The first Sixers domino has dropped for 2025 free agency.
Free agency has to start somewhere.
Mike Scotto of USA Today’s Hoop’s Hype podcast has reported that Andre Drummond is picking up his $5 million dollar player option to return to the Sixers for the 2025-26 season.
JUST IN: Philadelphia 76ers center Andre Drummond will exercise his $5 million player option for the 2025-26 season, league sources told @hoopshype. During his career, Drummond has been an All-NBA selection in 2016, a two-time All-Star, and a four-time rebounding champion. pic.twitter.com/Ymg4vEdbxK
— Michael Scotto (@MikeAScotto) June 27, 2025
Drummond’s return to Philadelphia was disappointing and plagued by injuries. He suffered a toe injury on Dec. 23 and it never properly healed during the season as he tried to play on it. In 40 games, Drummond played 18.8 minutes per night and averaged 7.3 points, 7.8 rebounds and 0.5 blocks per game.
The expectation was that Drummond, along with Kelly Oubre Jr. and Eric Gordon, would opt-in so this does not come as a surprise. President of basketball operations Daryl Morey said he expected all three back on a podcast appearance, and the Stein Line reported that expectation last month as well.
This news is essentially a formality, but here is how the Sixers cap situation will look like entering free agency assuming all three of those veterans decide to come back. All these numbers are courtesy of our resident cap guru Bryan Toporek.
With Drummond, Oubre and Gordon back, that puts the Sixers current payroll at $180.9 million dollars. That is $26.3 million over the salary cap. That gives them just $7 million dollars to work with before the luxury tax and $15 million dollars before the dreaded first apron.
It’s important to remember that this is all before a decision on Quentin Grimes has been made, and he is likely to eat into that number quite a bit. The Sixers can use a $14.1 million dollar non-tax payer mid-level exception to sign him to, but they would then be hard capped at the first apron. Whether Grimes wants more than that or not, the Sixers will be limited in what they can do moving forward.
It will be interesting to see if the Sixers try to move any of those three veterans to free up more salary. They’ll likely have to attach some second-round picks to do so. Especially for Drummond, who was signed with cap space and makes more than the veteran’s minimum.