Charlotte Hornets: 5 ideas for a Terry Rozier trade

Former Tar Heel returns to North Carolina in trade sending Terry Rozier to Philadelphia.

The Philadelphia 76ers are currently first in the Eastern Conference at 30-13. However, they are also equipped with multiple assets that make sense as trade chips for short-term impact players, such as Tyrese Maxey, Isaiah Joe, and their future draft picks.  So what type of additions should they be looking to make?

The Sixers have the 2nd best adjusted defensive rating in the league. Ben Simmons and Matisse Thybulle are two of the premier on-ball defenders in the league, with incredible synergy with Joel Embiid who holds up ballhandlers enough in drop coverage for those two to recover from behind and contest pull-up jumpers. However, the Sixers only have the 13th best adjusted best offensive rating.

Terry Rozier’s fit is therefore obvious. He is proficient at scoring in various ways and projects to have synergy with Ben Simmons. Rozier’s weakness is creating separation for himself off-the-dribble and non-rudimentary passing reads, but he’s extremely good at pindowns, handoffs, and catch-and-shoots. Having Rozier run off handoffs with a skilled ballhandler like Simmons as the dribble hand-off machine could be super effective.

This is in contrast to a Shake Milton, who is more ball dominant and does most of his work inside the arc (just 29% of his shot attempts are from outside the arc, compared to 52% of Rozier’s shots being 3s). And whilst Rozier and Seth Curry have some overlapping skills, Rozier is simply a higher volume scorer. Curry is the more well rounded player with his playmaking abilities, but Rozier is capable of finishing over and around rim protectors, and he simply scores more efficiently at a higher volume from all areas of the court.

A big appeal of adding Rozier to a roster already containing Curry is the impact dual high-level shooters can have on your offense. As Ben Taylor of Thinking Basketball explains in the below video, two of the best playoff offenses of the last few years were powered by running two high-level shooters together.

Split cuts become deadlier. Your basic Simmons/Curry handoff becomes harder to guard if the defense has to choose between helping off Rozier or not.

Since the Sixers have pretty strong defensive personnel, they’re well placed to run these supercharged offensive lineups in the playoffs with Simmons, Thybulle, and Joel Embiid holding down the fort on defense.

So, what do the Sixers give up? Danny Green is primarily there to match salaries. From a Hornets side, Green would provide a veteran defensive presence for the young Hornets wings such as Miles Bridges and Jalen McDaniels to learn from.

Isaiah Joe is a promising 3&D prospect with high basketball IQ but as of now, his slight frame limits his contributions on both ends of the court. He also played a lot of power forward in college which suggests he could be a fairly switchable defender in the future as he fills out his frame.