For a big chunk of the year, Kyle Lowry was linked with several teams. The Miami Heat, Los Angeles Lakers and even the Philadelphia 76ers were mentioned as potential landing spots for the veteran point guard.
Going to Philly would have been incredibly appealing for the player. He's a Philadelphia native and going back home was something he wanted to do last campaign. After finishing his successful tenure with the Toronto Raptors, Lowry tested the waters of free agency. He joined the Miami Heat via sign-and-trade, creating a Big 3 alongside Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo.
Before that, however, the player was trying to pull the strings and get himself back in Philadelphia. According to Sam Fischer of Bleacher Report, the organization tried to move Ben Simmons, but things never came to fruition, keeping the Australian in Philly.
Sixers brass have kept ownership appraised on active trade interest in Simmons dating back to the predraft process, when all sides involved in this saga, sources told B/R, believed a deal had its highest likelihood of completion. But it was only Russell Westbrook who sought out of town, not Lillard or Beal, prior to draft night. And as the Raptors and Warriors found as well, there were limited options for any team to find clear upgrades in talent. Simmons appeared then—and still does now—to be the best player truly on the trade market.
Moreover, Fischer reveals that Lowry wanted to be some sort of connection between Joel Embiid and Simmons, the star duo that couldn't get a championship to the City of Brotherly Love.
Once Philadelphia could not land a draft-week swap to acquire Kyle Lowry, for example, it became highly unlikely the veteran point guard would choose the Sixers in free agency, being that he could have only joined Philadelphia by way of a sign-and-trade for Simmons, and Lowry had an interest in being the ball-handling connective tissue between Simmons and Embiid, sources said.
After that, Kyle took a different route and joined the Heat, while the Sixers started a tumultuous process trying to get Simmons back. In the end, the player returned when nobody expected him to do so. Ben is still on the trade market, but the Sixers won't get Lowry for him.
Meanwhile, Kyle will start a new chapter in his career with the Heat, trying to take that team to the next level in a stacked Eastern Conference.
More must-reads: