Michael Carter-Williams says he was hurt by Sixers trade: ‘I thought I was a part of the process’

Michael Carter-Williams was one of the first pieces of former Sixers general manager Sam Hinkie’s “Process.” For three seasons, from 2013-2016, Hinkie built rosters to tank for lottery picks.

At first, “The Process” was centered around the sixth and 11th overall picks in the 2013 draft, Nerlens Noel and Carter-Williams, respectively. Noel ended up missing the entirety of his rookie season due to a torn ACL and was later traded to the Dallas Mavericks after playing just 171 games for the franchise.

Carter-Williams, meanwhile, won the NBA’s Rookie of the Year award his first season with the Sixers — and then in Hinkie’s continued quest for more draft picks, was traded away midway through his second season, something he struggled to understand.

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“I was surprised,” Carter-Williams said on FanDuel’s Run It Back show. “I mean, I was all those emotions. I was surprised, I was upset, I didn’t understand. I spent a lot of time trying to understand it. I would be in the meetings with Hinkie and [coach] Brett Brown and we would talk about our future, and they would ask me my opinion on X, Y, and Z, whatever. So I thought I was really part of the process, step-by-step, things that I wouldn’t even ask for, I was invited to. Like, you know, and I’m sure they meant it with all good intention but it was confusing when I got the call.

“I got the call with like five minutes to the trade deadline. It was like, ‘You’re being traded to Milwaukee.’ It was a tough experience for me just trying to understand something that I was never going to be able to understand.”

Carter-Williams burst onto the scene, averaging 16.7 points, 6.2 rebounds, and 6.3 assists on his way to earning Rookie of the Year honors. Despite Carter-Williams’ rookie performance, the Sixers ended the season with a 19-63 record. In his sophomore season before he was traded to Milwaukee, he averaged 15 points, 7.4 assists, and 6.2 rebounds, while coming off an injury.

This isn’t the first time Carter-Williams shared his feelings about being traded from the Sixers. Earlier this year, he wrote about his career — and his mental health journey as he battled depression and anxiety throughout his time in the NBA — for The Players’ Tribune.

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“After Philly traded me to Milwaukee in 2015, I took it pretty hard. It was a genuine shock,” Carter-Williams wrote. “I had been a part of high-level conversations about the future of the team, and it never involved me being traded to Milwaukee. I thought I was getting experience to develop, and as we got better pieces, I was going to be a part of that … in my mind it was like, I had won the biggest award a rookie could get, I was part of the plan. But they just stopped believing in me. And obviously, it’s a business. So I started a new chapter in Milwaukee.”

Philly traded Carter-Williams as part of three-team deal involving the Phoenix Suns and Bucks. Shortly after the trade, Carter-Williams dropped 30 points on the Sixers in his first game back in Philly.

He averaged 14.1 points, 5.6 assists, and 4 rebounds in his first season with the Bucks. But his career soon faced multiple setbacks that left him moving around the league with several teams, including the Chicago Bulls, the Charlotte Hornets, the Houston Rockets, and the Orlando Magic, last appearing in a game in April 2023.

In an interview with the Boston Globe last month, Carter-Williams, 33, said that he was retired from playing.