Philly Front Office

To say paying attention to the Sixers is a chore is an understatement of the highest order. Doing the dishes is at least out of sight, out of mind when you finish. The Sixers weigh on you like the dread of interacting with an awful coworker every…single…day making your life a slog. Don’t let a few Weekend at Bernie’s style wins fool you, this team is very much dead; a heavy carcass we carry with us for …what reason? Hope? Habit? I couldn’t tell you. Since quitting the job isn’t an option (wait, is it? No? Are we sure?), let’s at least dream of a fresh start next season.

Regardless of what happens the rest of this year and at the trade deadline, next year’s team will be trying to win. At least with that, we have direction.

Salary Cap

Each year the league gives projections, but the final cap numbers are not official until the start of the new league year. With new broadcast rights money coming, the latest CBA had a provision for something called cap-smoothing. Instead of a huge cap jump like what allowed Kevin Durant to sign with the Warriors years ago, the cap will increase at a max of 10% each year. According to RealGM.com, next year’s numbers should look like this:

Salary Cap $154,647,000

Luxury Tax $187,895,000

First Apron $195,945,000

Second Apron $207,824,000

These are still significant increases and should give the Sixers room to make moves if they want to. How much room? Let’s take a look.

We have about $148m in guaranteed salary between Embiid, George, Maxey, Martin, and McCain. Unfortunately, Andre Drummond and Eric Gordon were given player options for next year that they almost certainly will pick up, that’s another $8m. A roster must have at least 12 players so an approximate $1.25m per roster spot must be included for accounting purposes. This brings the total to $162.25m for tax purposes but $156m for practical purposes.

We do have a few others under some form of contract, but only Adem Bona and his $2m unguaranteed deal are likely to be back. KJ Martin is also a possibility but comes with an unguaranteed $8m salary. Together they would total around $170m for cap purposes.

Then there is something called a cap hold. Though it does not count directly towards any tax threshold, a cap hold is basically an amount of money that represents a player on a cap sheet. That cap hold allows you to use the various methods to exceed the salary cap. Ever hear of Bird Rights? You can’t use Bird Rights without a cap hold. The actual contract will replace a cap hold once it is signed. The only cap hold we are concerned with is for Kelly Oubre. As a player who has been with his team for 2 years, he has a cap hold of 130% of his salary. For Oubre, this is about $10.4m.

With Oubre’s cap hold, Drummond and Gordon opting in, Adem Bona, and no first round pick, we are at approximately $173.4m for cap purposes.

Max Contracts

Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey, and Paul George are all signed to max contracts. Not all max contracts are created equal though. Embiid is making about the same as George next year, but his deal lasts much longer.

For all those looking to trade Embiid and George, even if they were realistically on the trade block, the return you would get for either is not what you think it would be. Embiid is damaged goods. Teams know this. He is signed to about 1/3 of the salary cap for the next 4 years. At perfect health he is elite and untradeable. At his projected health he is, unfortunately, still untradeable. We would only be able to get back someone else’s damaged and expensive player (s). At all times we are better off with him than without him.

George is a little more tradeable than Embiid due to his slightly smaller price tag, 1-year shorter contract, and less injury risk even if he isn’t exactly a paragon of health himself. Everyone clamoring for Jimmy Butler for PG now aren’t exactly being crazy. Giving Butler his next contract, now that would be crazy but the value and idea is in the right ballpark. You could trade PG for another aging star or a platter of lesser guys to a team looking to consolidate. This would also give us more maneuverability in any star trade.

Maxey is healthy, and perfect, and on a good contract, and perfect, and perfect. He is not getting traded under any circumstances. Any Maxey trade would sadden me on a Cliff Lee-ian level.

Mid-Tier

Caleb Martin got squeezed out of Miami for weird cap related reasons last year. Under the rules, they simply could not offer him the contract he wanted. The Sixers swooped in and gave him a 4-year deal at about $8.5m per year. That’s just savvy business for a high energy, glue guy who can do just about everything well but not great. He is the kind of guy the team has been lacking for years and the Celtics, Spurs, and Heat always have. His deal is too good to ever really complain about.

