Sixers Tried to Trade for Donte Divincenzo Before Deadline
The Sixers tried to trade for donte divincenzo before the deadline, but they did not land him. Daryl Morey spent the period chasing cost-effective role players with multiple years of control, and the search reached beyond one target.
Morey’s deadline search
Morey’s top target was Thunder shooting guard Aaron Wiggins, whom he hoped to land as part of the McCain deal. Philadelphia would have needed to include multiple other players to make that structure work, a sign the front office was trying to assemble value without sacrificing control for a short-term swing.
He also offered multiple second-round picks to the Bulls for Jalen Smith, but Chicago opted to keep him. That lines up with the rest of the deadline push: the Sixers were not shopping for a single splash move, but for rotation pieces they could keep beyond the season.
DiVincenzo and the other targets
DiVincenzo was one of several players Philadelphia pursued before the deadline. The Sixers also made attempts to land the Mavericks’ Naji Marshall, the Warriors’ Brandin Podziemski and the Suns’ Ryan Dunn, and none of those players wound up changing teams.
Morey liked the potential fit of Ayo Dosunmu, but he did not prioritize him because of the guard’s expiring contract. Philadelphia also had some interest in Vit Krejci, who had been sent from Atlanta to Portland four days prior to the deadline in exchange for two second-round picks.
What Philadelphia was chasing
The pattern is clear from the names involved: Philadelphia kept leaning toward players with team control and trade value attached. Morey even used the phrase "we sold high" after sending Jared McCain to Oklahoma City in February, and the deadline search shows the team trying to turn that kind of asset management into a deeper bench.
For a Sixers roster that was being reshaped around that approach, the missed pursuit of DiVincenzo leaves the same practical answer for now: the front office aimed at rotation help with years of control, but the targets it chased stayed put. That is the baseline for the next phase of roster work after a deadline built on cost and flexibility rather than a single headline move.
