The Philadelphia 76ers have won four of their last five and eight of their last 11 games, suddenly giving their season hope when their start couldn’t have gone much worse than it did.
The Sixers are now 11-17, which puts them at the No. 11 seed and one game behind the Detroit Pistons for the last play-in spot.
Getting healthier has certainly played a role in the Sixers getting their season back on track. However, a newly added wrinkle has also factored into their recent stretch of success: inserting KJ Martin.
The Sixers have used Martin as their starting small forward since they beat the Charlotte Hornets on December 16. Since then, they have lost only one game.
Martin’s team-friendly contract makes him very appealing as a trade asset because it’s non-guaranteed for next season. However, this latest stretch may make it hard for the Sixers to get rid of him, as everything is working in their favor.
While it’s not like Martin is single-handedly responsible for why the Sixers have started winning more games, it’s like the old saying goes. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
In the Sixers’ case, they started the season broke, and now they’re fixing it. So, if this recent stretch with Martin in the starting lineup proves not to be a fluke, it calls into question whether they should trade him.
They have a while to decide what to do
The Sixers could see Martin as a key to their success or as a stepping stone to acquiring an upgrade before the trade deadline.
If they decide he is the latter, his contract situation makes it so they can’t trade him until mid-January.
By then, the Sixers will get a better grasp of what they look like with their team hopefully at full strength until then.
A Martin trade seemed inevitable at first following the Sixers’ struggles. Now that they appear to be in the past, and with Martin proving to be why they’ve turned their season around, suddenly, it’s not that simple anymore.
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