A look into the Sixers future and what the franchise should do moving forward.
There are so many rumors of grandeur spewing from every direction regarding what the Sixers are doing, should be doing, need to be doing, etc.
Possible trades that just insult my knowledge.
Everyone needs to understand one thing, ESPN and the like, they employ people that talk or write about basketball for a living and at this time of year, they need to fill air time and deliver words, just like any other time of the year.
Basically any team can trade for any player on any other team, when you don’t factor in the other team just laughing you off the line for even proposing such nonsense.
The Sixers have 2 potential futures
There are two two potential futures in regards to the Sixers payroll moving forward. One with James Harden under a max contract and one without him totally.
Sixers Payroll Future With Harden
The Sixers future with James Harden means having him for the next four years with Joel Embiid.
People, this team isn’t a real title contender. For those that disagree….that’s cool. you’re just wrong. I’ve studied every team from every season via full game tape, what makes you believe you’re better at diagnosing talent than I am?
This is so evident. I’ve been writing this for three years because it’s true. For the people that want to believe this team should be winning championships, I can’t even speak to you about basketball.
I get how coaches dread talking to the media. Many fans and media personalities think they know the game but say the dumbest things. It’s like if you knew the things I know, what you just said…..It’s not what you’d have said.
It’s not dumb luck that I predicted everything that’s happened so far and I’m preaching the same stuff now. When this story is over regardless of what the Sixers organization does, I’ll be right.
I knew this three years ago and believe me, I wish I wasn’t.
Decision on Harden is Pivotal
The decision to sign Harden to a max deal until he’s 38-39 years old will be the last decision the Sixers franchise makes about putting a team around Joel Embiid that can actually win a championship.
That’s if they do give him what he wants. What Harden did this year in the playoffs is what he’s done in every playoff series he’s played in. Plus you got to ask yourself, why does he want to go play for a bad team in Houston?
The Rockets have some young talent that might be part of the nucleus of a good team 3-5 years down the road but not now & not soon.
This Sixers team is a lottery team without Joel Embiid. In comparison, back in 2021, Giannis Antetokoumnpo got injured in game 4 of the Eastern Conference Finals. He only played 24 minutes in that game and the Atlanta Hawks tied the series at 2 games-a-piece.
The Milwaukee Bucks team closed out that series without Giannis in 6 games. That same season, the Sixers lost to the Hawks in 7 games with Joel Embiid.
The point is the talent around Giannis is much better. The Sixers would be much better if they had Jrue Holiday and Khris Middleton in place of James Harden and Tobias Harris.
They’d probably already have rings and there would be a much greater opportunity for more in the Sixers future.
The new CBA
The NBA signed it’s new collective bargaining agreement with the NBAPA in early April, under this new agreement, the Sixers aren’t doing anything but sign their own players and minimum contracts if they resign Harden.
The NBA added a second tax apron that will be set $17.5 million above the luxury tax line. Which comes into play at $179.5 million. The Sixers payroll is over $164 million currently and would surpass this line of penalization.
Don’t forget James Harden isn’t the only possible free-agent or player that if not increased will leave to go elsewhere.
Here are some of the penalties for going over the second tax apron.
- Loss access to tax-payer MLE
- can’t take back more money than is sent out in trades
- can’t trade a 1st round pick from 7 years in the future
- can’t take back cash in trades
- Can’t aggregate salaries in trades
- Can’t sign players on buy-out market
This essentially means these teams are limited to re-signing their own Birds rights players and signing veteran minimum contracts only.
The not being able to aggregate players contracts makes any trades almost impossible. We’re talking not $1 more and not able to include multiple players into a deal to make up the difference.
In the past, if you signed a player to a minimum contract and he exceeded his salary, the next season that team could sign that player to a tax-payers mid-level exception.
That won’t happen anymore. If you’re still above that second tax line the following season, you lose that player because you can’t use the MLE and he isn’t a Bird rights player.
Some other team comes in and signs him with their mid-level exception instead.
Sixers free agents
- James Harden, 33, G (Player Option)
- Danuel House Jr., 29, F (Player Option)
- Georges Niang, 29, F (team option)
- Montrezl Harrell, 29, C (Player Option)
- Shake Milton, 26, G (team option)
- Jalen McDaniels, 25, F (team option)
- Paul Reed, 23, C (RFA)
- Dewayne Dedmon, 33, C
- Mac McClung, 24, G (RFA)
- Louis King, 24, F
For any of the players that don’t resign with Philadelphia,
they will be replaced on the roster by veteran minimum contracts.
