NBA free agency is around the corner.
The NBA offseason has begun, which means free agency is around the corner. The Sixers have a lot of question marks about their roster, most notably the question as to what the future holds for Ben Simmons. But the Sixers will have other personnel moves to consider, filling out the roster with impactful role players and bench players.
Who those players might be and the financial maneuvers needed to acquire them, these are factors that are still very much up in the air. But we’re already receiving trickles of information about who Daryl Morey and the Front Office might be interested in.
According to Marc Berman of the New York Post, the Sixers have interest in obtaining the services of Reggie Bullock. From Berman’s reporting:
According to an NBA source, two Atlantic Division squads, the Celtics and 76ers, have interest in Knicks swingman Reggie Bullock, who started all season at either shooting guard or small forward.
The source said the Lakers, whom Bullock played for in 2018-19 alongside LeBron James, also have Bullock on their list. Interestingly, a report surfaced Wednesday the Lakers will try to lure Chris Paul back to Los Angeles. Paul and Bullock are both from North Carolina and are close.
Bullock’s preference is to stay with the Knicks, but he likely will command the full mid-level exception of $9.23 million. One source believes Bullock, who turned 30 in March, will seek a three-year deal.
You can never have enough bench shooters at the wing, so the Sixers’ interest in Bullock makes sense. A career 39.2 percent three point shooter through 1,402 attempts, Bullock is well established as a perimeter threat. Over a good season, he’ll stroke them at 40 percent — as he did in 2020-21 with the Knicks, while attempting 6.1 threes per game. Sign me up, right?
That said, I expect Bullock will receive a lot of interest in free agency. As a low cost option for reliable shooting, I could see just about every team in the NBA with cap space or an exception at their disposal theoretically having some level of interest in Bullock. So I’m not sure how much stock to put into the Sixers’ interest. I’m not surprised the Sixers are interested in Bullock the same way my friends wouldn’t be surprised that I’m interested in holistic methods for reducing male pattern baldness. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean there’s a guaranteed path from A to B.
Fully speculation on my part: It’s possible that someone close to Bullock — who Berman reports as wanting to return to the Knicks — like say, his agent, is leaking this information to Berman (an NYC reporter) as a means of gaining leverage in discussions with the Knicks. (I mean, that’s quite a specific belief from ‘one source’ about what Bullock will seek.) That wouldn’t necessarily rule out the Sixers as being interested in Bullock, but it could rule out the reverse. Free agency is yet to officially begin. Stay alert but keep grains of salt nearby.
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