Philadelphia 76ers mailbag: Free agent priorities

In this edition of the Philadelphia 76ers mailbag, most of the questions asked by our followers pertains to free agency this summer.

Last week’s edition of the Philadelphia 76ers mailbag covered a plethora of subjects. However, this week, our followers had questions related to free agency in one form or another.

• The first question comes from Facebook follower Shawn M. Keenan.

"“Who is going to be the first signing once all the off-season stuff starts?”"

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Hopefully, it will be either Jimmy Butler or Tobias Harris. Ideally, both about the same time. However, it can get a little tricky. The Sixers can re-sign both Harris and Butler while going over the salary cap limit. Theoretically, the 76ers can spend some of their cap space signing quality bench players before re-signing their stars. If they try this they could end up losing one, if not both, star players. It would be safer to try to re-sign both players first before worrying about the bench.

Free agency begins June 30th, 2019 at 6:00 pm eastern standard time. That is the time that teams can start negotiating deals with free agents. Hopefully, general manger (GM) Elton Brand starts talking to both stars at that time. Players can officially sign with a team starting July 6th and hopefully both re-sign with Philly that day.

• The following questions were asked by Twitter followers.

This is a legit question. Vince Carter has had a miniature revival of sorts with the Atlanta Hawks this past season. With the Hawks he averaged 17.5 minutes, 7.4 points, 2.6 rebounds and 1.6 assists, while shooting 41.9 percent from the field and 38.9 percent from downtown. However, he’s not good defensively anymore. This past year, he’s tied his worst Defensive Box Plus/Minus score of his career with -1.4.

In short, the Sixers could add him to the roster for a reasonable price. Yes, he’d be a great mentor to Philly’s young star. However, it’s extremely unlikely he’d find a regular rotation spot based on his inability to defend at this stage of his career.

Yes the 76ers “can” re-sign Butler. They are more than capable in re-signing the two-way star and it appears they are more than willing to. If they “will” re-sign him, I can’t answer that with any certainty. At the end of the day, it comes down to Butler and if he wants the max contract that Philly can offer.

Starting with free agents, there’s a solid field of candidates that Philly could sign as a backup. Robin Lopez, Dewayne Dedmon, Ed Davis, Kenneth Faried, Kyle O’Quinn, JaVale McGee, Joakim Noah and Noah Vonleh all could fill the need the the Sixers have as the primary reserve. Most of the players listed could sign within the 76ers price range as well. All of these players are solid defensive centers which is what the Sixers need coming off the bench.

Out of the draft, there’s only one player that I see that the 76ers could realistically select that could fill the need as the backup center for Joel Embiid immediately. Charles Bassey is a 6-foot-11 big man that has shown the potential to hit the 3-point shot (45.0 percent), while also being able to rebound (10.0) and being an elite shot blocker (2.4). However, the Sixers shouldn’t rely on a rookie as the primary backup for their All-Star center.

That finishes up this Philadelphia 76ers mailbag. Agree with the opinions given? Make sure you keep an eye out for future mailbags.