Thunder Trade Hasheem Thabeet To Sixers

5:07pm: The trade is official, the Thunder have announced via press release. It’s Thabeet and cash headed to Philadelphia with a protected 2015 second-rounder going to Oklahoma City. That pick will probably never change hands, as Slater reported.

4:57pm: Oklahoma City is receiving a second-round pick, but it’s conditional and so heavily protected that Philadelphia is unlikely to ever have to convey it, reports Anthony Slater of The Oklahoman.

3:55pm: The Thunder will deal Hasheem Thabeet to the Sixers, reports Marc Stein of ESPN.com (on Twitter). The Sixers will likely waive Thabeet after the trade becomes official, Stein also hears (Twitter link). Philadelphia will also receive cash, and the Thunder won’t be taking back any salary, so they can create a trade exception worth Thabeet’s $1.25MM salary, Stein adds (via Twitter).

Thabeet’s salary is non-guaranteed, but it’s set to become fully guaranteed by the end of this coming Monday, which helps explain the timing of the move. Thabeet, the No. 2 pick in the 2009 draft, fell out of Oklahoma City’s rotation this past season amid the emergence of rookie Steven Adams. The 27-year-old Thabeet saw action in just 23 games with an average of 8.3 minutes per appearance.

It’d be a little surprising to see Philadelphia wind up with only cash from the transaction, especially given how much Sixers GM Sam Hinkie covets draft picks, so perhaps there’s more to the transaction than is being reported, though that’s just my speculation. Oklahoma City will have to net an asset of some sort in the trade, too. In any case, the move is set to take Oklahoma City down to 15 players, including 14 guaranteed deals and Lance Thomas, who has a non-guaranteed pact.

The 7’3″ Thabeet has never found solid footing in the league after spending three years at the University of Connecticut. The Grizzlies sent him on D-League assignment in his rookie season, a rarity for a player taken so highly in the draft, and they traded him to the Rockets midway through his second season. Houston swapped him to the Blazers a year later, and he signed with the Thunder the following summer. He spent his first season with Oklahoma City as the primary backup center behind Kendrick Perkins, but he lost that job in 2013/14.

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