This assumes that Zion requests out of Nola. Although OKC might not have been quite what he was imagining, they’re at least competent enough to put a competitive team around him.

Sixers get near infinite optionality. They could trade some of those picks for, say, Tyrese Haliburton while preserving cap space, or could save their trade exception to do a sign-and-trade for someone like Harden without sending any salary back, which would then give Brooklyn their own 40M trade exception, etc.

OKC gets to sell more tickets with Russ back, and then once Zion and Pat Will come back next year, they have an absolutely nasty lineup that Russ could very well lead back to playoff contention