The Philadelphia 76ers traded Nerlens Noel for a safety cone and return from the All Star break to face the surging Washington Wizards. Yes, the Sixers gave away a player and look to beat the Wizards, who have won 4 straight while managing not to trade a valuable asset for nothing.
The Sixers traded Noel for a laptop from 2007. A laptop with Windows Vista.
The Wizards have won 18 of their last 23 games. Their most recent win came against the Indiana Pacers. They were led in scoring by Otto Porter Jr, who had 25 points and grabbed 8 rebounds. Four of the five Wizards starters shot at least 50 percent from the field, while the least amount of attempts from the field was 10. So that means the Wizards' starters were taking and making shots. In fact, the Wizards' bench scored 14 of the 111 total points. So…uh, yeah, the starters carried the load from a scoring standpoint. Further research shows the Wizards' bench is 29th in the NBA in scoring.
The Wizards made a deal during the trade deadline that actually made sense in that it made the team better (either now, in the future, or both). They traded Marcus Thornton and Andrew Nicholson for Bojan Bogdanovic and Chris McCullough from the Brooklyn Nets. The two players from the Wizards didn't play in the game against the Pacers. Ah, I'm sure they weren't being held out for a potential trade, right? RIGHT? Right.
The Sixers lost to the Boston Celtics 108-116 and decided to trade a very good player for a slice of watermelon in a weird overreaction to the loss. Very odd. They also traded Ersan Ilyasova for a second round pick and Tiago Splitter, who likely won't play for the Sixers but second round pick! In all seriousness, it was an actual decent trade which is why trading Noel for a bag of dead AAA batteries was odd. Very odd. Ah well.
Projected starters
Since the Sixers and Wizards made trades, it remains to be seem how these news players will fit into lineups. However, it seems likely this is the lineup you will see.
Sixers
PG TJ McConnell
SG Gerald Henderson
SF Robert Covington
PF Dario Saric (if he's not starting…hoo-boy)
C Jahlil Okafor (unless he's pulled at the last minute for a potential draft night trade)
Wizards
PG John Wall
SG Bradley Beal,
SF Otto Porter Jr
PF Markieff Morris
C Marcin Gortat
Game info
Where: Wells Fargo Center, Philadelphia, PA
When: 7PM ET
Why: Dario is still playing, so it's not so bad
Watch it: CSN Philly
Hear it: 97.5 The Fanatic
Game prediction: Adam Silver blocks a TJ McConnell game winner and Sixers Twitter wonders why he didn't block Noel trade. Or…or do they?