76ers fill need for shooting with trade for Buddy Hield from Pacers
The Philadelphia 76ers needed shooting — no team in the league gets a lower percentage of its points from beyond the ark than Philly. While you can get through the regular season that way, especially when you have MVP-level Joel Embiid, but the 76ers needed more floor spacing for the playoffs.
Enter Buddy Hield.
Philadelphia has acquired Buddy Hield from the Pacers, sending Marcus Morris, Furkan Korkmaz, and three second-round picks to Indiana, a story broken by Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN. It wasn't the 76ers' only trade before the deadline. They sent Patrick Beverley to the Bucks for Cameron Payne and a 2027 second-round pick, and they salary-dumped Danuel House to Sacramento. These moves get the 76ers below the luxury tax line and opens up a roster spot at backup point guard. Philly plans to pursue Kyle Lowry if he arranges an expected buyout with Charlotte, reports Marc Stein.
These are not the kind of moves you make as the Sixers unless you expect Embiid to return from his latest knee surgery in time for a playoff run.
Hield brings much-needed gravity and spacing to the 76ers offense, especially while Embiid is out. Hield is averaging 12 points a game while hitting 38.4% of his 3-pointers (6.9 attempts a game), and while those numbers are down slightly from his career averages, he is still eighth in the league in 3s attempted per 36 minutes (9.6). Most importantly, he's a sharpshooter defenses have to respect, people can't help off him at the arc.
Hield also is on an expiring contract, meaning he does not mess with the Sixers' cap space for next season and plans to remake the roster around Embiid and Tyrese Maxey.
Indiana later filled Hield's role by trading for Doug McDermott from the Spurs. He will instantly step into a lot of Hield's minutes.
Maybe the big winner here is Korkmaz, who had requested before the 2023 trade deadline and finally got his wish. What Indiana really wanted out of this was the three picks: The Raptors' 2024 second-rounder, plus the Clippers' and Trail Blazers' 2029 second-rounders.
