The German currency in 1923. Florida real estate before the advent of air conditioning. A ticket to the next Fyre Festival.
All of these things were worth more than Markelle Fultz at this year’s NBA trade deadline. But that shouldn’t be much of a news flash to anybody who had been following the recent machinations of the Philadelphia 76ers and their one-time No. 1 overall pick. No, the damning part of the news that broke on Thursday afternoon was the realization that Fultz’s rock-bottom value did not matter to the team. They did not care what they got for him. They just wanted to see him gone.
You can argue that framing it like that is an exaggeration. In receiving a likely late first-round pick and fourth-year wing Jonathon Simmons, the Sixers at least landed a pair of assets that give them more present-day value than they were getting from Fultz. While Simmons might be shooting a cool .229 from 3-point range this season, and while he might be unlikely to crack the upcoming playoff rotation, he will at least be available to play in the event of foul trouble or some Bird Box-ian phenomenon in which the Sixers wake up to find half of their roster missing.
Likewise, the future first-round pick the Sixers acquired has about as much of a chance at playing a meaningful role in this year’s postseason as Fultz would have had. And while that percentage may be zero for this season, the Sixers did manage to parlay a late first-round pick in this season’s draft into a player who made a meaningful contribution on the court for four months and then a meaningful contribution off of it when the Sixers included him in the package that landed them Tobias Harris earlier this week.
The remarkable thing is that the Sixers apparently decided that, however slim the chance of that late first-round pick contributing meaningful value in the future, it was greater than the chance that Fultz himself would do so.
As the trade deadline approached, a casual poll of public opinion suggested that the Sixers fan base was split into three camps. One was in favor of trading Fultz for a real asset with tangible present day value or significant future value. Another was in favor of trading him for the best available offer, even if that meant settling for a rental player on an expiring contract who would help the Sixers during this year’s stretch run. A third faction thought it self-evidential that the Sixers should hang on to Fultz, given that his value was at its nadir and whatever limited upside he had was still guaranteed to be more than whatever marginal package the Sixers could muster in return.
In the end, none of the three contingents got their wish. When all is said and done, the most meaningful return the Sixers ended up getting in this trade could very well have been the opportunity to have it overshadowed by the blockbuster deal they’d just swung with the Clippers.
From a human standpoint, everybody’s hope should be that a change of scenery ends up offering some semblance of a cure. It is hard to find anybody outside of Fultz’s circle of personal confidants who thinks that his problems are strictly physical in nature.
Whatever the case, it is no longer the Sixers’ concern. You cannot make a sunk cost float, and Elton Brand and the ownership group clearly decided that Fultz was irredeemably bad money.
A mistake was made. All the Sixers can do now is try to overcome it.