Sacramento Kings: 3 potential Ben Simmons trade packages

Sacramento Kings trades for Ben Simmons: Throwing a Hail Mary for Haliburton

In terms of how realistic these trades feel, this one might be the closest to being on target. The 76ers are clearly looking to add not only quality guard talent now, but also stock up on young assets that increase their future flexibility. A player like Tyrese Haliburton would be very desirable for Philadelphia, which is precisely why I feel uncomfortable at the thought of moving him.

Haliburton is certainly not on the level of Fox—at least not yet—but his high basketball IQ and upward trajectory make it difficult to stomach the thought of losing him, the quality veterans, AND draft picks on top of it. I think trading away Fox in a one-to-one swap or something more closely resembling the first trade scenario might actually be preferable to me over this. Here’s how a trade revolving around Haliburton and Simmons would likely look.

This trade is also very inconvenient because it forces either one of either Hield or Harrison Barnes to be on the move. the 76ers would likely prefer to get Hield because they need all the shooters they can get, but this forces the Kings to play either Fox or Mitchell at the two. Sending out your only two starting-caliber shooting guards and overall crippling your perimeter scoring is not ideal, to say the least.

The Sacramento Kings could try to move Barnes instead of Hield, but this likely results in the 76ers asking for more draft capital as Harrison is redundant next to Tobias Harris. I’d also argue that Barnes is more essential when it comes to helping this current rendition of the Kings actually win games, so that looks like a lose-lose situation.

This deal just feels like it involves far too much risk on both sides, and when your job is on the line as a general manager all it takes is one botched decision for you to join the unemployment line. If this trade is proposed, I’d prefer if both sides held off and looked over one of the earlier hypothetical possibilities instead.

Projected Starting Lineup:

1. Davion Mitchell
2. De’Aaron Fox
3. Harrison Barnes
4. Ben Simmons
5. Richaun Holmes

Projected Record:

(35-47)

So what did we learn today? It seems that a fair Ben Simmons trade package is harder to work out than first imagined; I for one certainly learned that Hollinger’s win projections make absolutely no sense. Either way, I believe Simmons in Sacramento would make for a much better team in realization than the formula seems to indicate.