The Trade
To remind everyone, the trade was as follows:
Sixers received: Nik Stauskas, Carl Landry, Jason Thompson, the right to swap first-round picks with the Kings in 2017, and an unprotected first-round pick in 2019
Kings received: The draft rights to Arturas Gudaitis and Luka Mitrovic, presumed cap space to sign free agents
Let us break down both the players that went in and out of this trade, then let us look at what those picks became.
The Players
Let us review the Sixers’ haul first.
Jason Thompson never ended up playing a minute for the Sixers, as on July 21st, he got traded to the Golden State Warriors. He played 28 games for Golden State before getting waived on February 22, 2016. He would play 19 games with the Toronto Raptors before leaving the NBA to play in China in August of 2016.
Carl Landry played 36 games with the Sixers, averaging about 10 points and 4 rebounds a game, before getting waived in August of 2016.
Nik Stauskas remains the only player in the trade that ever contributed anything to Philadelphia. He put in about two seasons with the Sixers and actually was not too bad. The 2016-17 season was a career year for him, as he averaged 9.5 points and started in 27 games. He was eventually traded to the Brooklyn Nets in December of 2017. In that time, he has bounced around the league a bit and currently plays for the Cleveland Cavaliers.
As far as the Kings go, the fact that you have never heard of Arturas Gudaitis or Luka Mitrovic should tell you all you need to know. Gudaitis’ draft rights now sit with the Cleveland Cavaliers, in case you were wondering. I know you were not.
So overall, neither team really got a long-term rotational player. But the players, of course, were not the point for either Sacramento or Philadelphia. For the Sixers, it was about the picks the Kings were giving up. For the Kings, it was about the cap space they would acquire by offloading three players who were not producing.
So let us take a look at what the Kings did with this cap space!