Philly Front Office

This week the Sixers signed Lonnie Walker IV and seemingly finalized their roster for the rest of the season. With that, the Sixers total payroll for the 24-25 season is (drumroll)…$169,807,88! Who the F cares, right? Josh Harris, that’s who! That’s because the NBA luxury tax threshold for this season is set at $170,814,000. He made it by about $1m. Hooray for him.

This is the real reason the Sixers did barely anything at the deadline except shave payroll. KJ Martin was brought back this season on a 1+1 style deal specifically to allow the team to trade his contract for a better player this year or next. Instead, they ended up giving it away with their own draft picks just to drop below the tax line. Caleb Martin was making around $8m this year on a GREAT contract. I like Quentin Grimes, but he is making about half that and may not come back next year. Also, because Martin was hurt and the deal HAD TO GO THROUGH, we threw in a second-round pick. So that’s around $11m we saved while giving up 3 second round picks. Let’s say the players are a wash, that’s 4 less assets we have to trade plus a great long-term contract.

Let’s take a look at Josh Harris’s wallet shall we? Because we did the same thing last year and the year before, the Sixers are not in repeater tax territory. A complete breakdown of the tax rules can be found here, but let’s calculate how much an approximate $10m overage would have cost.

The first tax bracket goes to just over $5m and comes with a $2.50 per dollar penalty. The second bracket goes from the first bracket to just over $10m and comes with a $2.75 per dollar penalty. For ease-of-math sake, let’s say the Sixers would have maxed this out but not a penny more. The tax bill would have been just over $27m plus the extra $10m they actually spent. Very happy to hear that we no longer have 3 draft picks, KJ Martin, and Caleb Martin so Josh Harris and co. could save $37m. Harris and Blitzer are worth a combined $14b by the way.

I get it, no one wants to spend an extra $37m on a shit product like the Sixers and the repeater tax is no joke. I sympathize there. It is the selling future assets part that kills me. Sam Hinkie collected every second round pick he could possibly get only to have them squandered by the Colangelos. Years later when we actually needed these small assets to make trades to improve the team, they weren’t there anymore. Daryl Morey seemed to understand this and began stockpiling again…only to have them wasted to save Josh Harris money. By the way, this is the same Josh Harris who just spent two years threatening the city with moving the franchise only to abandon his own arena project for a better deal with the Flyers so he could save money.

I am bringing this up for a reason. I recently called Josh Harris spineless. I didn’t go far enough. He just plain does not care about this team. Making money is its only purpose. Winning and losing is immaterial overall. I’m sure he’d like to win, but it’s more like shooting a crumpled paper into a wastebasket. It doesn’t affect his day either way.

As long as Josh Harris and his detached, cheap, and completely uncaring attitude runs this team, we are screwed. Granted, we are screwed for other reasons too, but still. Harris and company are the types of owners who only view the team as an asset that happens to be gaining in value. Hopefully, the new arena project will allow them to max out the team’s value and sell. Get them the hell out of Philadelphia.