Sixers 2017-2018 Season

[zambonir]

that score is insane

[Dirk41]

Bucks actively trying to avoid the Cavs and get the Celtics in the playoffs

[phillychuck]

The Greek Dude was just coming back from an injury...Sixers sucked their spirit in the first quarter, and then they gave up. Bucks are so much better than they looked tonight. I'm afraid that this game may have a rebound effect in the playoffs (I believe we now play them in the first round).

Nope--it's the Heat, and Embiid unlikely in games 1 and 2. Will be interesting without Joel. I somehow think he'll find a way to be available, but I'm 100% with not risking additional injury under any circumstances.

[kmc1019]

After the euphoria of 16 wins in a row that were mostly against bad teams, the reality is:

Heat are a tough matchup and playoffs are an entirely different ballgame. I think the Sixers win but only thanks to home court and only if Embiid plays majority of games. The series will go at least 6 games. They really need to guard against complacency or overconfidence that would allow Heat to steal Game 1, which is likely to be without Embiid. Lose Game 1 and Heat become favored.

Season series was 2-2.

Would like to see the young Sixers follow Lebron's lead and stay off social media during the playoffs.

[bigegypt0417]

Fultz is now the youngest player in history to have a triple double.

[bkeich]

Fultz is now the youngest player in history to have a triple double.

Once they get this kid with a somewhat reasonable shot he is going to be special. Problem is that he seems to just be a shorter, faster version of Simmons at the moment. The original thought was that he was a great compliment to Simmons because he plays very well off the ball, but I am not really seeing that yet because at the moment he is serving as Simmons backup. It will probably be next season before they can try to play him more at the SG, but that is actually kinda scary in a way because that would give us 2 guards that cannot shoot at all (unless he is able to develop of shot this offseason or Simmons can). This may end up being a strange, strange team next year if Fultz moves into the starting lineup as he is, we are almost going to need to play with 2 balls on offense because we have a ton of guys who want and need the ball in their hands. If you add LeBron (please, please) then it gets even crazier, as he is a true point forward.

The talent on this team is impressive, it really is. I can't think of when I have ever seen this much talent on a team in 30 years, it is just a matter of these guys learning to play together and making the pieces fit. It will be interesting to see if they even try to resign Redick, I really like the guy and he is a certainly a weapon, but it is going to depend on what we do in the draft and with other players.

At this point I think they have to go with European stash type players for the draft, not sure how we even fit anyone else on the roster.

I would offer Illysova a contract. He is exactly the guy we want everyone to learn from, professional to an extreme.
Same with Redick. He provides a shooter that this team badly, badly needs, but I suspect Redick is going to try and latch on to whoever he feels is the best chance for a ring (GS?).
TLC is wasting a valuable roster spot. He isnt an NBA Player, he is an NBA defender, but he has no offensive game to speak of. They are going to need that roster spot
Try and extend Holmes. He is a solid backup C/PF, who is capable of dominating at times. He and Embiid make an incredible combination.

[xogfog]

Bayless can't just "go"--someone has to take him in trade or you have to pay his contract. And you have to have 15 guys or so on your roster. 10 or 11 have to be able to play reasonably well so that you don't wear out your starters and lose ground while they're resting. This isn't the tanking years, you can't fill out your roster with D-league guys. It's a tight financial fit for James at max.

You know what I mean, Bayless can be waived if not traded to a tank-mode team that needs to add salary. I just gave an example of a 15 man roster that I think is cap doable and fits James and is 10 deep in NBA talent,

The 2018-2019 Salary Cap is reported to be around $101 million. You have to move Bayless and Anderson. Johnson comes off the books, you can fit James and everything else in if Redick takes a veteran exemption deal and Ilysova and Belinelli take reasonable deals, which I think they all would at this stage in their careers.

[xogfog]

I like the way the playoffs have set up for the Sixers. It might be tougher in the first round depending on Embiid's status. I think the first round will play to chalk (I think the Celtics can still squeeze by the Bucks), That would put the Raptors vs. the Cavs and the Sixers vs. the Celtics. I think the Sixers are at least getting to the conference finals and have a good shot at getting to the finals.

[bigegypt0417]

We can't afford our current supporting cast if we sign James at a max. Redick, Illasova, Bellinelli, and Bayless would have to go, and we would have very little left to bring in a shooter or two, which we really need with Simmons and Fultz in the supporting cast. Bodner and a couple other writers have discussed how much signing James at a max puts us up against the cap.

