The Sixers have 20 games left on their 2024-25 regular season, and a handful of reunion games with former members of the team remain on their schedule. Two former Sixers will be in town on Sunday night, one of which making his first return to Philadelphia since being traded by the Sixers and then rerouted to another team a month ago.
As we like to do every now and then, let's check in on some old friends:
KJ Martin and Jaden Springer, Utah Jazz
The Sixers will be back in action on Sunday night when they play host to a Jazz team in the midst of an epic tanking effort. Utah stands at 15-48 as their long rebuild rolls on, but recently added two former Sixers to the mix.
As everyone around these parts recalls with anger, KJ Martin was inked to a two-year, $16 million contract by the Sixers over the summer which contained a non-guaranteed second season, a deal designed to make him an appealing trade asset and increase the Sixers' eventual financial bandwidth in trade talks. The Sixers giving the young, athletic forward a "balloon deal" was advocated for by many, with this very publication leading the pack in the middle of June. The only way it could go wrong was the team having a season so disastrous that it felt inclined to pivot away from buying at the trade deadline, and falling so far to the other end of the spectrum that they felt compelled to duck the luxury tax.
So the Sixers' tactic went very wrong, and the cost to shed Martin's salary for the remainder of this season was a pair of future second-round picks. At the time, the Sixers were sending Martin to the Detroit Pistons, which actually felt like a solid landing spot for him: Martin is at his best when playing alongside a ball-handler who commands significant attention from opposing defenses, and Pistons All-Star engine Cade Cunningham felt like a nice fit. But Detroit ended up rerouting Martin to the Jazz.
Martin, who was nearing a return from a stress reaction suffered in his foot on Dec. 23 when he was moved in early February, did not suit up for the Jazz for a couple of weeks. But he has played in each of the team's last nine games, logging starts in seven of them (including each of the last four). Martin has played 24.7 minutes per game in a limited role for the sputtering Jazz as he hopes to convince them his non-guaranteed salary of just over $8 million for next season is a worthy investment.
Meanwhile, Springer, the former Sixers first-round pick, found himself in free agency after the Boston Celtics traded him to the Houston Rockets in a salary dump and the Rockets elected to waive him to create an open roster spot. Springer landed with the Jazz on a 10-day contract soon enough, and in just a few games earned a three-year standard contract to remain in Utah. Springer has missed two consecutive games due to a back injury; his status for Sunday's game in Philadelphia remains to be determined.
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Caleb Martin, Dallas Mavericks
Caleb, the other Martin traded by the Sixers last month, was a late addition to the team's injury report for a game on Jan. 12. He was eventually ruled out with groin soreness, and ended up never playing for the team again. His groin soreness eventually became a hip issue, and when he was questionable to make his return on Feb. 4 against the Dallas Mavericks, news broke that he had been traded to the Mavericks amid a drastic roster shakeup in Dallas. The Sixers were initially set to send Caleb Martin to the Mavericks in exchange for Quentin Grimes and the return of their own 2025 second-round pick, but when the veteran wing's physical was flagged by Dallas, the Sixers ended up adding a 2030 second-round pick into the deal.
This happened because the Mavericks deemed Caleb Martin was still weeks away from playing, not days as the Sixers had been asserting (the Sixers' own injury reports reflected this belief). It ended up taking over a month for him to play, making his debut on Friday night in a loss to the Memphis Grizzlies. In 14 minutes, Caleb Martin made his only field goal attempt, collecting four rebounds, three assists, a steal and a block.
The Sixers will be in Dallas for a rematch against a devastated Mavericks team next Sunday, in a game that was wisely flexed off of national television.
Lester Quinones, New Orleans Pelicans
Quinones was one of the Sixers' initial two-way players at the start of the season, but only made four appearances and totaled 17 minutes with the team before being waived in December. Quinones inked a deal with the Birmingham Squadron, the G League affiliate of the New Orleans Pelicans, and nobody was surprised to see the 24-year-old guard torch competition at that level as he has been doing for years.
With a 25-game sample in which he averaged 22.2 points, 7.4 rebounds, 4.1 assists and 1.4 steals, Quinones earned a last-minute opportunity with the Pelicans, inking a two-way deal for the remainder of the season with New Orleans. He has yet to suit up since his deal became official on March 2, but has a chance to see genuine opportunity down the stretch as the Pelicans likely redirect minutes to unproven commodities.
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James Harden, Los Angeles Clippers
Harden's Clippers have been slowing down a bit of late, but the soon-to-be 36-year-old former Sixer who earned his 11th All-Star nod this season will not let his team die. On the second night of a back-to-back on Wednesday, Harden went into vintage mode and obliterated the red-hot Detroit Pistons. Harden recorded the first 50-point game in the history of the Intuit Dome:
JAMES HARDEN’S 24TH CAREER 50-PT GAME. 🤯🤯🔥 pic.twitter.com/vjMsoBBRbs
— House of Highlights (@HoHighlights) March 6, 2025
Despite Kawhi Leonard's availability being up in the air all season and emerging second option Norman Powell recently missing plenty of time, Harden has been as reliable as it gets. The former NBA MVP is 12th in the NBA in total minutes played this season, only missing three of the Clippers' 63 games so far.
When Harden's career reaches its conclusion, people will remember his step-back threes, the MVP honor and the "Unguardable Tour" in Houston, but they should also recognize that he is one of the most durable superstars of this era. In a time in which load management has drawn so much ire, Harden has never been one for significant rest in any of his stops. That he still has the physical capacity to handle one of the largest workloads of any player in the league given the amount of mileage already on his body is incredible.
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