We are a week into NBA free agency, and the Sixers have 13 of their 15 roster spots filled. There is one critical situation left to resolve, but otherwise it could be an unusually calm summer from here on out.
But with the Sixers, never say never when it comes to more movement.
Sixers President of Basketball Operations Daryl Morey and Co. hope they have assembled a championship contender around Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey and Paul George, accentuating that trio with an increasingly younger supporting cast including VJ Edgecombe and Jared McCain.
In this week’s 5 Sixers thoughts, an outline of the final pivot points within the construction of the 2025-26 roster:
Quentin Grimes’ restricted free agency
Grimes and the Sixers find themselves in a holding pattern that could take a very long time to resolve. It is a tale as old as time in the NBA: A young restricted free agent refuses to accept an offer he knows is not commensurate with his value and potential and his team refuses to make any offers that outpace the player’s actual market. Grimes is not the only victim of this game right now; Josh Giddey in Chicago, Jonathan Kuminga in Golden State and Cam Thomas in Brooklyn are all in identical situations.
At some point the Sixers will have to resolve this situation, and Grimes remaining on the open market has caused plenty of uneasiness among fans already. The sides have reportedly gained “little to no” traction on any sort of agreement.
Is that ideal? Likely not, but Grimes’ restricted free agency dragging on will not change the most critical aspects of the situation: There is almost no money out there for Grimes, and the Sixers have the right to match any offer sheet he does sign with another team. All of the leverage belongs to the team; it is how restricted free agency works and players like Giddey, Kuminga and Thomas are all seeing their markets crater in similar fashions as well.
On Friday, I performed a deep dive into Grimes’ options and potential contract structures that could be offered by the Sixers and other teams – with some possible contenders to extend offer sheets listed:
MORE: Where Grimes situation stands
Will Kyle Lowry be back?
The expectation here has been that Lowry would return to Philadelphia for his 20th and final NBA season since he said in his April 13 exit interview that it was his goal and plan.
After a strong two-month run to end the prior season, Lowry’s production absolutely fell off a cliff last season, and constant hip issues limited his availability. He is no longer a viable rotation player on a night-to-night basis. Lowry’s complete lack of explosion has rendered him a non-creator on offense. His utility on that end of the floor is strictly limited to shooting spot-up threes, where he surprisingly struggled last season. He can be useful defensively if head coach Nick Nurse devises creative pathways to using a 6-foot-1 guard with tremendous IQ and strength – Nurse’s favorite option was going to a zone defense and having Lowry quarterback it on the back line – but teams generally do not have to get that creative for players on veteran’s minimum salaries.
So, why is this even a discussion? Lowry, who will turn 40 years old before the end of the upcoming regular season, has infinite wisdom that his younger teammates have drawn from. Maxey, McCain and Justin Edwards are among the young players essential to the future of the organization whose development arcs have genuinely been accelerated by having Lowry around.
Lowry’s ability to connect with other players is valuable. So is his connection with Nurse that enables him to serve as a bridge between players and coaches. Those claims should not be disputed. What can be argued, however, is that a team with a few suspect contributors already on the roster and injury-prone building blocks can afford to use a roster spot on a locker room leadership figure.
It feels hard to justify the notion that signing Lowry, even on a minimum deal, would be the optimal use of that roster spot. If the Sixers do retain Lowry, it is less of a bet on him finding a way to help on the court and more of a bet on other players near the bottom of the depth chart being helpful options.
What to do with Ricky Council IV’s roster spot
The Sixers hoped Council could emerge as a rotation-caliber piece in his second NBA campaign, and despite ample opportunity, it just never worked. Council lost much of the spark he impressed with as a change-of-pace two-way player in his rookie year, but all of his most troubling qualities – suspect feel, bad shots and a lack of focus on the finer aspects of his game – were magnified. Even in his best moments, Council was incapable of generating trust from Nurse and his staff.
Do Nurse, Morey and the rest of the Sixers’ decision-making brass have any remaining faith in Council emerging as a rotation piece in Philadelphia? His athleticism pops, and his frame on the wing is solid. But it has just not translated to much winning basketball.
Council has two years and a combined $4.6 million remaining on his contract, but in each of those seasons his salary does not become guaranteed until Jan. 10. Council’s salary for the upcoming season is about $75,000 more than a one-year, veteran’s minimum salary. If the Sixers bring back Lowry to fill their 15th roster spot as expected, it immediately becomes much more important that the players in the first few roster spots above that are trustworthy with any sort of playing time.
If the Sixers can find another player on the minimum market that they like, would they trade Council – or even waive him outright – to find a slight upgrade, even on the outside of the rotation? The Sixers would likely not get any sort of haul in a deal for Council. They would have to hope another scouting department in the NBA is fond of his tools and that team possesses a surplus of second-round picks. Because his salary is non-guaranteed, they would not need to waive him before signing any minimum player, they just could not exceed 15 players when the season starts.