Jared McCain will be in year two, hopefully returning from a fully recovered torn meniscus. He was a revelation in his 30-ish games as a rookie. After Maxey, he is the second most valuable asset on this team. He is the high value bet that your app is BEGGING for you to cash out early, but you wait for the full payout. With about 3 years until he will need a new contract, he will be providing high level shooting and play making on the cheap until then. He is only getting traded in a deal for a star. However, since this team is not constructed to add another star salary, McCain is just about perfect doing what he does.

I don’t need to go into Eric Gordon and Drummond. They received player options to get them to sign here when we thought they would be valuable backups. They haven’t been. It isn’t a big deal, but I would rather pay the minimum for both instead.

Our Free Agents

Kelly Oubre and Guerschon Yabusele are the only two guys on the active roster (McCain caveat alert) who are exceeding expectations. Wouldn’t you know it, neither are under contract next year. Both can be resigned, but it gets technical.

Yabusele signed this past season after impressing in the Olympics. After getting bought out from his European contract, the Sixers signed him to a 1 year, $2m contract. He is going to get a big raise from someone, but how high can the Sixers go? The discourse surrounding him is that he would only be allowed to get a 120% raise because we have his Non-Bird Rights or something called the Tax-Payer Mid-Level Exception expected to be around $5.6m. This is simply not true. Based on the above, the Sixers will not be a Tax Payer team. This allows them access to the NON Tax-Payer Mid-Level Exception estimated to be around $14m per year. This exception can be used to sign a player for up to 4 years with 5% annual raises. The maximum extension the Sixers can offer Yabusele would be around 4 years, $60m. Thankfully, this is the same contract most, if not all, of his suiters will be available to offer him as well. If he liked it here, he will likely stay.

Oubre is someone who seems to like Philadelphia and appreciates his role with the team. He defends hard and plays a great 4th or 5th option (but under no circumstances should he be given more responsibility than that). He has a player option for around $8m next year that he has definitely out played. Expect him to decline that option. So how do we keep him if we are over the cap? As a guy who has been here for two years he has something called Early-Bird Rights. No, he does not get any worms nor does he receive special discounts at Golden Corral. What he does get is as high as 175% of his current salary if he wants to stay with the Sixers. It cannot be higher. This comes to about $14m next season but can be for up to 4 seasons with annual raises as high as 8%. This would be about a 4 year, $63m contract. He might be able to get that somewhere else, he might not.

What’s Left?

After we hopefully take care of the above business, we will have a roster of Embiid, George, Maxey, Martin, McCain, Oubre, Yabusele, Bona, Drummond, and Gordon. That leaves 5 spots for…carry the one…no draft picks. How do we have no picks at all? Expect Daryl Morey to buy a pick in the second round or trade in using future capital.

There are still two more methods to fill out the rest of the roster: Minimum Contracts and the Bi-Annual Exception. Minimum contracts are simply the smallest amount you can offer a player under league rules depending on service time. Though you can go over the cap to sign a player on the minimum, the amount will still count toward the tax and the dreaded “Apron.”

Thankfully we have avoided apron talk up to this point. The aprons were put in place to penalize rich teams from going nuts with their bird rights. There are strict financial penalties and roster building penalties in place to really curb the most zealous teams (the Celtics have some serious decisions/penalties coming up). Since the Sixers are over the cap but below the first apron, they have access to the Bi-Annual Exception, estimated to be just north of $5m. This can be used to sign players to two-year deals with 5% raises. It isn’t used very much, but for a team hurting for roster spots and usable bodies, this could come in handy.

Finally, trades. There is no need to get into salary matching right now, but we do have assets:

• 2026 First Round Pick – it’s complicated, but we have two picks and can trade one of them
• 2028 First Round Pick – again we have two (ours and LAC) but we can only trade one of them
• 2029 First Round Pick Swap Rights with LAC
• 2029, 30, 31, 32 First Round Picks – when trading firsts, you can’t empty your stock in consecutive drafts. We can trade one in ’26, ’28, ’29, and ’31 at most.
• Second Round Picks – between ours and others, we have 8 tradable picks between now and 2032

Daryl is always looking for top end talent and this is a war chest to work with. Sure, it isn’t OKC or the Nets, but it is still formidable.

In the end, this isn’t bad. Sure, we have to bank on Embiid’s health as always, but we aren’t exactly in a corner like most teams who have gone all in.

(credit to hoopsrumors.com, spotrac.com, and basketball.realgm.com)