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JaVale McGee doesn't want to be cut from the 76ers, and the feeling is mutual

Kelly Dwyer
JaVale McGee doesn't want to be cut from the 76ers, and the feeling is mutual

On the NBA’s trade deadline day, the Denver Nuggets sent JaVale McGee and a future first-round pick to the Philadelphia 76ers just to get rid of the final year and $12 million on his contract. In a league that currently hoards draft picks almost to the point of fetishism, it seemed like a bit of a rash move for a Denver team that just could have paid McGee to go away while rebuilding.

The 76ers are most certainly rebuilding, they’re just about re-defining how a team rebuilds to an absurdly parched degree, and it was assumed by some that they would quickly dump McGee while chasing down yet another fringe rotation prospect to season. Instead, the squad has kept the center and it is playing JaVale, and McGee told reporters on Monday that he’s keen to spend the next season-plus with his new team.

From Keith Pompey at the Philadelphia Inquirer:

"I don't want to get bought out," said McGee, a 27-year-old in his seventh NBA season. "That's not a positive thing. When you think about it, you don't get all of your money when you get bought out.

"So it doesn't make sense why someone would want to get bought out unless they are older - older and they want to go to a contender or something. I'm not that old. I just want to play basketball.”

The Sixers have let McGee play thus far, to the tune of 24 minutes spread out over two games since the trade. He’s totaled just four and four rebounds without a block during that time, but he did pull this:

 

That’s why teams keep coming back to JaVale McGee. This isn’t why the Sixers are keeping him, they’re hoping to rehabilitate his game so much that another suitor comes calling for his contract in a trade between now and the 2016 NBA trade deadline in exchange for yet another draft pick for Sam Hinkie’s Philadelphia crew.

McGee was and sadly still is the same sort of raw center that current Sixer projects Nerlens Noel and the injured Joel Embiid are hoping not to be by the time they hit their mid-20s, much less McGee’s mark of 27 years of age. Sixers coach Brett Brown has already committed to McGee in the form of those 24 minutes over the weekend, 23 more than what JaVale had played in the 2015 calendar year prior to the trade, but as should always be the case the coach is putting McGee’s future in McGee’s hands:

"We are coming into this whole thing with an open mind," coach Brett Brown said Sunday after the team's morning shootaround at the Amway Center. "He is around a bunch of genuine people, coaches that care. That will give him every chance to keep moving and to be as good as he can be.

"And if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. But it's not going to be on us."

That’s completely and utterly fair. The Philadelphia 76ers aren’t in the JaVale McGee Business right now. We don’t know what sort of business they’re actually in, if we’re honest, but JaVale’s presence does not loom large in their future plans despite the fact that he’s currently making nearly twice as much as their second-highest paid player, and will make more than twice as much as No. 2 in 2015-16.

That doesn’t mean McGee isn’t doing his best to endear himself to the community. From his Twitter account on Monday:

Sound move, JaVale McGee.

McGee’s never been a bad guy, he’s just always been a disinterested guy. He doesn’t have the skillset needed to put up big numbers even on a terrible team like Philadelphia, as his fundamentals are just that lousy. What he does have is the time and space needed to work his way into becoming a contributor for either this team or his next one.

Of course, we’ve been saying this since 2008. It’s not on us.

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Kelly Dwyer

is an editor for Ball Don't Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at KDonhoops@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!