NBA Rumor: Chris Paul to the Sixers?

One of the best storylines to come from this NBA season is the job Chris Paul did with the young Oklahoma City Thunder team.

A team that many thought, including myself, wouldn’t make the playoffs became one of the fascinating teams to watch and was often giving teams hell with their deadly three-headed King Ghidorah-style attack between Paul, SGA, and Dennis the Menace.

Now with their season over, OKC has to make a big decision in regards to their immediate future and the point god. Do they let SGA learn under Paul for another season or do they get all that they can for Paul now and hand over the reins to this team fully to SGA? One NBA insider thinks that it will be the latter.

On an episode of ESPN’s Hoop Collective podcast, NBA insider Brian Windhorst and Thunder insider Royce Young talked about the future of the point god and what his trade market looks like. One team that came up among others was none other than the infamous Sixers.

“I look at three teams,” Royce said. “Bobby knows better than me, but I look at three teams as the most likely destinations: Philly, the Knicks, and Milwaukee. Those are the three teams that I think are logical places."

Now of course Miluakwee is another interesting destination but depending on how this game goes tonight between the Bucks and the Heat, tonight could be the last time we see Giannis on the Bucks. So trading CP3 there with no Giannis wouldn’t make sense. If he remains is a different story. Pairing Giannis with a point guard of Paul’s caliber would be an upgrade to what they been had and could be the final piece to the Bucks championship puzzle.

The Sixers is an interesting team to look at it. On paper, as constructed, they should be an elite team in not only the East but the NBA. But as we know they have had major coaching and chemistry issues that led to the demise of Brett Brown. GM Elton Brand has already said they will not be trading both faces of the franchise in Embiid and Simmons so the next logical step is to figure out how they can get them to coexist. Paul, who has that dog in him similar to Jimmy Butler that Embiid gravitated towards, could be the key to unlocking and getting the most out of the big man. But in doing so they absolutely need to get rid of Al Horford who was a big disappointment for that team.

Later in the podcast, Windhorst talked about how Billy Donovan wanted big Al before he made the move to the Celtics noting their previous relationship at Florida. “I know they tried to sign him a few years ago when Billy Donovan first got there, and he went to Boston instead.They've got Steven Adams, who is extension eligible this summer, but [...] would they take Al Horford? Because, can you imagine Chris Paul ordering Joel Embiid around? Ordering Ben Simmons around? It might actually work.”

CP would for sure make a difference on any team, this past season alone proves that. He on the Sixers could be an ideal situation as they are championship ready, just missing leadership. The Sixers to make this happen would just have to figure out how to bring on Paul’s contract that has two years left on it at $41 and $44 million respectively against the cap.

Elton Brand you got some work to do.