76ers rumors: Philadelphia is ‘trying to trade’ Andre Drummond

After making their first big swing of free agency, signing Tyrese Maxey’s friend Trendon Watford to a new two-year, $5.3 million deal, the Philadelphia 76ers are looking to do some classic addition by subtraction, scouring the league for a team to take on the contract of backup center Andre Drummond.

That’s right, mere days after he picked up his player option, Drummond could be on the move, with Tony Jones of The Athletic reporting that Daryl Morey could be looking to make a deal.

So why would the 76ers be interested in making a deal to send Drummond packing? Well, his underwhelming 2024-25 season notwithstanding, getting his contract off the books could help to ease the team’s financial burden as they look for ways to bring back Guerschon Yabusele.

With Eric Gordon already gone and Kelly Oubre also coming up in rumors as a player the 76ers could look to move in order to free up even more cap space, the 76ers have a pathway to opening up the full midlevel exception in order to retain both Yabusele and Quentin Grimes, but that can’t happen if Drummond is still on the books.

After adding a pair of interesting frontcourt players like Watford and Johni Broome, the 76ers are clearly preparing for life without Yabusele, but regardless of how the next few hours and days turn out, Morey’s rumored interest in moving off of Drummond shows that Philadelphia isn’t simply trying to bring back the same roster while hoping for health but instead attempting to identify areas where they can improve and using their resources to make that happen.