Sixers stock watch: Elton Brand making moves, Jimmy Butler quietly excellent, Jonah Bolden out of rotation

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What a week it was for the Sixers.

After getting beat pretty handily by the Raptors Tuesday night, the mood postgame was somber.

All that changed when the Sixers pulled off a late-night trade for forward Tobias Harris.

Let’s get right into this week’s stock watch.

Stock up

Elton Brand

Duh, right? Less than five months into the job and less than three years removed from actually playing for the Sixers, Brand has pulled off the two boldest moves of the NBA season. Landing a player the caliber of Harris signifies to the rest of the league that the Sixers mean business. 

For anyone that’s concerned that this trade is a “rental,” you need to realize the situation Harris is in. This is already his fifth NBA team, it’s the best one he’s ever been on and the Sixers can offer him more money than anybody. From the Sixers’ perspective, you have a 26-year-old borderline All-Star that has improved consistently over his NBA career. Hell of a move by Brand.

Aside from Harris, Brand did a solid job upgrading the team’s bench with players like Mike Scott, Boban Marjanovic, James Ennis and Jonathon Simmons. All four guys are experienced, battle-tested and can play average to above-average defense.

Bonus points for telling Magic Johnson and the Lakers to kick rocks.

Jimmy Butler

The slam dunk here would be Harris, but he’s only been here for two games so there’s no baseline for his performance as a Sixer. 

Butler, on the other hand, has had a weird tenure with the Sixers. There have been questions about his fit and reports that he “aggressively challenged” Brett Brown. The questions came back up with Harris’ arrival, but Butler has quietly been excellent over the last two games.

Against Denver, Butler was aggressive and lived at the line, making 14 of 14. He was efficient vs. the Lakers, hitting 6 of 10 for 15 points in just 30 minutes.

Brown is enjoying what he’s seen out of Butler:

With this team, he respects the game, he plays the right way. So you start putting him in a system and on a team that has more firepower, you feel even a greater level of respect. I see that with him. I really do see that with him. He and Tobias I think are incredibly unique in that regard. Normally you get shot hunters and they’re not doing that. They take what the game gives them and I think to the points that we all talked about, there is a good ecosystem, there is a good vibe. They are sharing the ball.

It’s an interesting point Brown brings up here. Butler is an All-Star caliber player, but he’s never been a volume shooter. The highest amount of shots per game he averaged in a season was 16.5 in 2016-17. That mark was good for 23rd in the league.

It’s entirely possible that Harris’ presence will actually allow Butler to thrive, creating more space for Butler to drive and get to the basket.

Stock down

Jonah Bolden

This one is tough because it’s really just a matter of circumstance. Bolden had solidified his role as the team’s backup five, but with an experienced big like Marjanovic in the mix, Bolden finds himself on the outside looking in with the rotation.

It will be interesting to see what Brown does if a team chooses to go small at the five with Marjanovic — it didn’t work out well when the Lakers did it with former Sixer Mike Muscala. Bolden has done well as a rookie and could still get playoff minutes if there’s an appropriate matchup against a smaller and more athletic five.

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