Part of the reason the Oklahoma City Thunder have become so successful with so many draft assets at their disposal is that they properly take advantage of other teams’ contract issues for the low, low price of acquiring a trade asset. Even though they’re the defending champs, the Thunder are still doing exactly that.

OKC is acquiring Jared McCain from the Philadelphia 76ers in exchange for a first-round pick (via the Houston Rockets) and three second-round picks. This is a salary dump for the Sixers and another potential boost for the Thunder in their pursuit of a second straight championship. Why did the Sixers do this? What can the Thunder gain? Let’s bust out the red pen and throw some grades on this trade.

Sixers acquire 2026 first-round pick, three second-round picks

The 76ers wanted to get under the luxury tax, and this deal does that. By sending out McCain’s $4.4 million deal this season, they’re now nearly $3 million under the luxury-tax threshold of $187.9 million. With big contracts for Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey and Paul George, having a team this good while also being under the luxury tax is some pretty good cap management by Daryl Morey and his front office, although it goes against the public wishes of Embiid to not worry about the tax so much and try to improve the team. If this is the only move the Sixers do before this trade deadline, then they very much did not improve the roster, and they only worried about the tax.

They get the flexibility to convert Dominick Barlow from a two-way contract to a full deal, but he was already on the roster. The question for the Sixers is, can they replace McCain with this draft pick and not lose value? That becomes a bit of a tricky equation to solve. That Houston pick is currently slotted at 26th in the 2026 draft. It’ll probably land somewhere in the range of 21-28. The standings are pretty jumbled,  and those eight selections are currently only a few games apart.

Which McCain are we talking about here? He was the top rookie in last year’s underwhelming class until a knee injury ended his season in December. While mostly playing on a bad Sixers team from the start of the season, McCain became the talk of the rookie class by averaging 15.3 points, 2.6 assists and 2.4 rebounds with 46.0/38.3/87.5 shooting splits in 25.7 minutes. He had a very impressive 58.9 true shooting percentage. Coming back from the knee injury this season, he hasn’t resembled that player at all. He’s averaging 6.6 points, 1.7 assists and 2.0 rebounds with 38.5/37.8/88.0 shooting splits in 16.8 minutes. That true shooting has dropped to a paltry 50.6 percent.

The good news is the Sixers are good now, so they didn’t need him nearly as much to play well. If he can’t be the player we saw in his rookie season, then that Houston pick should be pretty easy to use to replace him. If he can be that player again, then Philadelphia doing this to not pay the luxury tax in a decent season makes nailing that Houston pick pretty big.

Grade: B

Thunder acquire Jared McCain

This seems like a case of the rich getting richer, or just supreme asset management by GM Sam Presti once again. This will end up costing them Ousmane Dieng, for whom they’ll find a new home to make room for McCain on the roster. He wasn’t really part of their rotation either. McCain could be another one of these guys the Thunder utilize in that second unit to stretch the floor and make good decisions on both ends of the court. In a flip of the equation we mentioned for Houston above, the Thunder basically needed to weigh whether that Houston pick will yield them a player with the potential and production of what they believe McCain would give them.

The answer is most likely no, but it isn’t definite. They have to figure out if McCain’s rookie campaign was a flash in the pan (it happens) or if getting fully back from this injury will allow him to have the same production. He’s been a good outside shooter in both partial seasons. The Thunder would want him to get back to being a good scorer and someone capable of playing solid, and at times aggressive, defense.

Even if the Thunder get a player in the middle of what McCain has shown both seasons, that’s a valuable piece to their puzzle. And it allows them to make tough decisions on someone like Aaron Wiggins or Isaiah Joe at some point soon, if that second-apron and luxury-tax bill starts making them decide on players to remove from the roster for more cost-effective options. For the next two and a half seasons, McCain is exactly that, with the potential to be so much more.

Grade: A