2025 Offseason Free Agency Thread

[Black Mage]

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Cap Review by Bodner.

[76ciology]

Correct me if I’m wrong, but our best move would look like dumping Council and Drummond’s contracts to multiple teams for a few 2nd round picks, re-sign Grimes, worst case around $22-23M, and use part of the MLE to sign Yabusele at around $5M. We’d be below second apron. So in effect, it’s like turning Drummond, Council, and 2nd rounders into Yabusele, which adds depth (still have Oubre) for this season. Then next offseason, Oubre’s $8M comes off the books, giving us added flexibility.

[Wilfried]

Correct me if I’m wrong, but our best move would look like dumping Council and Drummond’s contracts to multiple teams for a few 2nd round picks, re-sign Grimes, worst case around $22-23M, and use part of the MLE to sign Yabusele at around $5M. We’d be below second apron. So in effect, it’s like turning Drummond, Council, and 2nd rounders into Yabusele, which adds depth (still have Oubre) for this season. Then next offseason, Oubre’s $8M comes off the books, giving us added flexibility.

Just don't see too much in resigning Grimes at that amount, I don't see him as a long term player (max 2 seasons) here given VJ and McCain are here.
Don't see that much of a 3 in him either.

Would prefer to go after a capable forward who can play 4 instead of him. And for sure try to resign Yabu

Maxey
Oubre
George
?
Embiid

McCain
Yabu
Bona
VJ
Edwards

[Kolkmania]

Correct me if I’m wrong, but our best move would look like dumping Council and Drummond’s contracts to multiple teams for a few 2nd round picks, re-sign Grimes, worst case around $22-23M, and use part of the MLE to sign Yabusele at around $5M. We’d be below second apron. So in effect, it’s like turning Drummond, Council, and 2nd rounders into Yabusele, which adds depth (still have Oubre) for this season. Then next offseason, Oubre’s $8M comes off the books, giving us added flexibility.

Just don't see too much in resigning Grimes at that amount, I don't see him as a long term player (max 2 seasons) here given VJ and McCain are here.
Don't see that much of a 3 in him either.

Would prefer to go after a capable forward who can play 4 instead of him. And for sure try to resign Yabu

Maxey
Oubre
George
?
Embiid

McCain
Yabu
Bona
VJ
Edwards

The problem is that there's not a massive salary advantage when we choose to not offer Grimes a 16 to 22 million contract. There will be some additional money available to offer Yabusele via NT-MLE (until we reach the 1st apron), but there's no additional exception or regular salary room to go for a capable forward.

Grimes is good. If we can sign him for a salary that makes him viewed as a positive asset (and I think he will for that money), we should do it. His salary would also be in a very useful range since we only have rookies, or <8 m contracts or max contracts on the roster. Without his salary, it makes it really hard to match salaries for a lot of interesting forwards.

If I'm not mistaken we can, with the right salary maneuvers, offer someone the full (or close to) Taxpayer MLE in addition to Grimes. Would be fantastic if Yabusele accepts that. If not, let's try to use it on Boucher, Nance Jr, or some other tweener that can provide some rebounding and (weak side) rim protection.

Maxey - McCain
Grimes - VJ - Council IV
Oubre - Edwards
George - Yabu/Boucher - Broome
Embiid - Bona - Drummond

Rest of roster will be probably filled with a minimum deals for Lowry and the pre-arranged one for Gordon. I think I'd rather have Butler or even Dowtin in that group, but I get that we want some veteran experience on the roster and that there are probably some arrangements made with those guys/agents.

[Wilfried]

Correct me if I’m wrong, but our best move would look like dumping Council and Drummond’s contracts to multiple teams for a few 2nd round picks, re-sign Grimes, worst case around $22-23M, and use part of the MLE to sign Yabusele at around $5M. We’d be below second apron. So in effect, it’s like turning Drummond, Council, and 2nd rounders into Yabusele, which adds depth (still have Oubre) for this season. Then next offseason, Oubre’s $8M comes off the books, giving us added flexibility.

Just don't see too much in resigning Grimes at that amount, I don't see him as a long term player (max 2 seasons) here given VJ and McCain are here.
Don't see that much of a 3 in him either.

Would prefer to go after a capable forward who can play 4 instead of him. And for sure try to resign Yabu

Maxey
Oubre
George
?
Embiid

McCain
Yabu
Bona
VJ
Edwards

The problem is that there's not a massive salary advantage when we choose to not offer Grimes a 16 to 22 million contract. There will be some additional money available to offer Yabusele via NT-MLE (until we reach the 1st apron), but there's no additional exception or regular salary room to go for a capable forward.

Grimes is good. If we can sign him for a salary that makes him viewed as a positive asset (and I think he will for that money), we should do it. His salary would also be in a very useful range since we only have rookies, or <8 m contracts or max contracts on the roster. Without his salary, it makes it really hard to match salaries for a lot of interesting forwards.

