It would be easy to assume that the first domino has fallen. When the Sixers signed Caleb Martin seven months ago, the move was heralded as the final piece of the team’s championship puzzle. Now, Martin is en route to Dallas, the Sixers shedding his four-year, $35 million contract in return for guard Quentin Grimes and a second-round pick. The move, which comes two days before the NBA’s trade deadline, sure seems like one of a team turning its attention to the future while signaling its intention to sell.

Or does it?

Simply put, this was a no-brainer of a trade for a team in the Sixers’ situation, regardless of their overarching mindset for the deadline. In Grimes, they land a legitimate NBA rotation player who still has some upside at the age of 24. While his star has dimmed since the Clippers selected him with the No. 25 overall pick of the 2021 draft and quickly shipped him to the Knicks, the 6-foot-5 guard was averaging 22.8 minutes and shooting a career-best .398 from three-point range for the defending Western Conference champion Mavericks. Two years ago, Grimes started six playoff games for the Knicks, who traded him to the Pistons last February in a deal that landed them Bojan Bogdanovic and Alec Burks.

Do the Sixers make this deal if they are a sure-fire playoff team with a decent chance at contending for a title? Probably not. There is a reason the Mavericks sent the Sixers a second-round pick along with Grimes. While he has missed the last 12 games with a hip injury, the 29-year-old Martin has a long playoff track record and has looked a lot like the player the Sixers thought they were getting when they signed him in July. In 31 games, he is shooting .379 from three-point range while averaging 9.1 points to go with his usual tough-nosed play off the ball and on defense in 30.4 minutes per night.

The Sixers are clearly at an inflection point. Given the uncertainty surrounding Joel Embiid’s short- and long-term health and the massive financial commitment they have to an aging and regressing Paul George, Daryl Morey and the ownership group would be foolish not to compile an exhaustive list of options for their paths forward.

At 19-29, they are in 11th place in the Eastern Conference, out of a play-in spot but also only 5½ games behind the sixth-seeded Heat. Their odds of contending this season are obviously slim, especially given the trio of dynamic teams currently pacing the East. Even if the Sixers think they’ll have Embiid for the rest of the season and can mount a second-half charge, what are the odds they can do that and also win a seven-game series against two of the Cavaliers, Celtics, and Knicks?

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The bigger unknown is the Sixers’ calculation for next season. If they think Embiid can get back to his MVP form, they can make an argument that, absent a legitimate offer for George that nets them future assets, they have little to gain by tearing down the whole thing. Then again, it’s hard to see how they can feel any sort of confidence in Embiid’s health a year from now, given how little they seem to know about it in the here and now. If someone is willing to take George’s contract off their hands, it may be a wise thing to do regardless of the return.

Whatever the case, we should be careful about gleaning anything from the decision to trade Martin. Because Grimes is a restricted free agent with Bird rights, the Sixers will have a chance to re-sign him this season and, at the very least, retain a tradeable contract in place of Martin’s.

You can just as easily interpret this trade as the Sixers looking for a middle road through the deadline rather than forcing themselves to commit to either keeping the gang together or blowing the whole thing up.