The Philadelphia 76ers continue to have the worst record in the NBA this season but it seems like they are ready to stop tanking and start moving towards winning. The first sign of that was bringing Jerry Colangelo on board to help in the front office. Another sign was their reported activity during last week's trade deadline. The 76ers made a pretty sizeable offer to the Hawks for backup point guard Dennis Schroder, according to Keith Pompey of Philly.com, but the Hawks turned it down.
The proposed trade was reportedly Nik Stauskas, Ish Smith, JaKarr Sampson and a 2016 first-round pick for Schroder. The Hawks, who were said to have basically all of their players available at the deadline, didn't make any major trades and decided to keep their core together for the rest of the season. This offseason though, Al Horford will be a free agent and the Hawks will likely be looking to make major roster changes.
Talks between the 76ers and the Hawks regarding Schroder will reportedly be revisited this offseason. This makes a lot of sense for the Hawks because in the offseason there will be a lot more bidders for his services and that will in turn drive the asking price for Schroder way up, according to Sam Vecenie of CBS Sports.
The 76ers are reportedly extremely high on Schroder and believe he can be their point guard moving forward. If in fact the 76ers are that high on Schroder they should do everything they can to get him this offseason. Look at what the Pistons did with Reggie Jackson last year and that seems to be working out great. In the NBA, or any league for that matter, if you really like a player and feel like he would be great for your system then you should do everything you can to get that player. The 76ers are reportedly planning to offer Schroder a very lucrative contract when he becomes a restricted free agent in 2017 if they are unable to trade for him.
The biggest issue here is that the Hawks also may see Schroder as their point guard of the future. Jeff Teague is under contract for next season but they were looking to possibly trade him before the deadline with the idea of handing the reigns to Schroder. It will be interesting what direction Atlanta decides to go in but if they decide Schroder is the right guy to move on from the 76ers will be right there waiting, as they should be.
