What Are We Gonna Do Now? Five Questions Facing the Sixers at the Trade Deadline

From Bieber to Blake to the Black Mamba, it was an absolutely fantastic All-Star Weekend, with more subplots and memorable moments than most months' worth of regular-season action. But as the spotlight fades on LA, it's time to turn our focus back to the next big date looming on the NBA calendar--Thursday the 24th, the deadline for any mid-season trades to go down. Though the Sixers have been chosen to fly under the radar around this time the last few years, and may very well do the same this year, there are a number of questions facing the team at this season's two-thirds point that are at least worth discussing. Here's five of 'em:

Are we keeping Andre Iguodala and Elton Brand for the long haul?

Philly's two highest-paid and biggest-name players have been the subject of trade rumors seemingly ever since they inked their pricey, multi-year contracts, and are often seen as the twin albatrosses around the neck of the seemingly-rebuilding 76ers. Though the Sixers have been rumored to be shopping both for some time now, the two have put a wrench in things by being arguably the two most productive players on the team this season, and a major part of the playoff push that could get them as high as the sixth seed in the playoffs this season.

The value of both players will likely never be higher, and especially in the case of Brand, who a year ago was looking like a total sunk cost, we're somewhat blessed that there's even the discussion of a trade market being available for them. Despite being a 15/9 guy with excellent efficiency numbers this season, Brand would still be difficult to move for anything more than a straight cash dump (expiring contracts, mediocre role players and/or very low draft picks), due to his age, injury history and contract size. But it wouldn't be unreasonable to expect a combination of cap relief, some young talent and maybe even a first-round pick for Iguodala, who has proven with his play both at point-forward for Philly this season and as a glue guy and defensive stopper for Team USA over the summer to be an invaluable asset for a team where he doesn't have to be the primary scorer.

However, going on quotes from front-office honchos Ed Stefanski and Rod Thorn, as well as reports from people in the know and the team's recent history, it seems unlikely that either will be moved this week. Much to the frustration of many Sixers fans who want to see the team rebuild in earnest, management seems intent on making the post-season this season, and naturally losing Iguodala and Brand would hurt in that effort. (Though in the weak East, it's entirely possible they'd make it anyway, albeit not with the #6 seed). Though 'Dre has been rumored to be coveted by teams like the Warriors and the Mavericks, all reports seem to indicate at this point that the two will be ending the season as 76ers.

Of course, hanging on to 'Dre and Elton this season carries with it the question of whether this means that the Sixers plan on keeping the two semi-stars the duration of their relatively-overblown contracts. Brand has two years left on his deal after this one, while Iguodala still has three. Great as both have played this season, I don't think anyone is confusing them with Wade and LeBron or Kobe and Pau as far as championship cores go, and the Sixers might be well-advised to consider re-shuffling the deck with Jrue, Evan, Thad and a couple solid draft picks rather than expect 'Dre and Elton--who likely will never again be as productive for the team as they have been this season--to be the ones to lead them to the promised land.

Should we try to get something now for Thaddeus Young?

After the former first-rounder from Georgia Tech regressed last seaosn under Eddie Jordan, it seemed the Sixers were being prudent to not offer him an extension beyond his rookie contract, which expires after this season. Thad has given management reason to second-guess themselves with his play this season, however, as the athletic forward has developed into a bench stud in his fourth season, posting career-highs in field goal percentage and PER and helping anchor one of the league's best second units.

Young's bounce-back year has been both a blessing and a curse, undoubtedly helping the club win ballgames, but also driving up his off-season asking price with every drilled jumper and fast-break jam. (Still more the latter than the former, obviously.) Chances are pretty good that Thad, still something of a luxury player on a good team, will be too expensive for the Sixers to re-sign at season's end, especially of Brand and Iguodala's contracts are still on the books, which they almost certainly will be. It's a scary thought, though perhaps an even scarier one is the idea of the team panicking and giving Thad something like a five-year, $50-mil deal, further tying up what little cap relief the team would have had moving forward for a guy who's still a relatively unproven quantity.

So the obvious question follows--if the team insists on hanging on to 'Dre, who continues to block Thad at the small-forward position anyway (as could Evan Turner, presumably a fairly big part of the team's long-term plans), might this be a good time to find him a new home, when we can at least get something in return for him? The good folks over at Liberty Ballers have already set up a couple of trade proposals for Thad, which mostly return cap relief by attaching the poisonous contracts for Andres Nocioni and/or Jason Kapono along with him in exchange for menial role players, trade exceptions and/or low first-rounders.

To be honest, I'm not sure if it's worth it--the chances of getting much of a return beyond what the LB peeps suggest is unlikely, and I'm not completely sold that the benefits of minor cap relief are worth jettisoning one of our key players for this season--and possibly beyond, if the Sixers are sold on Thad being a core-worthy guy. But then again, maybe the latter is the perfect reason to get rid of Young now, rather than be tempted into giving yet another Sixer an endless contract that he won't possibly be able to live up to. It's a legitimately tough call, the kind I don't envy any front office.

