Having polled 16 front office sources around the NBA about what “fair” contracts for restricted free agents Jonathan Kuminga and Josh Giddey would look like, Fred Katz of The Athletic did the same for Quentin Grimes of the Sixers, another RFA who has been in a standoff with his team for the last several weeks.
According to Katz, 13 of the 16 respondents to his poll suggested annual salaries between $12MM and $16.7MM per year from Grimes, with one projection coming in lower ($10MM) and two going slightly higher (one $18MM and one $18.8MM). Eleven of the sources polled suggested a three-year deal for the 25-year-old, with four indicating they’d do four years and just one saying he’d do only two seasons.
The executive who was lowest on Grimes explained that he’d only be comfortable with $30MM over three years because he wasn’t swayed by the guard’s second-half scoring outburst for a banged-up Sixers team that was essentially in tanking mode.
Another exec, who said he’d do a three-year, $40MM contract, argued that it was hard to pay big-time money for a player like Grimes when a veteran with a similar skill set like Gary Trent Jr. signed for the minimum (Trent actually signed for a little more than the minimum, though the point stands).
Other participants in the poll were higher on Grimes, including one who expressed a level of comfort with a four-year, $75MM investment.
“There are not many Swiss Army knife wings out there that score it as efficiently, defend, pass or rebound like he does,” that staffer said. “He might not be elite at any one thing, but (he’s) very good at a lot of them.”
A number of respondents suggested a deal in the range of the mid-level, with one observing that something in the same “ballpark” as what Caris LeVert (two years, $28.9MM) and Nickeil Alexander-Walker (four years, $60.6MM) got in terms of annual average value would make sense for Grimes.
“I like Quentin Grimes. He’s a very good player,” another exec said. “I would present him with two options: You can have a three-year, $48 million deal or a four-year, $60 million. … You say to him, ‘Do you want money or do you want longevity?’ And if he says both, you say, ‘We can’t offer both.’”
As we noted when we passed along the results of Katz’s polls on Kuminga and Giddey, these responses come with an important caveat — rival team executives, who will have their own contract negotiations to deal with going forward and don’t want the market to be set too high for their own guys, are more likely to take a conservative view when asked to project a player’s contract. The responses in a poll of 16 agents would almost certainly come in higher.
Still, with no indication that a rival suitor is positioning itself to make an aggressive play for Grimes, the Sixers have a good deal of leverage in the negotiations and will be motivated to keep the guard’s first-year salary at a manageable number. Philadelphia is currently operating a little below the luxury tax line and has roughly $21.7MM in wiggle room below the second tax apron, so bringing in Grimes for a lower number would help keep the club’s projected tax penalty in check and would open up more room for the front office to maneuver in apron territory.