Trade Talk: The Beard vs. Simmons, Curry & Drummond

Sixers Get	Nets Get
The Beard	Seth Curry
Paul Milsap	Andre Drummond
	Ben Simmons

Dafuck?!  I definitely feel as if the Brooklyn got the best of this one for a number of reasons.

At the top of the list would be Joel Embiid and James Harden incompatibility.  And what I mean by is that their styles are too similar.  Offensively they're more or less the same player but at different heights.

Logically Harden, who plays point, is going to have the ball in his hands more.  The Beard possesses the skillset to score at will and has kinda grown accustomed to dribbling as much as he wants.  So I wonder how that's going to effect Embiid, who himself is a borderline chuck.  I guess what we're looking at, unless the Beard decides to transition more to a spotup shooter, is even more iso from Philly though this time with a more-talented backup(?) to Embiid.

When I first heard of this trade, I didn't know that Curry was included.  I was thinking that Harden would start at the point and Curry the 2, and Maxey would go to back to the bench.  But now it looks like Harden will start at the 2, and Maxey remains at point, which sounds perfect except even if at the 2 I doubt the Beard would really let him run the point anyway.

Meanwhile Brooklyn got Ben Simmons (yikes), Seth Curry (what?!) and Andre Drummond (oh my gosh).  It's like they got an entire team for the Beard.  That's one of the good things about signing a certified superstar, even if he's transient, like you can get a whole team for him in a good trade.  My biggest gripe with the Nets post-Allen has been lack of interior presence.  Well, problem solved.

Then you have Seth Curry who can take on the role of Joe Harris.  And Ben Simmons, aka the superstar who's afraid to shoot, will be perfect around perennial chucks Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving.  And this team should be formidable even when Kyrie isn't playing.

It's a shame that we never got to see the Durant-Irving-Beard teamup in the playoffs.  For a second there they were playing so well that even I was about to call them contenders.  But that iteration of the Nets was a doomed experiment from the jump, since all three of them have health issues even besides the vaccination drama.

CONCLUSION

If KD were healthy, I would say the Nets have a chance to take the East.  If he had this type of backup last season, they would have definitely gotten pass the Bucks.

And as for the Sixers, let's hope that the Beard stays healthy, as sitting here picturing what this roster would look like without him ain't exactly pretty.  But I think Milsap's style of play may fit well with the Sixers and perhaps make him more effective than he's been in years.