There’s a way for the Philadelphia 76ers to add LeBron James, Kawhi Leonard, and still pay J.J. Redick a pretty penny. Let’s dive in and take a capologist’s look at how.
With all the rumors flying about the Philadelphia 76ers pursuing LeBron James or chasing Kawhi Leonard, it seems like our own free agents like J.J. Redick are the forgotten men.
However, Redick shouldn’t be an afterthought in our offseason plans, even if he does end up being the last one signed. There’s a way that the Sixers could acquire both stars, and then still pay Redick well.
However, everything needs to be done carefully, and in the right order. Let’s look at the four transactions that have to occur, and then take one last look at the roster.
Domino 1: Clearing space
The first thing we need to is create a little bit of space to fit a full max contract in under the cap. Step 1.1 is to renounce the rights to all our free agents (sorry Amir Johnson, Marco Belinelli, Ersan Ilyasova, and J.J. Redick. We’re star-hunting).
Note that this does NOT mean that we cannot re-sign any of these players, unlike what some would lead you to believe. It does mean we have no form of Bird Rights on these players, but there are other salary exception that can and will be used in this exercise.
Additionally, some have postulated that the Philadelphia 76ers need to account for Zhaire Smith and Landry Shamet‘s contracts, and clear an extra $4.1 million as a result before signing someone to a max. However, as you will see, I have no intention of keeping them on the team, so this is not necessary for our purposes.
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Currently the Sixers are slotted to have roughly $30.4 million in cap space, and they need about $35 million to sign LeBron to a max. The path to clearing the last bit of space is easy: trade Jerryd Bayless.
Removing his salary from the 76ers’ payroll (and taking nothing back) will leave the team with roughly $39.0 million in space — more than enough to sign a max player.
Bayless is on an expiring contract, and not a huge one. He doesn’t really have much trade value, but a rebuilding team would likely be willing to take him on for a few minor assets.
Some teams like the Suns, Bulls, or Magic have a decent amount of cap space (and no great point guards), but I would guess the Brooklyn Nets are the most likely destination. They have shown a willingness to take on salaries in return for assets in the past, in deals such as that for DeMarre Carroll.
They Nets can’t really use Bayless (they have Jeremy Lin, Spencer Dinwiddie, and D’Angelo Russell who all play the point), but they could take him for picks. For the sake of argument, let’s say they package Bayless with the two second-round picks received from Detroit in the Khyri Thomas trade (it is still unclear exactly what the picks are as of now).
It might seem weird to trade away a player AND picks and get nothing in return except cap space (isn’t that what the Kings did in the Stauskas trade that we loved so much?), but it’s a little different when you’re chasing LeBron James instead of Rajon Rondo.
To sum it up, I’m very okay with trading Jerryd Bayless and the assets we got in return for the 38th pick in the draft for a shot at signing the King, and that’s exactly what we should do next.
Domino 2: Sign the King
Yeah, this isn’t like the brightest or most difficult move to find. If I asked my Grandma how to make a team better, I’m sure she could figure out “get the best player” pretty quickly.
But while it’s far from a novel idea, it’s still an important one, and one that’s very possible. With the books cleared, all we have to do is convince LeBron to come.
Of course, that’s easier said than done. Luckily for us, LeBron wants a simple pitch, and “We can assemble three or four of the top-20 players in the league” is a solid one.
I won’t go into too much detail here about why LeBron could or should pick Philly, because that’s been discussed ad nauseum all over the Internet and TSS itself, but let’s assume that he does.
If LeBron signs a max contract with us, using the rough estimate of $35 million a year, that will leave the 76ers with roughly $4 million in cap room.
However, it’s not time to use that cap room just yet.
Domino 3: Trade for Kawhi Leonard
Again, there’s a lot of really interesting content about why we should trade for Kawhi and how he would fit, etc. This is a long post already, and if you’re still here on slide four, you’ve probably heard it before and want me to cut to the chase.
Let’s talk cap. Even though the 76ers are under the cap, by $4 million, it doesn’t matter much; they can match Kawhi’s salary pretty easily, and the trade would work whether they were over or under the cap.
The easiest salaries to roughly match Kawhi’s salary are those of Markelle Fultz and Robert Covington, so they’re the first to go. To sweeten the deal, we throw in our big draft-day acquisitions: Zhaire Smith (who Brett Brown says reminds him of Kawhi), the Heat’s 2021 unprotected first-round pick, and Landry Shamet.
Let’s clarify two things here. First, I probably don’t make this trade without an assurance Kawhi will re-sign. It’s really ballsy to trade all of these assets for a one-year rental — even in the Paul George trade, the Thunder only gave up two players and no picks. It does look like OKC may be able to keep PG this offseason, but things don’t always work out so nicely.