If I'm not mistaken we can, with the right salary maneuvers, offer someone the full (or close to) Taxpayer MLE in addition to Grimes. Would be fantastic if Yabusele accepts that. If not, let's try to use it on Boucher, Nance Jr, or some other tweener that can provide some rebounding and (weak side) rim protection.

Maxey - McCain
Grimes - VJ - Council IV
Oubre - Edwards
George - Yabu/Boucher - Broome
Embiid - Bona - Drummond

Rest of roster will be probably filled with a minimum deals for Lowry and the pre-arranged one for Gordon. I think I'd rather have Butler or even Dowtin in that group, but I get that we want some veteran experience on the roster and that there are probably some arrangements made with those guys/agents.

Understand completely, and agree that the Grimes' contract probably will be usefull, but we cannot start with George at the 4. That's the problem.
Especially with Embiid not being the defender anymore he once was

[Kolkmania]

Correct me if I’m wrong, but our best move would look like dumping Council and Drummond’s contracts to multiple teams for a few 2nd round picks, re-sign Grimes, worst case around $22-23M, and use part of the MLE to sign Yabusele at around $5M. We’d be below second apron. So in effect, it’s like turning Drummond, Council, and 2nd rounders into Yabusele, which adds depth (still have Oubre) for this season. Then next offseason, Oubre’s $8M comes off the books, giving us added flexibility.

Could make sense. I'm hoping that Grimes will accept a 4 year, 80 million contract, starting at 17 million contract or so. In that case, there's no need to spend assets to acquire a 29 year old rotation player. If Embiid is injured, we're not going to win a championship anyway, so I'd be hesitant to trade future assets. A lot of teams are dealing with the same salary issues as we do, so even if the Drummond contract is not big, I can imagine that those 2nd rounders need to be quite valuable.

However, this all assumes that Yabusele is even willing to accept a Taxpaying MLE. I can see some team offering him more than that.

[Kolkmania]

Just don't see too much in resigning Grimes at that amount, I don't see him as a long term player (max 2 seasons) here given VJ and McCain are here.
Don't see that much of a 3 in him either.

Would prefer to go after a capable forward who can play 4 instead of him. And for sure try to resign Yabu

Maxey
Oubre
George
?
Embiid

McCain
Yabu
Bona
VJ
Edwards

The problem is that there's not a massive salary advantage when we choose to not offer Grimes a 16 to 22 million contract. There will be some additional money available to offer Yabusele via NT-MLE (until we reach the 1st apron), but there's no additional exception or regular salary room to go for a capable forward.

Grimes is good. If we can sign him for a salary that makes him viewed as a positive asset (and I think he will for that money), we should do it. His salary would also be in a very useful range since we only have rookies, or <8 m contracts or max contracts on the roster. Without his salary, it makes it really hard to match salaries for a lot of interesting forwards.

If I'm not mistaken we can, with the right salary maneuvers, offer someone the full (or close to) Taxpayer MLE in addition to Grimes. Would be fantastic if Yabusele accepts that. If not, let's try to use it on Boucher, Nance Jr, or some other tweener that can provide some rebounding and (weak side) rim protection.

Maxey - McCain
Grimes - VJ - Council IV
Oubre - Edwards
George - Yabu/Boucher - Broome
Embiid - Bona - Drummond

Rest of roster will be probably filled with a minimum deals for Lowry and the pre-arranged one for Gordon. I think I'd rather have Butler or even Dowtin in that group, but I get that we want some veteran experience on the roster and that there are probably some arrangements made with those guys/agents.

Understand completely, and agree that the Grimes' contract probably will be usefull, but we cannot start with George at the 4. That's the problem.
Especially with Embiid not being the defender anymore he once was

I can see Embiid matching quite well with a player like Boucher as well. Not afraid to shoot from distance, while he offers some weakside rim protection.

However, I personally have little hope that Embiid is truly ready to contribute next year in a playoff setting. So I'd rather go into the year with lots of rangy wings and see whether Broome or even Bona can play some spot minutes at the 4. If we conclude in January that Embiid has actually recovered quite well, we could look to upgrade the roster before the trade deadline. That way you maintain optionality without unnecessarily spending assets right now.

[zaz102]

Current Salary: $182.3
Second Apron: $207.8

We have ~$25.5M for four roster spots if the Sixers want to stay under the second apron.

Taxpayer MLE: $5.4M
Vet Minimum: $2.3M

Depending on if they keep a roster spots open, or not, they will use $7.7M - $10M sans Grimes. This would leave ~$15M - $17.3M left for Grimes.

