Before the Washington Wizards could take a massive swing to acquire Trae Young from the Atlanta Falcons for CJ McCollum and Corey Kispert, they first needed to finish up their game against the Philadelphia 76ers.
Now unsurprisingly, neither McCollum nor Kispert played in said game, a blowout loss to Philadelphia, as even a minor injury could have derailed a trade with massive Eastern Conference implications, but the reason the Wizards gave for their absence didn't quite pass the smell test for Nick Nurse.
Why? Well, because he looked over at the sidelines and noticed that the duo didn't look very “sick” on the bench, even if that was their official statuses for the game.
“Someone said they were sick, but then I saw them standing over there, and they didn't look very sick,” Nurse explained via Ausin Krell.
Did the Wizards get away with their “sick” game against the 76ers? Most assuredly so, as McCollim and Kispert left the game unscathed, were traded shortly after the final buzzer, and will soon be heading to Atlanta to link up with their new team if they aren't already on a plane at the time of publication.
And as for the Wizards? Well, they will almost certainly take a 131-110 loss to the 76ers if it means landing a new franchise player in Young, who is somehow still only 27 years old despite being in his eighth NBA season. In the end, the Wizards got their guy, the Hawks got off of his contract, and the 76ers got a win after dropping a stunner to an undermanned Denver Nuggets squad on Monday; the rare win-win-win by NBA standards.
