News broke on Tuesday afternoon that the Sixers have made their first trade of season, sending Caleb Martin to the Dallas Mavericks in exchange for 24-year-old wing Quentin Grimes and the returning of their own 2025 second-round pick.
There will be more to come — including a formal announcement of the deal, and a game between the Sixers and Mavericks in Philadelphia on Tuesday evening — but for now, some instant reactions to the trade and pieces of information with noting as trade season rolls on:
• Martin was in the first season of a four-year, $35 million contract he signed to join the Sixers last summer, and even during a disappointing first season in Philadelphia, the Mavericks clearly considered the 29-year-old, battle-tested wing to be on a valuable contract. They traded a young rotation player having a strong season to land him, after all.
• For the Sixers, it is a bit of a risk to trade someone like Martin who can definitively be a helpful rotation wing for a good team and is on a cost-effective long-term contract. The player Martin has been for the Sixers this year is easily replaceable, but as he has grappled with injuries just about everywhere in his body this season, it is very fair to wonder if the Sixers ever saw anything close to the best version of him.
• Grimes, 24, is not nearly as accomplished as Martin, but he has been a better player this season. Even without having Martin's reputation as a tenacious defender, Grimes does stand at 6-foot-5 with a 6-foot-8 wingspan and knows how to defend. He is a helpful player on that end, even if he is not as good of an option against bigger wings as Martin was.
• Conversely, Grimes is not just an accurate three-point shooter, but also a high-volume one who can take and make difficult shots. He is leaps and bounds better offensively than Martin, who tops out as an average spot-up shooter with very little creation ability for himself or others. Grimes is not a go-to scorer, but he is a very good shooter who is capable of making a play off the bounce.
Quentin Grimes is among the NBA's most efficient off-the-dribble shooters. His 1.179 points per possession rank him fifth among 97 players with 75+.
Grimes produced only 0.64 PPP on these shots during his career-best scoring season in 2022-23, averaging 11.3 points. pic.twitter.com/GzLLHJrBsK— Grant Afseth (@GrantAfseth) January 9, 2025
• Because Grimes did not sign a rookie extension last summer as he entered his fourth season on a rookie scale deal, he will be a restricted free agent this summer. That means if any team signs him to an offer sheet, the Sixers will have the right to match the deal. Restricted free agents often see their markets crater, as teams know their cap space could be tied up for up to 48 hours as they await a decision from the player's incumbent team, which oftentimes end up matching the deal. The Sixers will have all of the leverage in negotiations with Grimes, unless he has a monstrous final two months of the season with the team — and the Sixers would surely be pleased with that outcome.
• In writing about the case for keeping KJ Martin around, I have repeatedly made the case that on a roster filled with veteran players, it would be wise for the Sixers to keep around players who have some upward mobility. Now, the Sixers have a ready-made rotation wing who they can trust on both ends of the floor that still has the chance to get better as time goes on.
• The Sixers had been one of four NBA teams without ownership of a single pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, but now they regain control of their own second-rounder, which they originally traded to Oklahoma City years ago for George Hill (yes, you read that right). This second-rounder is far from a throw-in; if the season ended today it would land at No. 37 overall. It does not have much upside beyond that slot, as the six teams with worse records than the Sixers as things stand now are all considerably worse with no incentive to begin stacking wins.
As the Sixers face the reality that they are more likely than not to lose their first-round pick to Oklahoma City — the Thunder will receive the pick unless it jumps into the top six spots as a result of the Al Horford trade in 2020 — it will be helpful to at least have a pick which should slot into the first half of the second round.
• The Sixers are now about $250K below the NBA's first apron, which is not relevant yet, but could be if the Sixers continue to cut costs. This deal saved them about $4 million in 2024-25 salary and has them in the neighborhood of $7 million above the luxury tax threshold. Ducking the tax would not be easy, but this deal does make it increasingly plausible. We are not yet in a place to discuss whether the Sixers are trying to clear enough future salary to make room for an improved offer to Guerschon Yabusele next season, but that conversation could escalate if the team moves KJ Martin or perhaps the veteran pairing of Andre Drummond and Eric Gordon.
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Like most trades, this one can be viewed through a positive lens or a negative lens.
Let's start with the latter: the Sixers had a proven playoff riser, a quality two-way rotation wing in Martin. He has made big shots and defended big names in big games. Instead of keeping him on a long-term contract which many believed to be a bargain, the Sixers have chosen to bank on a young player continuing to ascend. There is risk involved, and it is risk the team did not need to take on.
The more optimistic view: Grimes has clearly been a better player than Martin this year. Because of Martin having to battle through injuries for much of the season, one could make a case that he remains a slightly better player. Ultimately, though, it would be difficult to dispute that the two players are at the very least in the same ballpark in terms of overall on-court value. When that is the case and one player is 29 years old while the other is 24 years old with more growth potentially ahead of him, the choice seems fairly easy. A premium second-round pick being attached to the younger player who has had a better season helps simplify the decision, too.
Evaluating this trade in any sort of definitive terms will be impossible until Grimes' restricted free agency plays out. The Sixers bringing him back seems extremely likely, whether that is with a deal they propose or by matching another team's offer sheet. Grimes could get squeezed like many restricted free agents before him have. If he has a strong 30 games or so with the Sixers this season, maybe a larger deal is required to keep him. But the Sixers will very likely be the ones holding the cards in these talks when they begin in June.
When considering their ages, skill sets and contractual situations, I believe Grimes will be a more valuable player than Martin over the next 3.5 years. If I was in charge of the Sixers and was offered a one-for-one swap, I would have been on the fence but likely pulled the trigger. Adding a legitimately valuable second-round pick on top of Grimes is a nice touch on a good deal for the Sixers.
MORE: Sixers trade deadline primer
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