The Sixers have liked opening seasons with 14 players on their standard roster, maintaining flexibility in trades and signings with the open roster spot. It is a smart strategy for lots of teams, but it might not be the most prudent path for a Sixers team that just had an entire season derailed by injuries. Waiving Council to sign a superior minimum player is understandable; getting rid of him without replacing him does not. Because Council’s salary is not guaranteed until just weeks before the trade deadline, the Sixers do not actually lose any financial flexibility by having him on their roster to open the season.
MORE: Is Council at risk of being waived?
Andre Drummond trade possibilities
Another suspect member of the roster is Drummond, whose decision to pick up a $5 million player option was inevitable after a brutal year. Drummond was overtasked from a role perspective with Embiid largely unavailable, but even when Embiid did play and Drummond settled into an ideal role as a backup center he was just not productive. Drummond looked incredibly slow, had a fascination with three-point shooting that lasted too long and consistently failed to protect the rim. Drummond had a run lasting nearly half of a decade as one of the NBA’s elite backup centers, but in his return to Philadelphia he did not even look playable for much of the season.
Drummond suffered a toe injury near the end of December that caused him to miss much of the remainder of the season, and perhaps his limited mobility during appearances later in the season stemmed from that. Drummond expected to make a full recovery and have a normal offseason from health and training standpoints. But it is hard to feel comfortable relying on him for quality minutes after the season he had, especially with 2024 second-round pick Adem Bona continuing his ascent and another young big joining the mix in No. 35 overall pick Johni Broome.
The case for trading Drummond is pretty simple: he is not worth his salary, he is coming off a very disappointing season and the Sixers have younger players capable of taking his minutes.
The case for keeping Drummond is less popular, but it actually has more points in its favor. Embiid misses too much time to just have two backup fives, so if Drummond did depart the Sixers would need to add another full-fledged center to their standard roster. His $5 million expiring deal will go from unwanted salary over the summer to helpful trade filler in the winter, and if the Sixers do bounce back in 2025-26 they can use Drummond to help upgrade the roster at the trade deadline. Lastly, if the Sixers want to get Drummond off their books now it will almost certainly cost them at least one second-round pick.
Given how much of their roster is filled, trading Drummond now does not actually provide the Sixers with much of a salary cap advantage. But it could enable them to slightly improve their roster if a stronger replacement is lined up, and that alone is worth a look.
Deciding what to do with the taxpayer’s mid-level exception
It was expected all along that the Sixers’ ability to retain Guerschon Yabusele would hinge on whether or not his market rose above the tax MLE, the top price point the Sixers could match. It never did, yet Yabusele joined the New York Knicks, with the Sixers never making the sort of offer that it felt like a given they would extend to the 29-year-old.
A source told PhillyVoice in the immediate aftermath of Yabusele’s departure that the team was not using the tax MLE to avoid a hard cap at the second apron, which could theoretically jeopardize their ability to retain Grimes if a market suddenly grew for him in the vicinity of $18.5 million.
The Sixers could use the tax MLE on a free agent after the Grimes situation is resolved, enabling them to offer a player up to two years and $11.6 million, but there is no telling when the Sixers and Grimes will find common ground. Free agency moves quickly, and the vast majority of players believed to be worth an investment greater than a minimum salary are already off the board; it stands to reason the few remaining options will be by the time Grimes has re-signed. And assuming Lowry comes back, the Sixers would have to move on from a player currently under contract – clearly, Council and Drummond are the likeliest candidates – to have space on the roster for whichever player they coveted with the tax MLE.
So, do not be surprised if the Sixers enter the season with their tax MLE untouched. There are a few possible in-season uses for it, though. If the season is going well in February and the buyout market begins to take shape, teams with access to their MLE have some advantages over ones that can only offer minimum salaries. However, this benefit is often overstated because those contracts are prorated for just the final two months of the season.
The exact breakdown depends on how many years of service a player has, but if they are a 10-year veteran, the Sixers’ offer at the tax MLE will not be much better than a minimum. If there are 25 games left in the season, the Sixers would be able to offer a 10-year veteran just under $1.8 million, while teams only able to provide the minimum salary would be offering just over $1.1 million.
Nowadays, the more significant in-season utility for any form of the MLE is to use it as a trade exception, which was allowed for the first time last season. Because the tax MLE starts at $5,685,000 and can go up to two seasons with a raise of up to five percent, the Sixers can use it to trade for any player whose existing contract fits within those boundaries. If the Miami Heat have a disappointing season, for example, the Sixers could send out no salary and take back Haywood Highsmith, a quality two-way wing with an expiring salary of $5,616,000.
Not using the tax MLE now also gives the Sixers an easier path to ducking the luxury tax once again should their season go downhill like it did last year. That would be a massively disappointing outcome for many reasons, but it is a scenario teams generally keep in mind when constructing a salary cap sheet over the summer.
MORE: Sixers free agency primer
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(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
