It’s time for your Ben Simmons rumor of the day.

This one comes via Sam Amick at The Athletic, who mentioned on the site’s NBA podcast that the Sacramento Kings are thinking about trading for both Ben Simmons and Tobias Harris:

The Simmons + Harris thing is in response to Brian Windhorst and Marc Spears talking recently about the Sixers attempting to package both guys in a trade, which seems crazy on the surface. That’s about $70 million outgoing and you’d need multiple players coming back to create a match.

As an exercise, if you swapped Simmons and Harris for the Kings’ top-three paid guys, the trade would look like this:

Fox, Hield, and Barnes gets you to that range.


Beyond those three, they have Marvin Bagley making $11 million, Richaun Holmes around $10 million, and then Tristan Thompson above $9 million. Tyrese Haliburton is obviously still on his rookie deal, and you’d assume they’re gonna keep him and try to make him a focal point for the future as they rebuild yet again. They’ve really struggled over the past 15 years and haven’t been to the playoffs since 2006.

It’s doable though. The Sixers and Kings could indeed work something out that sends BOTH Simmons and Harris to Sacramento, and brings back a few guys in the process. Again, we don’t know what Daryl Morey’s looking for here. Does he consider Fox good enough to be the centerpiece in a Simmons trade? And what’s the corresponding move to shape the roster around Embiid, sans Harris? Do they move Hield and/or Barnes?

February 10th is the trade deadline.