"I will take (almost) all of your expiring contracts"

“I will take (almost) all of your expiring contracts”

In the three team trade that sent Thad Young to the Timberwolves and officially made the 76ers the NBA’s All-Name team by bringing in Luc Richard Mbah a Moute and Alexey Shved, Sam Hinkie actually turned down an expiring contract in order to get a player he wanted. According to Sports Illustrated, the Wolves originally wanted to send that first round pick, Shved, and J.J. Barea to the 76ers in order to dump Barea’s $4.5 million expiring contract on the pile of cap room the Sixers have been maintaining. But Hinkie told the Wolves he’d much rather have Mbah a Moute, Joel Embiid’s de facto mentor.

This is the first time any real news of Hinkie turning down some dumpster contracts has come out (the rumored deal to take on Amar’e Stoudemire’s abomination of a contract notwithstanding since it’s still a rumor), and it’s nice to know that if we pay some attention to the man behind the curtain, he’s got a plan that’s a little less vague than we may have though.