Photo credit: Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports

People sometimes complain that I deviate too much from local sports, or even sports in general, this time of the year. That’s because our one team currently playing is the Sixers. This is what Grantland had to say about them the last two days.

Zach Lowe on what they’ll do at the trade deadline:

The Sixers are $11 million below the cap and about $5 million below the minimum salary floor each team must hit. The penalty for not hitting the floor is weak and of little concern to the Sixers,6 but the flexibility is of major value on the trade market.

It will allow Philly to take on extra salary in any deal for one of the Evan Turner/Young/Hawes trio. The Bobcats are absolutely serious about pursuing Turner,7 per several league sources, and the Sixers could take on Ben Gordon’s expiring contract along with one of Charlotte’s extra first-rounders (likely the 2014 pick Portland owes it) if that closes the deal.

Philly might have enough cap space to do something like that and rent out the rest — at cost — to a team seeking to get under the tax. The Clippers would seem to be the prime candidate. They’re only about $2 million over the tax, and they could get under it by dumping a veteran player such as Jared Dudley or Willie Green, plus Reggie Bullock as the cost of doing business. You could expand this into a bigger money thing involving Hawes, given the Clips’ glaring need for a third competent big, but adding extra complications is always dicey.

The Lakers probably can’t get under the tax, but they could at least use Philly to reduce their tax bill if the Sixers can find a single thing of value on the Lakers’ barren roster.

Bottom line: Philly is a lock to be super-active in the next week.

And Andrew Sharp on expert tanking:

1. Everybody loves the 76ers. We loved them when Brett Brown looked at Spencer Hawes, Evan Turner, and Thad Young, and said, “I treat them like Timmy, Tony, and Manu … I have empowered them.” We loved them when they turned the world upside down and forced us to write this 3,000-word emergency shootaround. But now the real show begins. Spectacular tanking is why we’ve loved them all along. The kind of tanking that empowers Hawes to be Duncan, and Tony Wroten to take 20 shots a game.

2. The Sixers have lost their last two games to the Clippers and Warriors by a combined 88 points, and both games saw them down 45 in the second half before benches were emptied. At one point Sunday you saw consecutive plays with CP3 throwing it off the backboard, then Blake Griffin dribbling behind his back before an alley-oop …This is some Washington Generals shit.

Oddly, the Sixers’ awfulness has been the most reliable aspect of Philly sports over the last two years or so. And I’m not sure how to feel about that sentence.