I might not be reading this correctly but it seems that even with cap holds that keep the vets at their current salaries the sixers would still have room for a max player...if you let Redick move on then I think you have room for two.

http://www.spotrac.com/nba/philadelphia-76ers/cap/2018/

[phillychuck]

Here is Bob Ford's projected roster with LeBron:

PLAYER CAP FIGURE
LeBron James $35,350,000
Joel Embiid $25,250,000
Robert Covington $10,018,862
Markelle Fultz $8,339,880
Ben Simmons $6,434,520
Dario Saric $2,526,840
Justin Anderson $2,516,048
Richaun Holmes $1,600,520
T.J. McConnell $1,600,520
Furkan Korkmaz $1,499,600
Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot $1,446,360
4 Vet Mins/Rookie Contracts $5,785,440
Salary total for 15 players $102,368,590 (the projected cap is $101M)

So this means no Bellinelli, no Illasova, getting someone to take all of Bayless's contract in trade (which most people speculate would take a late first rounder), and, most importantly, no Redick or equivalent. This team might not be worse than the current one, but it is super-dependent on LeBron and the other "main" stars. The bench would get crushed.

[bkeich]

You are overlooking 2 things...

You can go over the cap in the NBA. it has to be done correctly, but it isnt hard to do, about 1/3 of the teams are over at different times. We can always resign Redick AFTER we sign LeBron. The rules for how to do this change every year, so I may not understand the methodology, but it is a common thing in the NBA.

With LeBron (especially), but also Simmons and Emibiid there are players that will take a HUGE discount to play with them for a shot at a ring. I actually think Reddick is probably one of those guys, but there are tons of other ones. The bench will be fine with additions like this and subtracting some of the players on our bench (TLC, sadly McConnell, Korkmaz, etc.) if we have to.

[phillychuck]

Here is a skeptical blog post (by "Gimpy" over at BSG who is very tuned into cap questions) on the same issue. Note that it STARTS by cutting Redick, Illasova, and Bellinelli:

Revisiting the "How can we sign LeBron" question with the following qualifiers:

1) Pasecniks agrees to stay stashed

2) any second rounders and other stashes don't sign yet

3) Cap goes to $101m and rookie scale/minimum contracts also go up 2.02%

4) Our first rounders have signed for the scale amount and we end up with the 10th and 24th picks

5) Since we're signing people outright, we'd renounce the room exception to have space

6) We renounce our free agents

7) Embiid doesn't make first team All-NBA

Alright, here it goes.

How much cap space do we have?

$26,464,762

How much do we need for PG? LeBron?

30% of the cap is PG's max ($30.3m); 35% for LeBron ($35.35m)

How can we clear that space without impacting our core?

If we can find a way to get out from under Bayless' contract, we get up to $35,040,678 in space, juuuuuust shy of LeBron territory. Now, how would we actually do that? We could tie seconds to him or one of our firsts or maybe some other young players. For the sake of trades, unsigned draft picks don't count dollarwise. I don't think there are many teams with cap space this offseason and I'm not sure that many of them will be able to absorb Bayless along with additional money. Brooklyn is a team that has space and limited other sources for assets so maybe they do something like Bayless/24/Justin Anderson for a protected second. That gets us down to 10 roster spots so accounting for two cap holds puts us at $37,235,333 in space.

If we stop there and sign PG at his max, it leaves us with $7,767,423 for a player like Redick. If we stop there and get LeBron, it leaves us with $2,717,423.

Let's say it takes $7.5m starting to get Redick. How can we get LeBron and clear enough space for JJ?

Welp, here's where we run into problems. We ran the scenario above and we're at $2.717m, but clearing another $5m in space is hairy. We have a lot of guys on low $$$ deals and we're at a roster under 12 players. Cap holds for roster spots when you have fewer than 12 players are $832k according to my assumptions up top. So clearing a guy like Furkan Korkmaz's $1.740m contract is great, but you also have to tack on $832k in cap holds, so you're only clearing half of his salary if you dump him for free.

So dump the expendables; where are we?

Dropping Holmes, TLC, Furk gets us to $5.1m in space. Dropping TJ gets us all the way up to $5.875m. Dumping the 10th overall pick gets us to the magic $7.5m number we were looking for with us landing at a cool $7,642,125 in cap space after signing LeBron and dumping all of those guys (or trading them for future draft picks!).

Short summary to a long answer of a short question: if we want to keep all of our starters and Fultz while signing LeBron to a max, we have to get JJ to take a starting salary in the $7.6m range, dump everyone else under contract, and give up or roll forward our two first round picks. If we want to keep all of our starters, Fultz, and sign PG to a max while JJ takes that starting salary, dumping Bayless, Anderson, and the 24th pick gets it done.

If anyone is interested in an alternate scenario, like trading away Covington, let me know and I'll mess with my spreadsheet.

Another option that I didn't include above but should have:

We could clear room to get to $32,182,040 in cap space just by stretching Bayless. I'm reluctant to recommend that because then you're stuck with a little under $3m committed to Bayless this year and the next two years. But if you can't dump him for a reasonable price and you have an opportunity to add PG, it's probably something you'd want to do.

[zambonir]

Do we need to start the Sixers' off-season or 2018-2019 thread?

I kid but it is crazy to me that people are talking about this so much already. I mean, let the Knicks and Lakers fans talk about it.