Secondly, I probably don’t need to include Landry Shamet in this deal. It’s a haul even without him, and I have heard no reports that the Spurs are “enamored by” Shamet, or whatever other buzzwords Woj would probably use to say they like him.
But trading him simplifies the salary stuff, and more importantly, I also don’t like him and I wanted to pick Elie Okobo or for us to at least draft Robert Williams, just so our conference rivals didn’t get the perfect player for them. Probably not a good reason to include him in a trade, but that’s why I’m a writer and not the GM (yet).
Anyway, I think the Spurs would have like six too many guards if this trade happened (they already have too many honestly, even without including UFAs Tony Parker and Danny Green), so I’ll include a swap of Justin Anderson for Derrick White to balance things for them a bit.
The final trade:
Believe it or not, the Philadelphia 76ers would still have around $3.5 million in cap space after all this maneuvering. Let’s see how they use it.
Domino 4: Re-sign Redick
Alright, that was a bit of a misleading transition: I don’t actually expect the 76ers to use the $3.5 million in cap space in any conventional way. If they want to use that to sign a decent backup (Marco or Ersan maybe?), that’s fine by me.
$3.5 million is not enough to resign Redick, but it doesn’t need to be. Based on how much cap space the Philadelphia 76ers will be using, they will be eligible to use the Non-Taxpayer Mid-Level Exception (and I spent a lot of time on the CBA FAQ, I know it works).
For those that don’t know, the NTMLE allows a team to go over the cap to sign players, so long as the salaries are within the value of the exception and do not exceed the “apron” ($4 million over the luxury tax line, which was roughly $124 million last year).
The 76ers should be nowhere near the apron this year, and will have the full value of the NTMLE at their disposal. Last year, the full value of the exception was roughly $8.4 million.
You may recall that the Houston Rockets signed P.J. Tucker to a four-year, $32 million deal last year despite being over the cap; they used the NTMLE, and since the $8 million he earned in the first year of the deal fit under the total value of the exception, it was legal.
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Another bonus to the exception is that it can be used every year. For example, the Rockets could sign Nerlens Noel for a deal where he earns $5.5 million in the first year, and sign Gerald Green to a deal where he earns $2.8 million in the first year of the deal. (FYI, I just chose random players, I haven’t heard any “Nerlens to Houston” rumors).
Anyway, since the sum of the contracts is less than the total exception, it’s totally legal, even though they still have a deal from last year’s exception still on their roster in P.J. Tucker.
Anyway, I’m assuming there will be slight inflation on the exception this year (there usually is slight inflation on everything, from exceptions to rookie scale contracts to max contracts). To simplify things, let’s say the new value will be $8.67 million.
If we use the full exception on Redick and made the deal three years, that works out to a total of $26 million.
That might seem kind of cheap to some (he made $23 million last year!) or kind of pricey to some (he’s already 34!). But I think he was overpaid on the first deal with the implication that he would sign for less later on.
Keep in mind also that he wanted to sign with the Rockets last season, but they would only offer a three-year deal when he wanted a four-year deal. It seems like 37 is his planned retirement age, so this deal would take him right there.
When taken in conjunction with his salary for the past year, it would work out to a four-year, $49 million deal. Sounds fair to me.
A three-year, $26 million deal is also comparable to the three-year, $22 million deal that Kyle Korver signed heading into his age 36 season. Korver is probably a better player, but he was also older, and of course there’s always inflation.
The deal also keeps Redick from having to move again, and allows him to stay close to his family who lives in Brooklyn. It just makes sense for all parties.
The final tally
It seems like we’ve gutted the roster, but there’s surprisingly a lot still left. Dario Saric, who seems to be considered untouchable, will either be the fifth starter or the first guy off the bench.
Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot, Furkan Korkmaz, T.J. McConnell, and Richaun Holmes are all still here. 54th overall pick Shake Milton can be signed to a minimum contract, as can Summer League star Jonah Bolden.
I believe Anzejs Pasecniks could also be signed, because of an exception allowing first-round picks to be signed even if it pushes a team over the cap, but I’m not positive if that applies to draft stashes too.
I’ll toss in one or two minimum-salary ring chasers to round out the roster, but in the playoffs you’re really only playing seven or eight guys anyway
The final roster could look like this:
PG – Ben Simmons
SG – J.J. Redick
SF – Kawhi Leonard
PF – LeBron James
C – Joel Embiid
6 – Dario Saric
7 – T.J. McConnell
8 – Jonah Bolden
9 – Marco Bellinelli
10 – Joe Harris
11 – Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot
12 – Anzejs Pasecniks
13 – Richaun Holmes
14 – Furkan Korkmaz
15 – Shake Milton
The team is a little shallow, but I think the Warriors have proven that having four of the best players in the NBA (and three or four more competent players behind them) is more important than having a great ninth man.
Next: Sixers have made an offer for Kawhi, per reports
This is a team that could win a championship in 2019 or in 2024. I like the sound of that.