Ultimately it seems pretty unlikely that the team will do anything with Thad in the next few days--the modus operandi this season seems to resist poking the team's chemistry for fear of it all falling apart just when positive feelings have finally been brought back to the city's fourth franchise. Will we look back at this time with Young as a turning point, though, as we either regret over-extending him when we cut have cut our losses cheap, or bemoan letting him walk and blossom into a star player when we could have locked him up long-term? Impossible to predict in this sport.

Can we add a big man to the roster to help out our undersized frontcourt?

As well as the Sixers have been playing in 2011, there's no doubt that this is still a team with holes--the most gaping of which continues to be in the middle. Though young center Spencer Hawes has quietly strung together a couple nice games of late, averaging nearly 11 points and eight rebounds a game in just 24 minutes of action over his last five contests, he's too defensively deficient (and offensively inconsistent) to get full-time starter's minutes on a playoff team. As far as modest mid-season acquisitions go, nothing would help the Sixers more than a defensively-solid, offensively-competent big to either take over for Spence at the five, or at least do a more reliable job spelling him off the bench than the creaky Tony Battie.

So who's out there? Well, Portland has long been discussed in trade scenarios involving their two veteran big men, Joel Przybilla and Marcus Camby, but an unexpected surge of their own leading up to the break might give Blazer management second thoughts about pulling the trigger on such a deal. Dallas's Brendan Haywood, supplanted as a starter by Tyson Chandler and his incredible comeback year, might be imminently available, but the horrible size of his contract (four years for about $34 million after this year) might/should be more of a commitment than the Sixers are willing to take on. Other potential low-cost solutions--Detroit's Ben Wallace, New Jersey's Johan Petro, Charlotte's Nazr Mohammed--might be more realistic, but would hardly mark significant improvements over the Battie/Hawes combo.

As much as the team wants to win now, minus getting a home-run deal for one of Portland's bigs, the Sixers would probably be better off holding the line on this one. A number of enticing pivots might be coming on the market next season, including Memphis's Marc Gasol, Denver's Nene, and the aforementioned Chandler, all of whom could potentially provide the long-term solution at the five that the Sixers currently lack. Failing that, the Sixers might try to add size in the draft, or to trade for less of a stopgap in the off-season. Bottom line: Any success found here in the next few days will be a minimal one at best, and should remain the team's number-one priority at season's end.

Do the Sixers have any chance of getting in on the Carmelo Anthony sweepstakes?

Nope.

Is there any way we can get rid of Jason Kapono and/or Andres Nocioni?

Hard to believe that of the first 13 games the Sixers played this season, 11 of them featured either Kapono or Nocioni as the starting small forward. (Perhaps it's not entirely coincidental that the team went 3-8 over that span.) In either event, both players have long since fallen out of the team's rotation by now--especially Kapono, the three-point specialist who has played about 18 total minutes since the New Year and has still hit just one trey in 89 minutes of gametime this season. The duo are currently paid a combined $13.5 million to wave towels on the bench for the remainder of the season.

Any chance we could find a taker for either contract? Well, failing a deal like the Thaddeus Young ones posited at LB, where a team is essentially taxed for half a year of Thad with a year of Kapono or two of Nocioni, or a much larger-scale deal involving multiple notable players (which the Sixers have shown no signs of being willing to risk), probably not. It's certainly doubtful that anyone will want to deal for the players straight up, since neither has done much of anything to justify their mid-level-sized contracts of late. The only option the Sixers are likely to have for being rid of either is as a buyout--which the Sixers have indeed discussed for Kapono's final year, so he can go be an 11th/12th-man emergency valve for some team a little closer to title contention. (Perhaps with the Heat, where J-Kaps won a title in 2006.)

In the end, the primary question facing the team near this trade deadline is of whether to make a hard push to win now--deal for a big man, fill out the bench, at least pick up the phone to inquire about potential blockbusters--or to trigger a full-on rebuilding effort, clearing the decks with Iguodala and Brand, seeing what deals are available for Thad, and holding off on committing to any further long-term assets. Which of the two directions the team should go in depends on your basic basketball philosophy, whether you believe tanking is ever justifiable or whether you believe that there's no point in maxing out the potential of a team whose ceiling is probably still as a second-round team at the very best. It's a debate to which there are no easy answers.

But what's understandably frustrating to Sixers fans, and has been for seemingly the entire post-Iverson era, is the franchise's inability to ever fully commit to going down one of these two paths. From everything we've heard from the Sixers in the last few weeks, it seems that the team is destined to let yet another trade deadline pass in passivity, making lateral moves if any. As fun as it has been to watch this team blossom into one of the better squads in the East, it's sad to think that this 45 wins is probably as good as it's going to get for these guys in the near future, as long as the team keeps holding off going all-in one way or the other for another year.

Still, it's worth staying posted to see what moves, however cosmetic, the team ends up making. This time a year ago, we traded Royal Ivey and a second-rounder to Milwaukee for Jodie Meeks and Francisco Elson--a deal we all had a good guffaw at at the time, but which ended up netting us this team's starting two-guard and biggest three-point threat. It would be nice to see the team freed from this sort of NBA purgatory, but whatever the long-term, the short-term this year has been more fun than it has been in ages, and whatever the Sixers end up doing by Thursday, I'll certainly be paying attention.