a player like Danuel House.

What did the Philadelphia 76ers need down the stretch and during their playoff run? Size, shooting, switchable defense, and rebounding.

Big ask? You bet, but it’s not impossible; there are a ton of 3-and-D wings across the NBA, and these players can be had at more or less any price point, even on 10-day contracts.

That is how the Utah Jazz were able to add Danuel House to their frontcourt following an ultimately fruitless run on a 10-day contract with the New York Knicks and how they were ultimately able to sign him to a full-time contract following 30 days of temp work.

It all started on January 4th, when the Jazz traded former Golden State Warriors second round pick Miye Oni to the Oklahoma City Thunder for cash. That move freed up a roster spot and allowed the Jazz to experiment with a number of different players on 10-day contracts, including Zylan Cheatham, Denzel Valentine, House, and our old pal Norvel Pelle during the great Covid-fueled roster overhaul of 2022.

The clear winner of that fatal four way? Yeah, that’d be House, as he ultimately signed three 10-day contracts before having his contract guaranteed for the remainder of the season the day after the trade deadline even after the addition of Nickeil Alexander-Walker in a four-way deal that also featured Joe Ingles, Elijah Hughes, Tomas Satoransky and Juan Hernangomez.

Over his 25 games of regular season action, House averaged 6.8 points and 2.7 rebounds in 19.6 minutes per game on 41.5 shooting from beyond the arc. While his numbers dipped a tad during Utah’s forgettable playoff run – seriously, who did they even play? – House still averaged 4.3 points and 2.8 rebounds while serving as a rotational wing off of Quin Snyder’s bench versus the

Dallas Mavericks

in Round 1.

Why, you may ask, have I devoted so much of your reading time to a player who doesn’t even play in the same conference as the Sixers on this, a Philly sports blog? Well, because again, House should have been a Sixer.

You see, according to the transactions log on Basketball-Reference, the Jazz signed House to his third and final 10-day contract on January 28th, 13 days before the February 10th trade deadline. Had the Jazz wanted to guarantee they kept House around long-term, they could have signed him to an end-of-season contract right then and there, but they understandably wanted to keep optionality just in case an opportunity presented itself to add a “better” player before the transaction window closed.

That, my friends, is when Daryl Morey should have struck, as he had a roster spot freed up in the James Harden-Ben Simmons trade and could have stolen another former Rocket away to Houston East, aka South Philadelphia. Even if Philly wanted to maintain flexibility of their own, to sign a legitimate difference-maker like DeAndre Jordan, they too could have given House one or more 10-day contracts before the end-of-year signing window closed in March.

With House in place, the Sixers could have had another 6-foot-6 winger in place who not only had extensive experience playing with Harden, but a 3-and-D wing who could have eased the loss of Matisse Thybulle in Toronto and helped to cover for Danny Green when he left Game 6 versus Miami after only three minutes of action.

Considering how shallow Philly’s bench proved to be both down the stretch and in the playoffs – some of which was due to Doc Rivers’ unwillingness to give serious minutes to his younger players – having another veteran performer would have been preferable over a fourth center.

Would Danuel House alone have been enough to put the Philadelphia 76ers over the hump in the playoffs? No, probably not; not unless he took that elbow to the face from Pascal Siakam, at least. But even on deadline day, it was clear the Sixers’ roster needed just a little bit more to put it over the top, and unfortunately, that need went unfilled despite having a very intriguing option available for a few hundred thousand dollars as their empty roster spot.