When news broke that Anthony Davis was no longer interested in signing a potential super max deal at the end of his current contract, the people of the Twitterverse jumped onto the NBA Trade Machine to make a deal work for their respective team.

Kevin did the obligatory Anthony Davis/Sixers post on Monday morning. In the late afternoon, Zach Lowe dropped a new episode of The Lowe Post where he was joined by ESPN’s Brian Windhorst and Bleacher Report’s Howard Beck. While most of the discussion centered around Davis’ fit with the Lakers or a potential off-season move to the Celtics, Windhorst was adamant that the Sixers could be a looming threat for AD. He laid out a few hypothetical trades including the likes of Jimmy Butler or Ben Simmons, but his point on the latter sharing an agent – Rich Paul of Klutch Sports – with Anthony Davis was some solid insight that many have overlooked in a Simmons-for-AD swap, including The Ringer‘s Bill Simmons:

Windhorst: There’s two different ways this could go… [Option 1] You could do a Jimmy Butler trade. Or you could, depending on what New Orleans wants, cause remember Jimmy Butler’s a free agent to be.

Lowe: Who they chased in trade talks by the way, aggressively.

Windhorst: That’s true, but that was with Anthony Davis on the roster. You could go back to Houston and see what’s still there and potentially reengage Houston in a three-way trade. OR this is the interesting one. This is the one that would cause some friction. You need filler to make it happen. Ben Simmons for Anthony Davis.

More after the jump:

Lowe: Funny enough, a month ago I wrote an Anthony Davis column. And two weeks ago I wrote a Philadelphia Sixers column like “what if they ever traded Simmons”. Actually, I’m more optimistic than most about the fit of Simmons, Embiid, and Butler, despite the ego battles that need to be smoothed over there. Simmons for Davis is the most obvious trade in both directions. Whichever perspective you’re looking at this issue from, that’s an obvious trade that’s been sitting there. Again, it needs filler, whatever that filler is. Brian, you know the complexities, the complicating factors better than anyone, which is that Rich Paul represents both [Simmons and Davis]. I don’t know that Rich Paul, who’s trying to get Anthony Davis out of New Orleans is going to want Ben Simmons – his other crown jewel client, 21 years old or whatever – to go to New Orleans.

Windhorst: That’s fair, but Ben’s under contract for several more years and then restricted. Rich cannot be happy, but he doesn’t have control over that.

Lowe: The Butler reroute is something I thought about this morning, really for the first time, because I just thought… if Anthony Davis is on the way out, I don’t thing 28, 29 year old Jimmy Butler – about to get a massive contract – is really gonna move the needle. But, if you attached something else, I don’t know what Markelle Fultz is in terms of trade value, but if you attach that or the Heat’s unprotected pick, you could make an appetizing offer out of that.

Windhorst: There’s no question. I just don’t know if Jimmy would end up in New Orleans, that’s the only thing.

Lowe: Houston you know will offer up every pick they have; the picks are immaterial to the Rockets right now. They’ll offer four, they did offer four, they’ll offer four.

Windhorst: They could all end up in New Orleans.

Do I expect a move for AD? Absolutely not. Is it fun to think about? Absolutely. If you’re a Sixers fan, you should hope that either LA makes the deal OR Boston shells out a treasure trove of assets before the draft, only to see AD walk after next season.