The 76ers also have to look to giving Tyrese Maxey a new deal sometime by next summer. Today the team is over $164 million and these penalties kick in at $179.5 million into the salary cap.
How the Sixers move in the off-season
Whether or not the Sixers sign James Harden, they won’t be able to really move in free-agency this season. Meaning if James Harden walks, the Sixers can’t offer that kind of money to another player in free agency.
If they don’t sign James and after the 2023-24 season when Tobias Harris comes off the books, the Sixers would be able to move in free-agency in terms of targeting an elite player.
Tobias will be off the books after next season regardless. If Harden gets signed then for the same reason that the Sixers can’t sign an elite free-agent this off-season, they won’t be able to do it for the following 4-5 seasons moving forward.
By the way, Tobias Harris won’t be moved. He’s a player making franchise superstar money. His contact is a death sentence.
Bringing back the salary
The Brooklyn Nets currently have the 8th highest payroll in the NBA. This is because they are still paying for those Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving salaries, just in the form of several role players now.
In the NBA you can’t get rid of a contract to purposely free up money. This is done to try and prevent teams from signing bad contracts like the one Tobias Harris signed.
These are the type of moves that made the New York Knicks completely irrelevant for about 20 years. If you sign them, great chance you’re stuck with them.
I mean Tobias Harris didn’t have an upside really, he was who he was and that’s about as good as he was ever going to be. Different story if a player is projected by every expert to become a future superstar and never even hits an all-star caliber level of play – you can forgive that somewhat.
The Tobias Harris situation with Elton Brand was simply a case of the general manager not knowing the actual value of money. If I was the Sixers ownership, I’d probably have hired someone with a college degree.
Elton’s got a high school degree and he fu**ed up the money.
In all seriousness, what actually happened is much worse. When Jimmy Butler left, Elton felt pressure from the media and the fans and as I said that night, PATIENCE IS A VIRTUE.
Patience is a virtue
He did not have to spend that money. When the dust settled, what I saw was a short sighted general manager that didn’t want to be ridiculed for doing nothing, so he did what he did.
A general manager that’s short-sighted is doomed as a general manager, where you need to look into the future and make the smart moves…..but much more important is you don’t handicap the franchise with moves based in scared idiocy.
Under the previous CBA with Tobias making $40 million in 2023-24, the Sixers would have to bring back about 80% of that salary going out, so they would’ve had to take back at least about $32 million.
When the 76ers franchise brought in Harris, he was on a contract that was paying him around $18 million in the final year of that deal. Most NBA teams would love to have that contract.
Tobias Harris at $35-40 million per year is a death sentence. It’s why I was able to correctly predict the day of the signing that if the Sixers ever won a ring, it would after Harris’ deal expired.
Essentially when you sign a decent player to Kevin Durant money, now you can’t actually have that other all-star caliber player that it takes to be a true contender in this league.
Why?
Nobody is trading for him. In fact if a team did, they would have to send more back to Philly more than last season because of the increase in his salary.
Why would a team put themselves in that position and that’s before you factor it almost all of Tobias’ salary has to come back to Philly. So, that teams trading an actual star player to acquire Tobias?
Thats why its insanity to even talk about it like it could happen.
People in Philadelphia would lose their fu**ing minds if the Sixers traded Joel Embiid and when you ask “what did they get back” and “Tobias Harris” is the answer.
So many Sixers fans aren’t using their brains. This is the reaction of fans of other NBA teams too. This was my reaction when Elton signed Harris to this poison contract. That’s the night I learned that many Sixers fans aren’t too knowledgeable about the NBA.
What the Sixers need to do
What the Sixers need to do is only take James Harden back if he’s coming to play out the final year of his contract. Meaning, one way or another both James Harden and Tobias Harris will be off the Sixers payroll after the 2023-24 season.
In this scenario, The Sixers can move freely in free agency and go after the best talent available. In that scenario, I’d imagine it wouldn’t be hard to land another superstar to play alongside Joel Embiid.
As I said earlier and have said this entire decade, patience is a virtue, since the Sixers organization isn’t operating that way, they keep digging themselves deeper and deeper.
They’re about to hit the point of no return, back it up…..calm down….relax….you’ll don’t know what you’re doing, so just stop and do nothing.
The only thing I’ve been looking forward to for the past 2 years is these players coming off the books, it’s the only hope there is and I don’t think Daryl Morey has enough basketball knowledge to even recognize this.
