The Sixers played their 50th game of the season on Tuesday in Golden State and forward Jabari Walker has been active for all 50 of them, making him the first player on a two-way contract to reach his active game limit this season.
A player on a two-way deal is ineligible to be active for more than 50 regular season games (or a prorated portion of that 50-game limit, if he signs after the season has begun). That means Walker will have to be promoted to a standard contract if Philadelphia wants to continue playing him.
The 76ers may have cleared a path for Walker to get a spot on the 15-man roster when they agreed to trade Jared McCain to Oklahoma City earlier today. That move moved Philadelphia below the luxury tax line by about $3MM, tweets ESPN’s Bobby Marks, which gives the team more than enough flexibility to sign Walker to a standard deal without going back into the tax.
The Sixers will probably wait until after the trade deadline to officially promote Walker to ensure they don’t need that open roster spot for a separate deal, but it seems likely it will just be a matter of time before he gets his promotion. Philadelphia also seems likely to convert another two-way standout, Dominick Barlow, to a standard contract in the coming weeks, but that’s not as pressing a concern, since Barlow still has 10 games before he reaches his own limit.
Still, the 76ers would have to maintain a full 15-man roster in order to continue using Barlow, since they’ve hit their “under-15” limit for two-way players — teams can only use their two-way players for a combined total of 90 games while they’re carrying fewer than 15 players on standard contracts. Philadelphia, which has been carrying just 14 players for most of the season, recently reached that 90-game limit.
Even if they promote Walker, the Sixers could dip back below 15 players on Friday when Charles Bassey‘s 10-day contract expires, so it may make sense for the club to just promote both its two-way standouts sooner rather than later.
While we wait to see what the Sixers’ plan is, it’s worth noting that several other two-way players are just one game away from reaching the limit of 50 active games and will need to be converted to standard deals soon if their teams want to keep using them.
Spencer Jones of the Nuggets, Daniss Jenkins of the Pistons, Pat Spencer of the Warriors, and Chris Youngblood of the Thunder are each at 49 active games entering Wednesday’s action, tweets Marks.