I saw some people looking to save money, but you really can't save much without impacting the quality of the team. You could save $2.7M by swapping Drummond for a vet minimum player, but that's really it. Council makes the minimum so no savings there. I would say Oubre, but he's a starter right now and they Sixers would most likely have to match salary in a trade anyway.

Because of this, I don't think they'll go over the $15M - $17.3M (or $20M if they pay to dump Drummond) for Grimes or any player that could be gotten back in a S&T. I read the report that Grimes want $25M, but ai don't think he's going to get that. Maybe he just signs a one year deal and tries again next year.

[76ciology]

Correct me if I’m wrong, but our best move would look like dumping Council and Drummond’s contracts to multiple teams for a few 2nd round picks, re-sign Grimes, worst case around $22-23M, and use part of the MLE to sign Yabusele at around $5M. We’d be below second apron. So in effect, it’s like turning Drummond, Council, and 2nd rounders into Yabusele, which adds depth (still have Oubre) for this season. Then next offseason, Oubre’s $8M comes off the books, giving us added flexibility.

Just don't see too much in resigning Grimes at that amount, I don't see him as a long term player (max 2 seasons) here given VJ and McCain are here.
Don't see that much of a 3 in him either.

Would prefer to go after a capable forward who can play 4 instead of him. And for sure try to resign Yabu

Maxey
Oubre
George
?
Embiid

McCain
Yabu
Bona
VJ
Edwards

I think his fair market value is a bit above $16–18M. But given how thin this free agent class is, and how much more valuable his archetype became after this year’s playoffs. I’m anticipating a scenario where we may need to match something in the $18–22M range. Honestly, I wouldn’t mind paying him $22M if all it costs us is a couple of second-rounders. Ideally, though, we could lock him into a team-friendly three-year deal, with the understanding that we’ll possibly reward him with a bigger contract once George’s deal comes off the books.

Daryl Morey is not a liar.

[76ciology]

Current Salary: $182.3
Second Apron: $207.8

We have ~$25.5M for four roster spots if the Sixers want to stay under the second apron.

Taxpayer MLE: $5.4M
Vet Minimum: $2.3M

Depending on if they keep a roster spots open, or not, they will use $7.7M - $10M sans Grimes. This would leave ~$15M - $17.3M left for Grimes.

I saw some people looking to save money, but you really can't save much without impacting the quality of the team. You could save $2.7M by swapping Drummond for a vet minimum player, but that's really it. Council makes the minimum so no savings there. I would say Oubre, but he's a starter right now and they Sixers would most likely have to match salary in a trade anyway.

Because of this, I don't think they'll go over the $15M - $17.3M for Grimes or any player that could be gotten back in a S&T. I read the report that Grimes want $25M, but ai don't think he's going to get that. Maybe he just signs a one year deal and tries again next year.

Ok.. Someone needs to take a closer look at these games where Grimes makes highly questionable decisions to drop 20ppg on these meaningless garbage games he played for us, enough to raise concerns similar to the Malik Beasley betting allegations that would really pull down his FA value.

[zaz102]

[Stein] Boston Keeping Luke Kornet is looking less and less likely, per Marc Stein. Spurs are eyeing Kornet and could use their full $14.1M MLE to sign him. Boston—just $5M below the second apron—would need to trade Simons ($27M) or Hauser ($10M) to even have a shot.

Source:
https://marcstein.substack.com/p/more-of-the-nba-free-agency-and-trade

This could be huge. If the Spurs sign Kornet to the full Non-Taxpayer MLE, then I think the Sixers could offer more to Yabusele than the Spurs if they are able to use the full Taxpayer MLE.

[OleSchool]

Any interest in Ayton? Don't know what he'd command though

[Negrodamus]

Feel like Chris Boucher is going to be a target for us.

[Kolkmania]

Any interest in Ayton? Don't know what he'd command though

Same agent as Luka Doncic. I bet that he's going to sign for a minimum deal in LA.

[Iscull]

Any interest in Ayton? Don't know what he'd command though

Same agent as Luka Doncic. I bet that he's going to sign for a minimum deal in LA.

It’s going to be LA or Boston, probably LA.

[Iscull]

Feel like Chris Boucher is going to be a target for us.

For the right price, great fit for us

[Arsenal]

Any interest in Ayton? Don't know what he'd command though

Same agent as Luka Doncic. I bet that he's going to sign for a minimum deal in LA.

It’s going to be LA or Boston, probably LA.

It's LA for sure. It's all a part of the plan.

[Arsenal]

Feel like Chris Boucher is going to be a target for us.

For the right price, great fit for us

Boucher at vet min would be great. Even for the tMLE it's still a decent value. He can be a stretch 4 or 5 allowing him to play with Drummond, Bona or Broome.

[Stanford]

Ayton doesn't seem like a Boston player

[Mik317]

doesn't Boucher hate Nurse?