76ers just won the Kawhi Leonard trade and didn’t have to lift a finger

The 76ers kicked off free agency Tuesday by agreeing to terms with Dean Wade. Fine move. Useful player. Just not the best move they made all day, and the best one wasn’t even theirs to make.

The Clippers made it for them.

Kawhi Leonard is a Toronto Raptor again. Los Angeles agreed to ship the 35-year-old back to the team he won a ring with, hauling in Brandon Ingram, Gradey Dick, and a pile of picks. Good for Toronto. They’re chasing a banner. That’s their problem.

Here’s why it’s Philly’s business.

What the 76ers actually own

Important note post Kawhi trade:

The Sixers currently own the Clippers unprotected 1st round pick in 2028 & pick swap rights in 2029 (top 3 protected)

Them moving Kawhi is huge for the next few seasons, but I’d imagine they have another move up their sleeve… We’ll see 👀👀

— Josh Reynolds (@JoshReynolds24) June 30, 2026

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Go back to the James Harden trade. Buried in that thing was the part that matters now: the Sixers hold the Clippers’ fully unprotected 2028 first-round pick, plus a top-three-protected pick swap in 2029.

Unprotected. Underline it.

That means whatever the Clippers turn into over the next two years, mediocre, bad, or radioactive, Philly is holding a lottery ticket with L.A.’s name on the roster and Philly’s name on the pick. The worse the Clippers get, the better that ticket looks.

And the Clippers just got worse.

They swapped a 35-year-old superstar for a soon-to-be-29-year-old good one. On paper, that’s a higher floor. In practice, it’s a lower ceiling and a roster stuck in the mud of the deepest conference in the sport. Ingram, Darius Garland, and rookie Keaton Wagler. That’s the plan out West, where the Kings, Grizzlies, Mavs, and Pelicans are all clawing at the same scraps.

Honest question: how many Western Conference teams are clearly worse than that Clippers roster in 2028? Not many. Which means L.A. is looking at the lottery. Which means so is Philly, as the guy on the couch holding the good end of the deal.

Why the new lottery makes the 76ers pick scarier

The league changed the rules, and it changed them in Philly’s favor.

The old lottery babied the worst teams. Bottom record couldn’t slip past No. 5, next-worst couldn’t slip past No. 6. There was a floor. Tanking came with a safety net.

That net is gone.

The new lottery goes 16 teams deep and draws every one of those spots. The odds got flattened across the board — the three worst teams now sit at 28% for a top-five pick, everyone else in the pool at 39%. Translation: nobody can tell you where a single pick lands anymore.

For a team holding somebody else’s unprotected first, that chaos is a gift. A middling Clippers season used to mean a safe, boring pick in the teens. Now that same season can cough up a top-five selection. The variance breaks toward the guy holding the paper. That’s Philly.

What the 76ers should do about it

Nothing.

Sit on the picks. This is a Tyrese Maxey and VJ Edgecombe operation now, and those two Clippers assets might be the most valuable things the front office owns that aren’t already in uniform. Unless somebody offers a name that makes you spit out your Wawa coffee, a Jokić, a Dončić, a Wembanyama, you don’t move them.

And yes, the skeptics have a point sitting right there. The Clippers were a .500 team with Kawhi and they’ll be a .500-ish team without him, so maybe the pick was always going to land in the boring middle. Fair. Nobody’s promising you the No. 1 overall selection.

But that misses it.

Kawhi walking out lowered the ceiling. The new lottery jacked up the variance. The cap investigation added the risk. Every arrow points the same way, and Philly is standing at the end of it holding a pick the Clippers can’t claw back.

The Sixers barely had to lift a finger on Tuesday to get a real, long-term win under their belt. They watched a rival do their dirty work and hand them better odds for free.

Best kind of win there is. The kind you don’t have to show up for.