Could the Philadelphia 76ers help faciliate a Greg Monroe trade?

One thing that will be interesting to watch in the Greg Monroe saga is if any teams suddenly find interest in the big man as training camp nears in October. For most of the teams that have been rumored to be interested in acquiring the former Georgetown big man, it’d take a third team to facilitate a trade.

Currently, there is only one team in the league that has a ton of cap space that is being saved in case they can help facilitate a deal at a price.

Chuck Myron at Hoops Rumors held his weekly chat yesterday and was asked why the Philadelphia 76ers haven’t even attempted to fill out their cap space. Myron believes it’s because Philly is hoping to hop into a Greg Monroe or Eric Bledsoe trade at a price to the team needing to dump salary to acquire either player.

"Look no farther than last year’s Jazz for an example of what the Sixers might wind up doing with their cap space. The Jazz essentially “rented” their cap room to the Warriors last season, allowing Golden State to dump the player-friendly contracts of Andris Biedrins, Richard Jefferson and Brandon Rush so they could acquire Andre Iguodala. The Sixers could jump into a Monroe or Bledsoe sign-and-trade as a third team, giving a team without the requisite cap space the opportunity to acquire one of those restricted free agents. Utah netted multiple first-rounders for their trouble last summer, and Philly could perhaps do the same this time around."

Of course, it takes true interest from an organization to even start putting together the thought of a three team deal.  For example, if the Portland Trail Blazers or Los Angeles Lakers became interested in a sign and trade — they definitely wouldn’t have the cap room to add Monroe. But they do have a lot of players on one year deals that could be dealt to the 76ers to clear the space.

The only issues in deals like this is nine times out of ten the team willing to help make the deal happen gets all the future assets, while the other team gets the player they’ve been looking at for quite some time. It often leads the team in the Pistons position as the odd man out.

And as we know, Stan Van Gundy has made it clear that his intent is to get maximum value for his free agent power forward.

Myron also believes the Atlanta Hawks could still be in the mix to acquire Monroe if things don’t work out between him and the Pistons.

"Yes, most certainly. See the answer to my question about why the Sixers are saving cap room for an answer. The Hawks could wind up offloading salary to the Sixers to facilitate a sign-and-trade deal for Monroe (although the Hawks wouldn’t have to offload much, since they already have some cap room of their own)."

As contract negotiations fire up again between the Pistons and Monroe’s camp — they are going to be a lot of rumors swirling from both sides as a way to gain leverage.

Chances are if there is some type of sign and trade, it will be with a team that Pistons fans didn’t expect to get in the mix.