Is Kyle Lowry worth the price? Five questions the Sixers must answer ahead of the NBA trade deadline. | David Murphy

Is it worth the Sixers’ while to give a 35-year-old guard a two-year, $50 million contract? Is it worth their while to sacrifice a first-round pick and/or a young player to do so? These are the questions that will likely play the biggest role in determining the path that Daryl Morey and his front office choose to follow between now and Thursday evening’s trade deadline.

As The Inquirer’s Keith Pompey reported Tuesday, Lowry will be seeking a new contract that pays him in the neighborhood of $25 million a year once he hits free agency, and he would like to receive such a contract from any team that acquires him. Reports suggest the Heat are the other primary suitor for Lowry’s services, adding another variable to Morey’s cost-benefit analysis.

Is dealing for Lowry a smart move? That depends on how the Sixers evaluate the following five questions:

He’d likely need to be to sign Lowry to a two-year, $50 million deal while keeping the rest of his stars and filling out the rest of his roster. Take, for instance, the roster below, which would leave the Sixers staring at a payroll just south of $149 million, or roughly $12 million over the projected 2021-22 luxury tax threshold of $136.6 million. And that’s if the four empty slots are filled by minimum-salary rookies. In such a scenario, the Sixers would end up paying in the neighborhood of $21 million in luxury tax. On the one hand, Josh Harris is worth a lot of money. On the other hand, he didn’t accrue that money by giving away $21 million to fellow rich people.

This might be the most significant question of them all. It’s also the one that is impossible to know. Lowry is in his 34-year-old season. Plenty of guards have played productively beyond 34, but almost none of them maintained their prime levels of performance through their 36-year-old seasons.

Consider the following group of 12 contemporary players who, along with Lowry, rank in the Top 100 among guards in minutes played through the age of 34 (per Basketball-Reference.com): LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Joe Johnson, Paul Pierce, Tony Parker, Andre Iguodala, Jason Terry, Vince Carter, Andre Miller, Jamal Crawford, Chauncey Billups, Dwyane Wade.

In their 35-year-old and 36-year-old seasons, this group saw a 21% decline in games played per season, a 26% decline in minutes per game, and an 11% decline in points scored and assisted upon (with assists worth two points).

The numbers look a little better when you drill down into some of the games of longer-tenured point guards. In his 35-36 seasons, Steve Nash averaged 33 minutes with an increase in his points and assists total. Miller’s points scored and assisted upon remained steady. Jason Kidd averaged 36 minutes with much better efficiency. Gary Payton averaged 34 minutes with a 20% decrease in his points scored and assisted upon.

On the one hand, Lowry’s offensive numbers have shown little decline. In 36 games, he is averaging 17.6 points and shooting .391% from three-point range with an effective field goal percentage of .543. All of those numbers are above his career averages. It seems like a decent bet that Lowry would maintain a decent level of offensive utility for the next couple of seasons, particularly for a team that will need a complementary ballhandler for as long as Ben Simmons is on the roster.

On the other hand, Lowry has missed at least 17 games in three of his last four seasons, and his on-off splits have dropped markedly over the last couple of years. A lot of Lowry’s value comes from his hard-nosed defense. As we’ve seen with Danny Green this year, defense is something that almost inevitably declines with age.

It’s a question worth asking, because paying Lowry $25 million per year would be a lot easier if the Sixers could redistribute Harris’ $36 million salary next season to the rest of the roster in the form of players with more complementary skill sets. Whether that is even possible is another question.

Harris is back to being the player he was when the Sixers traded for him a couple of seasons ago. He’s averaging 20.8 points, shooting .413 from three-point range, and giving Doc Rivers a dependable third scoring option on most nights. He’s a very good regular-season NBA player and a great locker-room presence. Trouble is, NBA defense is a lot tougher in the postseason than it is in the regular season, and Harris has struggled in those situations. Might the Sixers be a better team if they could spend Harris’ money on a couple of guys who can improve their defense or their catch-and-shoot ability or both? And, again, is that even possible?

Harris would be a good fit with a lot of small- to mid-market teams that are merely trying to make the playoffs. But his contract is such that it could be difficult to land a true asset in return, which could leave them having to settle for a dollars-for-dollars swap, or attaching an asset to Harris’ contract to facilitate a multi-team trade, which will further constrain the scenarios in which a trade of Harris would result in an upgraded roster.

This is the big question for this year. In Green, Mike Scott, and Terrance Ferguson, the Sixers have in the neighborhood of $24 million in expiring contracts that could facilitate the acquisition of a broad spectrum of players. There’s a strong argument that using those dollars to acquire Lowry would have more impact in a playoff run than acquiring two or three more complementary players, or keeping Green and using Scott and Ferguson to add some type of bench scorer or ballhandler. Beyond that, a lot depends on how crazy the market gets. For instance, there have been reports that the Pacers have fielded calls on Malcolm Brogdon, who is younger, cheaper and a more dynamic scorer than Lowry. But the market for Brogdon would also be much deeper, and the Sixers would likely need to part with most of their assets to make a competitive offer to the Pacers.

Which leads us to our last question ...

The Sixers’ most obvious high-upside assets are their future first-round picks and rookie point guard Tyrese Maxey. Shake Milton and Paul Reed could qualify, though I have no idea what the consensus is throughout the league. I’m sure Matisse Thybulle has some value, but more as a value add than anything, given his limited offensive game.

The worst-case scenario would be for the Sixers to end up parting with an asset or multiple assets that would have helped facilitate a future trade for a younger, more dynamic star. What are the odds that acquiring Lowry prevents them from acquiring someone such as Bradley Beal or Zach LaVine in the future? What are the odds that they will even have an opportunity to acquire such a player?

The two things we know for sure are that the Sixers have an opportunity to acquire Lowry, and that Lowry would have a significant impact on their ability to contend for a title this year. Necessity is the mother of intervention. We’ll soon find out what direction Daryl Morey decides to go.