As quickly as it began, the Buddy Hield era is officially over as the Philadelphia 76ers have agreed to a sign-and-trade involving Hield and the Golden State Warriors. The Sixers, in return for the 31-year-old sharpshooter, will be receiving a 2031 second-round pick from the Warriors via the Dallas Mavericks, according to The Athletic’s Shams Charania.
The initial rumblings came late Tuesday night but were delayed as Golden State and Hield negotiated the full details of his contract. In the end, Hield agreed on a three-year, $21 million deal that is fully guaranteed.
Philadelphia first acquired Hield at the trade deadline last season in exchange for three second-round picks, Marcus Morris Sr. and Furkan Korkmaz, in a three-team deal with the Indiana Pacers and the San Antonio Spurs.
The fit between the Sixers and Hield was not as clean as initially expected, primarily due to the lack of opportunity to play alongside Joel Embiid, who spent most of Hield’s time in Philadelphia recovering from a torn meniscus.
In the end, the acquisition of Buddy Hield ultimately did not work out the way Philadelphia had hoped, as Daryl frankly pointed out in his end-of-season press conference:
“Yeah, I think at no fault of Buddy’s; I think the fit was less good than I thought. Most of his time was without Joel, but I thought when Joel was back, that his impact and his shooting, that he’d get more open shots, and he didn’t. That’s on me that it didn’t work out as well as we hoped.” Morey said. “I still think it was one of the better acquisitions; I was really happy he showed what he could do in Game 6 and, based on how they’re guarding us, what he can do.”
Despite this perceived failure, it was the right move at the time, and Philadelphia effectively recouped 33 percent of the cost to land Hield when they seemingly did not have the desire and certainly did not have the ability to re-sign him anyway.
A popular question has been whether Philadelphia would create a trade exception through this deal, but that is unlikely to be the case, at least in the end. Technically, they would create an exception roughly worth $7.2 million, but that exception would have to be renounced after the Sixers’ signings this offseason.
