In a column posted two days ago, a bunch of Sixers beats and columnists weighed in on what (if anything) the Sixers should try to do in free agency. Among the suggestions, Marcus Hayes said the Sixers should trade two of their best assets – Nerlens Noel and the Lakers’ currently protected first round pick – for 30-year-old Shaun Livingston. Here was Hayes’ argument:

The Sixers have plenty of money this year and next to overpay Livingston. He is due just $5.7 million this season and has made just a little over $30 million in his career, and his window to make double-digit millions annually is closing. He has a ring, so maybe money would be more important to Livingston than to most players.

This assumes, of course, that the Warriors would be willing to listen. Livingston and sixth man Andre Iguodala make the Warriors nearly invincible when playing with a healthy roster. What would it take? Plenty.

Nerlens Noel, to start. The Warriors’ Andrew Bogut is entering the final year of his contract, after which he will be 32. Festus Ezeli looks like a career backup center. Surrounded by superior offensive players, Noel would be asked to do little on that end for years to come.

If it takes more than Noel, fine. Send that annoying conditional pick from the Lakers, which remains top-three protected through the next draft.

Calling that protected first round pick “annoying” – when it could be as high as #4 next year and as high as #1 the year after (and could be lower blah blah blah) – goes a very long way to show how idiotic Hayes’ argument is. It’s an incredible asset, one that could lead to something really great, not a throw-in.

Hayes took heat on social media over this take (I assume, he blocked me) but doubled down on it today, removing the LA pick from the scenario and calling out all the friggin’ turds who told him it was a bad idea.

Upon further review … the Sixers still should pursue a trade for Golden State’s Shaun Livingston.

Upon still further review … Nerlens Noel would be a fair price. But nothing more.

Cool. So yeah, he removed the best asset from the deal, but it’s still a bad idea to trade a 22-year-old defensive force with tons of potential for a 30-year-old who will be an unrestricted free agent next year and won’t have any positive impact on a potential competitor here in the future. Plus, if you thought it was a bad idea, Marcus Hayes thinks you’re a goddamned nerd:

So, to allay mass pocket-protector panic due to a completely hypothetical proposition, let’s take the Lakers’ pick off the table in this Livingston trade scenario.

Maybe we presume too much with Livingston. Maybe we’ve gone mad, starved for an actual NBA player to watch after two years of Tank-A-Thon. Perhaps the pick is too precious. After all, there’s bound to be some 17-year-old Uzbek “stretch-four” the hoop nerds are already coveting. After four years of protein shakes and shin splints the kid will be ready. Guaranteed.

Again, Hayes shows he doesn’t understand what that pick is. To smart-assedly quip that it will be used on some nobody who will be draft-and-stashed* when it could be as high as #4 next year, and use “stretch four” in air-quotes like it’s a made up nerd word, shows that while we fight the good fight against Hayes’ awful ideas, he’s fighting that same battle against simple logic. But really, it wouldn’t be a Marcus Hayes column without getting a fact wrong. Like the spelling of Bryan Colangelo’s name:

bryan

The organization doesn’t deserve much, but the fans deserve better than this.

*Also, this straw man of a 17-year-old foreign prospect who weighs nothing and needs four years to get into playing shape is strange. The Sixers haven’t drafted anyone like that, and the last player to make it to the NBA who could vaguely fit that description is the one people think the Sixers should have picked over Okafor (Kristaps Porzingis).