The Sixers are about to enter their final season for a while of not being a taxpaying team, Derek Bodner of The Athletic writes in detailed breakdown of all the contracts the organization issued since free agency began.
Philadelphia has been among the most active teams this offseason, adding free agents Al Horford, Kyle O’Quinn and Raul Neto, trading Jimmy Butler to the Heat for Josh Richardson, re-signing Tobias Harris, Mike Scott and James Ennis, extending Ben Simmons and giving a four-year contract to former two-way player Shake Milton. Even with all those additions, the Sixers are comfortably below the tax line.
That changes next year when Simmons’ maximum rookie extension kicks in. The Sixers will not only be a taxpayer going forward, but would need to unload significant salary to say below the apron and retain the ability to use their full mid-level exception. The same situation will exist for 2021/22 unless they lose Richardson, who has a player option for that season. Bodner doesn’t expect that to happen, stating that the team is likely to consider keeping Richardson more valuable than having the full MLE.
There’s more this morning from Philadelphia:
- The Sixers‘ tax status for the upcoming season gave them the freedom to start Harris’ new five-year, $180MM deal with a higher first-year salary than they needed to, Bodner adds in the same story. Instead of beginning with a $31MM salary for 2019/20 and 8% raises the rest of the way, Harris will get a max salary of $32.742MM this year, followed by lower raises in years three and four when the organization will have tax concerns.
- J.J. Redick, who signed as a free agent with the Pelicans, said on his latest podcast that he expected to retire in Philadelphia, tweets Will Guillory of The Athletic. However, he added, “Sometimes the economics of things don’t work out.” Redick, who spent the past two years with the Sixers, referred to New Orleans as “Duke south” and said he has known new GM Trajan Langdon since his freshman year at the university. He dealt mainly with Langdon in free agent talks, while his agent negotiated with executive vice president of basketball operations David Griffin.
- Kyle Korver strongly considered the Sixers before reaching an agreement with the Bucks yesterday, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN. Korver started his career in Philadelphia, but his relationship with Milwaukee coach Mike Budenholzer, whom he played for in Atlanta, swayed his final decision.
Can’t wait to see Matthews and Korver in the corners for Giannis
Going to be a train wreck on defense tho.
Clearly you don’t follow basketball or just don’t like the Bucks. Giannis, Middleton, Bledsoe, Matthews, Brown, Lopez and Lopez are all plus defenders. Where will this “train wreck” happen?
JJ, Zion, Okafor, Ingram! Long live Duke South
Cheaters paradise!
How terrible are duke players in the nba? I mean for coach K getting so much love he produces crap nba guys. Okafor, Jabari, Ingram, Tatum, etc. I mean that list goes on and on and on. No superstar coming from coach K
As long as they don’t raise the price to watch games on TV I’ll be happy. As a fan “it’s not my money” unless you’re a season ticketholder, which became an unneeded expense once the “process” finished and the raised prices before wins accrued.
But his relationship with Milwaukee coach Mike Budenholzer, whom he played for in Atlanta, swayed his final decision.
Well why would Korver want to put up with Brett Brown? I know I wouldn’t!!!
But of course the Sixers would do this:
new five-year, $180MM deal with a higher first-year salary than they needed to
SMH
Why leave cap room for another piece…SMH
They wouldn’t have had cap space regardless, this just gives him a lower cap hit later in the contract
You should trying reading it again lol
JJ lives in Brooklyn and so does Trajan. They probably worked on them both going to NOP weeks before it happened. Trajan should’ve stayed in BKN though and worked on getting JJ to the Nets. Maybe a s&t that would’ve sent the Sixers a stash and a future 2nd. But I’m sure with $26MM he can buy a home in New Orleans too.
This is off season for the Sixers in 3 years time will be forever remembered as the off season that Elton Brand royally f-=9ed the system.
Horford and Harris is going to cripple the Sixers ability to fill out the team.
Talent is the best in the NBA. I didn’t understand their priorities this off season, but, in the end, they upgraded talent-wise. Hard to do when you lose a talent like JB. But the combination of Horford and JR (vs JB and JJ) I think accomplishes it, if only narrowly. Plus, some hidden value in opening up wing minutes for Z. Smith.
The one major weakness I see is that the ball handling / shot creation on the perimeter, which wasn’t great last year, took a big step backward. Simmons is the only high end shot creator, and his inability to shoot from distance still limits him in that role in big spots.
Defense and rebounding should be the best in the league, and, with so many shot makers, what they don’t have offensively might not matter. If it does, there’s always a trade possibility. Either way, Philly should win a championship within the next few years.
Very good analysis DXC! Absolutely spot on, as you tend to be man!
What I’m about to say, I was going to try to keep to myself/whoever else heard the same thing I did, but it was so shocking to me, and especially after everything philly went through to get to this point, it’s just really hard to believe for multiple reasons. I obviously wouldnt take it as gospel or anything like that, but it is worth consideration, not that these things always come to fruition…That being said, these were the same people that said stuff about Kawhi, his uncle, and him leaving the Spurs, and looking at the Clippers, with his uncle angling him towards NY like 3-4 years ago. They also said the same about Kyrie back then. And I never believed the Kawhi stuff until he got traded…
Anyway, apparently, Joel Embiid isnt the happiest person with his situation, and potentially could want to move elsewhere. I’ve heard he isnt happy about the offense not going through him more consistently, and certain people being paid over him, and certain additions to the roster. Again, I’m not saying it’s a for sure thing, but I feel like its something to think about. If they put keeping Embiid in jeopardy, they royally messed up. Again, the issue didn’t make sense to me, but I said the same thing for multiple years about Kawhi. Not sure how to really have a conversation about this b/c its pure speculation, in my opinion, but ya…its out there. He has 4 years left on his deal though, so I’m kind of confused on that end. When they were talking about it, they wrongly mentioned he only has 2 years left, so not sure if they meant it’s been 2 years since he signed the deal, or if they were just wrong about that.
Not some secret place or anything. It was on NBA radio, but as I said, these specific people were on point before, and the way it was phrased was similar to the stuff theyd said in the past