That said, if LeBron wants to sign with the Sixers they are probably going to find a way. And that way would probably would not include keeping all the starters plus Fultz (and Reddick). Why would you need to?

[phillychuck]

Fultz you wouldn't want to trade b/c you are selling low; way low. You need Redick back, or an equivalent shooter, to space the floor for Simmons and Embiid. He's going to cost around $8M. That's what I'm arguing with BigEgypt--we CAN'T sign LeBron and have any money left over for a decent bench. You'd need to trade Cov for enough money to sign any bench at all.

I don't mind the LeBron discussion here, but I'm sure we'll shift gears come Saturday!

[zambonir]

I just think you throw some of the normal concerns out the window if you're signing LeBron. I'm also not so sure you couldn't still get decent value back for Fultz. But even if you couldn't isn't he a bit redundant on a team with both Simmons and LeBron (and Reddick)? How would he build value?

[bigegypt0417]

Fultz you wouldn't want to trade b/c you are selling low; way low. You need Redick back, or an equivalent shooter, to space the floor for Simmons and Embiid. He's going to cost around $8M. That's what I'm arguing with BigEgypt--we CAN'T sign LeBron and have any money left over for a decent bench. You'd need to trade Cov for enough money to sign any bench at all.

I don't mind the LeBron discussion here, but I'm sure we'll shift gears come Saturday!

I think the number we should be paying more attention to is the Luxury tax number and not the soft cap. it looks like that number is closer to 123 million dollars. You can probably get those veterans to also sign cap friendly contracts because LeBron makes this team a championship team. Best this is you can probably get Lebron to agree to a 3 year contract at the max.

Either way this is a very good team going forward.

[Austinfan]

LeBron is a wet dream, and they can win it without him once Simmons learns to shot FTs and 15' shots and Fultz regains his 3 point range.

Reddick I think will resign for 3 years, $30M or so, he got overpaid this year, which may have been a handshake deal, "if you work out, you resign for a backup salary." He's said he's willing to come off the bench, and no one is paying him $20M next year anyway - at this point in his career a ring is more important than a few million dollars.

Illyasova is nice, but if he walked he can be replaced, he's smart, good rebounder, but not physical and his 3 point shot is erratic at best.

Bellinelli I think would be happy to take Bayless money or something like that - he's coming off the bench in any case, and here he gets better matchups and a shot at a ring.

Amir is worth bringing back for the right money, he's more fundamentally sound than Holmes, and Holmes showed he can swing out to PF with Embiid at times.

[xogfog]

I wouldn't say that getting LeBton is a dream, it is a legitimate discussion. First, it is highly unlikely that he won't opt out. The Cavs situation has run it's course. By all indications he is at odds with the owner, the team is fading, his may be his last chance to take them anywhere. So if he opts out, and you rule out Cleveland there are only three destinations that make sense for him, in terms of where he could go to win or who can even afford him. The Sixers are one of those teams, so it shouldn't be discounted as fantasy talk.

Let's say the playoffs play out that the Sixers and Cavs are in the East finals, you think it might get mentioned a few times?

[zambonir]

Let's say the playoffs play out that the Sixers and Cavs are in the East finals, you think it might get mentioned a few times?

Yes, I think it would be okay to talk about it ad infinitum then

[LegoDoom]

LeBron is a wet dream, and they can win it without him once Simmons learns to shot FTs and 15' shots and Fultz regains his 3 point range.

I was hoping the same thing, but Simmons shot looks incredibly bad. And while he had a redshirt year, he's still had a bunch of time to work at it. That being said, he's awesome without a good shot. And I'd rather see him taking shots within 5' than trying to develop a 15' shot. I agree about FTs, but he's been bad despite being able to actually practice those last year during the injury.

Reddick I think will resign for 3 years, $30M or so, he got overpaid this year, which may have been a handshake deal, "if you work out, you resign for a backup salary." He's said he's willing to come off the bench, and no one is paying him $20M next year anyway - at this point in his career a ring is more important than a few million dollars.

I don't agree with this. He could have signed a multi-year deal last season with Houston, who was much closer to a ring at that time. Yes, maybe he signs a multi-year deal this year, but if he gets offered $20M on a one-year deal, then why wouldn't he take it? Yeah, yeah... a chance for a ring, but $5-10M+ is more valuable to some/most people.

Illyasova is nice, but if he walked he can be replaced, he's smart, good rebounder, but not physical and his 3 point shot is erratic at best.

I agree here. I like him, but he's always run a bit hot in Philly and not all that special.

Does the need to resign Reddick change if the Sixers can nab Trae Young in the draft? And are people honestly worried about resigning Reddick or Bellinelli because the team signs Lebron? Lebron is having a career year with not a whole lot around him. Oh, and he's having a career year after making the last 7 finals. I understand the need for spacing and 3 point shooting, but that seems absurd. Lebron is so much more valuable than Reddick and a bunch of bench players.