Just when you thought the NBA rumor mill would calm down after the trade deadline last week, in comes Zach Lowe with a wild conspiracy about the Philadelphia 76ers’ plans this offseason.

Zach Lowe’s Tin Foil Hat

According to Lowe, there is a conspiracy theory going around the league that Daryl Morey could move Tobias Harris while James Harden would decline his player option and sign for less than the max.

These two moves would allow the 76ers to bring in a third star to pair with Joel Embiid and Harden.

I’m going to call this exactly what Zach Lowe did, a conspiracy theory. There are too many things that could go wrong and don’t make any sense for the 76ers moving forward. James Harden will surely not sign for anything less than the max and has made it very clear he wants the most he can get.

If Harden opts out of his player option, Philadelphia will have $15 million in space to play with, and moving Tobias outright would put them at roughly $53 million in cap space.

Harris will be impossible to dump on his own unless Oklahoma City wants to eat his contract. Philadelphia does have Harden’s bird rights, meaning they should have the ability to go over the cap space to bring him back in free agency.

The last part is the most important part.

Who the hell are the 76ers going to sign in free agency to be their third star? This off-season, the top free agents are Zach Lavine, Bradley Beal, and Kyrie Irving.

Lavine and the Bulls have exceeded expectations and there’s zero inclination he wants to leave Chicago. Bradley Beal wants a supermax extension from Washington to earn $250 million, so it’s not likely he’s leaving the nation’s capital anytime soon.

All that leaves is Kyrie Irving, who is the single person who drove Harden out of Brooklyn.

So could the 76ers retool this off-season? Absolutely. But there’s little-to-no chance it occurs how Alex Jones Zach Lowe has planned it out.

Mandatory Credit: Sportscasting