“If you do what everyone else does, you get what everyone else gets.”

It’s a mantra the Sixers have stood by during this frenetic period in their history, and it’s a message that was reinforced by the team once again this week.

At Thursday’s 3pm trade deadline, Philadelphia completed three separate deals, parting ways with second-year point guard Michael Carter-Williams and rookie swingman K.J. McDaniels in return for two first-round picks, a second-rounder, Rockets point guard Isaiah Canaan, and Nuggets center JaVale McGee.

No doubt the most monumental of the three deals was the one that sent Carter-Williams to Milwaukee and the Lakers’ lightly protected 2015 first-round pick from Phoenix to Philadelphia.

The deal was difficult to make, not only because of emotional attachment of both the organization and the fans to 23-year-old point guard, but also because the reigning Rookie of the Year has been a heck of a player during his 111-game tenure in Philadelphia. At the end of the day, the organization felt the move is one that will bring it closer to its ultimate goal of winning an NBA Championship.

“Those picks do not move around much. It is almost impossibly hard to get your hands on a pick that at least has the chance to be a high-lottery pick,” General Manager and President of Basketball Operations Sam Hinkie said of the deal during a press conference on Friday morning. “It’s so critical, to get from where we are to where we want to go, for us to be willing to take smart risks.”

The business of franchise reconstruction isn’t always easy. And as any fan that has experienced a rebuild firsthand will tell you, it almost never is.

Twenty months ago, on the night of Hinkie’s first draft at the helm of the franchise, the team parted ways with All-Star point guard Jrue Holiday and the rights to Pierre Jackson in return for the rights to Nerlens Noel and a future first-round pick that would eventually become Dario Saric, a 2015 second-round pick, and a 2017 first-round pick.

For many fans that had grown fond of Holiday during his four seasons in Philadelphia, the deal came as a shock. But after the initial feelings of disbelief subsided, excitement began to build about the future of the franchise and the bevy of talented, young players that would join it as a result of the deal.

Thursday’s blockbuster three-way deal is similar in many respects. The team parted ways with an established piece, one that was well liked not only by fans but also by the organization itself, but in return they received a valuable draft pick and additional roster flexibility moving forward.

The Lakers’ pick is top-five protected this coming June and top-three protected in 2016 and 2017; in 2018, it becomes unprotected. As it stands today, the Lakers hold the league’s fourth-worst record (13-40), but Hinkie noted that even if the pick isn’t conveyed until after this year’s draft, it’s still a valuable commodity, and one that made the deal not only palatable, but impossible to pass up.

“The only way we were going to move [Michael Carter-Williams], [was] if somebody blew us away. So we rejected offer after offer over the last year or more, but something came along,” he told reporters. “And the thing that came along is something that’s really interesting and is really scarce, and it’s that pick from the Lakers… That made us consider it and in the end made us decide that it was the right thing to do to move our program forward.”

The Sixers’ journey may not always be an easy one, and at times it may be downright arduous. But while the path the team has taken is certainly the one less traveled, they are confident that in the end their efforts will be rewarded.

“If you do what everyone else does, you get what everyone else gets.”