On Saturday, we answered 15 questions posed by fans leading up to free agency. The Sixers, with a nice chunk of money available to spend, are bringing out some passion in the fanbase as the offseason transaction sweepstakes begin. As such, that first round of answers only accounted for half of the questions the Philadelphia faithful had.
Here is the other half.
On the day of Mike Gansey’s introduction, Bob Myers explicitly mentioned the non-taxpayer mid-level exception as a tool at the Sixers’ disposal in free agency. That suggests they’ll be spending. Definitely not as much as they did when they were a cap space team two summers ago, but certainly more than what they shelled out last summer.
The key here is that simply mentioning the non-taxpayer mid-level exception elicits an assumption that they’ll spend the full thing. But spending even a dollar more than the taxpayer mid-level exception ($6,065,000) imposes a hard cap at the first apron. The Sixers’ braintrust could be of the mind that they want to have space below the first apron as they navigate the season more than they want to spend the full amount of money available to them and reduce their margins below the first apron before the season even begins.
The point I’m making is, for the purposes of team-building, you might as well spend every last dollar you can once you commit yourself to being hard-capped at the first apron. Just because that is one philosophy does not mean that will be the Sixers’ philosophy. They may opt to spend only a little more than the taxpayer mid-level in the summer and save their space for activity during the season.
Nonetheless, the clue suggests they’ll be looking to lure contributors in.
As for the second question, I woudn’t read too much into that yet. It could be that this isn’t a draft class that is particularly keen on signing two-way deals right now, which is ostensibly what the Sixers would be offering to an undrafted first-year player. That will clear up as markets become clearer and targets have to accept their realities.
It could also be that the new front office wants to use summer league to evaluate the young guys they’ve added without committing anything to them right now. Honestly, that’s a wise strategy, in my view.
I should add, you also can’t legally sign anyone yet. But that’s a technicality.
That requires me to know the Rockets’ plans, and I am not privy to that information. As much as I don’t think he’s a great basketball fit in this team’s offense, if you were going to have interest in a double sign-and-trade involving Quentin Grimes, this would be a guy who would fit the bill from a salary standpoint.
I like Keon Ellis. The conundrum is he was out of the playing rotation by the end of the Cleveland Cavaliers’ playoff run. So there is a limit to the amount you should want to spend on a guy who can’t hang on the court by the latter rounds of the postseason.
The flip side of that is the Sixers would have to first actually make it to the latter rounds of the playoffs, and anyone who can help them get there should arguably have a place on the team.
What are you expecting the guy to do? There’s no feasible tradable salary on the roster. There’s only been one league event in which teams added players. He didn’t have a second-round pick to use. Free agency hasn’t begun yet. What is there to criticize yet?
Again, this is asking for league-wide trade market information to which we can’t speak. I understand wanting to get off Paul George’s money just to break up the salary into multiple contributors, but the Sixers should not be operating as a team dying to pay to get out of the George business. He was really good when he came back from the suspension and held up for most of the Sixers’ two-round participation in the 2026 playoffs.
I think he’s going to be pretty expensive, like a couple million above the full non-taxpayer mid-level exception. But, excellent fit. I’d be fine with spending the full mid-level on him, alone.
This is a cop-out, but both. On one hand, you’re committed to massive salaries for Joel Embiid and George. When you consider that and add in Tyrese Maxey’s rookie extension, you fundamentally cannot prioritize long-term financial flexibility. That, as a concept, is at odds with the current salary makeup of your roster. They’re trying to compete as long as they’re rostering two 30-somethings on max deals.
On the other hand, the Sixers should be anticipating paying a hefty extension to V.J. Edgecombe in the next few years. They’re probably going to have significant long-term commitments to mulitple players even after Embiid and George’s obligations have been paid off. So, in the current ecosystem, it behooves them to also build the supporting cast in a way that allows for some financial flexibility.
I’m not sure this build is any better than last season’s. Also that is a ton of ballhandling responsibility for a rookie drafted late in the first round.
I think his fit is a bit overstated. John Collins has the positional size and shooting skills to be an excellent power forward for this team’s offense. But he’s neither a high-level shot-blocker nor rebounder. And I feel like allocating the full mid-level to a guy whose best skill is shooting is maybe a little ill-advised.
The only reason this is tough is a number of the guys in that age range are coming off salaries sigificantly above the full mid-level. I’d say Bennedict Mathurin, Kevin Huerter, Tari Eason, Daniss Jenkins and Julian Champagnie would be five names on my list.
I’m not saying all those players are realistic targets. Some are going to be due for huge raises. But that would be my “under 27” list.
No idea how much he’ll demand, although the salary on the last year of his deal was $26,580,000. So I don’t know if Collins, in his late 20s, will be approaching free agency from a position of, shall we say, realism?
The Sixers will have cap holds representing Grimes and Kelly Oubre Jr. on their books until they either renounce their Bird rights or other teams sign them. So there is technically a placeholder that artificially lowers the amount of spending power the Sixers have while they still have rights to those two players. However, I’d expect that, if they had concrete plans in place for other free agents, they’d just renounce their rights to Grimes and Oubre and let them walk.
Operating under that assumption (and not including the cap holds), Philadelphia would be $14,611,806 below the luxury tax, $22,611,806 below the first apron and $35,611,806 below the second apron. There are two caveats. One, that is by my math. Two, that is assuming that the estimates for those cap figures hold when the hard numbers come out in the coming days.
It all depends on their markets. Any team can throw a plan off just by valuing any one player more than the Sixers do. In this scenario, trading for Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, at his salary of more than $21 million, would put an axe through the idea. The Sixers don’t have the tradeable salaries to make a deal conceivable for both sides. They also don’t have a big-enough traded player exception to just absorb Caldwell-Pope’s salary.
Thanks for your questions. I look forward to what the next few weeks have in store!
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