If you want to consider the greatest disasters of the last decade in the NBA, the Philadelphia 76ers' signing of Al Horford must rank near the top.
In the summer of 2019 the 76ers agreed to a lucrative four-year contract with Horford, who was coming off of three solid seasons as a core starter for the Boston Celtics. In order to clear that space, they waved goodbye to Jimmy Butler, who signed with the Miami Heat and promptly led them to two NBA Finals.
The 76ers, on the other hand, labored through a clunky year trying to shoehorn Horford and Joel Embiid together. The thought process was that signing Horford away would weaken the Celtics, their Atlantic Division foe, and take one of the best Embiid defenders in the league and turn him into an asset. Instead, the two struggled all season, the Sixers were only the sixth seed, and Horford was benched partway through the season.
Philadelphia decided to move on from its free agency blunder, attaching assets to Horford's contract to ship him to a ready and willing trade partner: the Oklahoma City Thunder. That included a second-round pick (used on Theo Maledon), the draft rights to Vasilije MIcic, and a future first-round pick. In return, the 76ers got a veteran wing in Danny Green, took a flier on Terance Ferguson, and received significant financial savings.
Green was a solid role player for Philadelphia, and the financial savings allowed them to pivot multiple times to build out the team they currently have around Embiid. Yet now the true horror of that mistake - from the signing to the trade to move on - is coming home to roost.
The Thunder may benefit from the 76ers' dysfunction
First off, the Oklahoma City Thunder have already turned the Al Horford trade into a success. At the time that they pulled off the deal, Horford's contract looked like a total albatross. Horford was 34 years old and coming off of perhaps the worst season of his career; it looked over for the versatile big man.
ESPN's Kevin Pelton even wrote at the time, "If Sam Presti manages to rehabilitate Al Horford's value and trade him for another first-round pick, along the lines of what we saw from Chris Paul's time in Oklahoma City, we should just permanently award him Executive of the Year."
Presti is still waiting for his lifetime achievement award, but he did just that, flipping Horford after the season back to the Celtics for Kemba Walker and a first-round pick. Horford flourished back with the Celtics, playing key roles on their 2022 Finals team and their 2024 title team.
Now the blessings keep on flowing, because the Thunder are in position to benefit yet again from this deal. The draft pick sent to the Thunder in the original Horford trade was the 76ers' 2025 first-round pick, Top-6 protected. As recently as this past offseason that looked like a ho-hum asset, as Philadelphia was expected to contend at the top of the conference.
Instead, injuries and ineffectiveness have devastated the team, and they are just 15-22, the eighth-worst record in the NBA. Even as the Thunder operate at the very top of the league and contend for a championship, they are currently on track to draft in the lottery yet again.
If the season ended today and there was no Draft Lottery, the Thunder would select eighth in the draft. That puts them in play for standout draft talent such as VJ Edgecombe, Kon Knueppel or Egor Demin. Teams in first place aren't supposed to add lottery pick after lottery pick to their roster.
The 76ers hope to get things together, to fight their way back into the Play-In Tournament and then make the playoffs. After a horrendous 5-15 start they are 10-7 in their last 17 games. They will probably finish better than eighth in the lottery standings.
Yet as the two teams prepare to face off on Tuesday night, the connection looming between the two teams is palpable. If Philadelphia does get healthy and consistent enough to barrel their way into the playoffs, they will hand something like the 16th or 18th pick to the Thunder - a better pick than they thought even three months ago.
If they cannot completely right the ship, however, that could be the 12th pick, or the 10th, or even the 8th. Suddenly a disaster is further exacerbated. The Thunder have pulled off a number of amazing trades in their day, but this one is truly a wonder to behold. It's the deal that keeps on giving.