Offseason mailbag: Quentin Grimes’ future, mid-level exception options and more

Unsurprisingly, many Sixers fans are already wondering what’s next for Quentin Grimes this offseason.

On Wednesday, we asked you for the top offseason questions on your mind as the Sixers circle the drain on this season. You guys cooked with gas.

Before we dive in, I’m planning to do these every Wednesday moving forward. So if you have something else on your mind after reading these, drop them in the comments or hit me up at Bluesky and we’ll save it for next week’s mailbag.

Unsurprisingly, we got multiple questions about Quentin Grimes and how he might affect the Sixers’ options with their mid-level exception this offseason, so let’s start there:

I recently wrote about Grimes’ future—a special shout-out to this comment, which aged like spoiled milk—and how that could affect Guerschon Yabusele as well.

The TL;DR version: Between Joel Embiid, Paul George, Tyrese Maxey and Jared McCain, the Sixers already have $149.1 million on their books next season. The first apron is projected to be $195.9 million. If the Sixers use the $14.1 million non-taxpayer mid-level exception to re-sign Yabusele, they can’t cross the first apron under any circumstance. If they use the $5.7 million taxpayer mid-level exception to re-sign him, they’ll be hard-capped at the $207.8 million second apron instead.

I’m assuming Andre Drummond will pick up his $5.0 million player option for next season (he’d be crazy not to), so that brings the Sixers up to $154.1 million with five players under contract. If they pick up their team options on Adem Bona ($2.0 million), Justin Edwards ($2.0 million), Ricky Council IV ($2.2 million), Jared Butler ($2.3 million) and Lonnie Walker IV ($2.9 million)—or add five veteran-minimum contracts in their place (roughly $2.3 million each)—that adds another $11.4-11.5 million to their books. They’d be up to around $165.5 million for 10 players.

Using the full non-taxpayer MLE on Yabusele would push them near $180 million, which would leave roughly $16 million for Grimes and their other three roster spots. Grimes alone might garner more than $16 million based on how he’s played over the past month. And that’s not even counting the possibility of Kelly Oubre Jr. ($8.4 million) and Eric Gordon ($3.5 million) picking up their respective player options, nor the Sixers keeping their top-six-protected first-round pick. (If the Sixers do keep the pick, it would have a cap hit between $8.3 million and $13.3 million.)

So, if the Sixers do re-sign Grimes, I’d say it’s far more likely than not that they won’t have access to the non-taxpayer MLE to use on Yabusele. They still might be able to keep all three of Grimes, Yabu and Oubre and stay under the second apron, but that would require convincing Yabu to take the taxpayer MLE, which is no sure thing.

I would defer to the many draft gurus that we have here at LB. Watching the Sixers was painful enough this year; I couldn’t subject myself to a below-.500 Rutgers squad, even if it did have two likely top-five picks. (I’m saving my draft prep for post-lottery in case they do keep the pick.)

With that said… if Harper and Bailey are the consensus top two picks after Flagg, I’d consider trading down in that scenario. The Sixers are in a position where they may need to accumulate assets to eventually offload Embiid or George’s contracts if their health continues to go awry. They also aren’t necessarily in need of more star power, particularly in the backcourt. (I doubt Harper or Bailey would be thrilled to be relegated as backups right away, too.)

So, my inclination would be to explore the trade market and see what they could get for a pick in the 2-4 range. If they could land a lower first-round pick in this year’s draft along with another future first-rounder or two, it might be hard to turn that down.

This has flown somewhat under the radar given, well, *gestures wildly at everything else that happened this season*. But… did Daryl Morey and the Sixers front office low-key cook ever since the trade deadline?

Taking a flier on recent first-round picks such as Jalen Hood-Schifino (No. 17 in 2023) and Chuma Okeke (No. 16 in 2019) is the exact type of low-risk, high-upside strategy that can help the Sixers salvage whatever’s left of this godforsaken season. If any of them pop, the Sixers still have enough flexibility under the luxury tax—roughly $850,000 at the moment—to waive someone and sign them to a rest-of-season contract.

With that said, these guys are getting more run now than they ever would if the Sixers were fully healthy. So, as much as I enjoyed seeing Okeke gobble up 15 rebounds (including seven offensive boards!) in Wednesday’s blowout loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder, it’s fair to wonder what place a career 31.7 percent three-point shooter would have on this team moving forward.

Hood-Schifino had a rough game against OKC, but he doesn’t turn 22 until June. Since he’s on a two-way deal, he’ll be a restricted free agent this offseason if the Sixers tender him a qualifying offer. They might not want to commit that many roster spots to young players if they keep all four of Bona, Butler, Edwards and RC4 as well, but I think they’re better off taking home run swings on younger guys rather than signing another AARP veteran. So, he’d be my pick.

If Embiid and George can’t stay healthy moving forward, hitting on cheap lottery tickets might be the only way to salvage whatever’s left of this era.

This is a trick question. As LB’s Dave Early wrote Wednesday, the answer in that scenario is “never.” With that said: The Eagles just won the Super Bowl. Nothing can hurt us right now. Not even the Sixers.

Thanks to everyone for the questions this week! Again, please drop in any others in the comments section below and/or on Bluesky, and we’ll run this back next week. After all, it’s not like we have anything better to do at this time of year…

Unless otherwise noted, all stats via NBA.com, PBPStats, Cleaning the Glass or Basketball Reference. All salary information via Salary Swish and salary-cap information via RealGM.

Follow Bryan on Bluesky.