With Guerschon Yabusele accumulating interest from other teams and Quentin Grimes angling to re-sign with the Philadelphia 76ers, a tough decision feels inevitable. Philadelphia is heading into free agency on a tight budget, and despite its intentions to retain both players, based on the latest report from Marc Stein, it feels like a pipe dream.
Yabusele may be out of Philadelphia's reach
Stein revealed the San Antonio Spurs are being projected by rival teams as one of multiple clubs to watch try to pry Yabusele away from Philadelphia on June 30th – the start of free agency. If the Spurs have a legitimate interest in Yabusele, the 76ers should feel immensely threatened. San Antonio’s payroll for next season totals around $160.3 million – including both of its rookie contracts. The Spurs could offer Yabusele the full $14.1 million non-taxpayer mid-level exception fairly easily, which would be a death sentence for the 76ers.
Currently, Philadelphia has access to NTP-MLE as well, but it can only offer up to $5.7 million because if it offered more, it would be hard-capped at the first tax apron. In a sense, the 76ers’ full MLE is being used as a taxpayer MLE ($5.7 million) due to the hard cap that comes with the NTP-MLE. If the full-MLE was used, Philadelphia wouldn’t be able to have a payroll over $195.9 million at any point throughout the season. Then, the 76ers wouldn’t be able to re-sign Grimes, regardless of possessing his full bird rights.
The 76ers should feel good about re-signing Grimes
In short, Philadelphia will essentially have to choose between Grimes and Yabusele, barring any potential salary-dumping trades. The 76ers have made the first step towards doing so as they tendered an $8.7 million qualifying offer to Grimes via Kelly Iko of The Athletic. Philadelphia did this to give itself the ability to match any contract a team may offer him – making him a restricted free agent. Iko noted that both sides are discussing a new deal, so it’ll be interesting to see if Grimes signs a multi-year contract with the 76ers soon or if he’ll test free agency.
As a reminder, Philadelphia can exceed the salary cap to retain Grimes as it has full bird rights. The only way this falls through is if the 76ers offer Yabusele the full MLE as their roster stands. On June 29th, Kelly Oubre Jr. ($8.4 million) and Eric Gordon ($3.5 million) need to decide on their player options and Philadelphia needs to accept or deny Lonnie Walker IV’s $2.9 million team option.
If the 76ers want to keep Grimes and Yabusele, it would be in their best interest to shed all three options and look to shop Andre Drummond, who accepted his $5 million player option on Friday. As it stands, Philadelphia is $9.8 million below the first tax apron – including player options, team options, Justin Edwards’ pending contract, and V.J. Edgecombe’s rookie deal. The 76ers need to acquire as much flexibility as possible to make room for Grimes and Yabusele, but it’s shaping up to be an extremely difficult task.