Should the Sixers swing for the fences at No. 3 or play it safer? What’s the trade market for Joel Embiid? We answer that and more in this week’s mailbag.
Now that we’re knee-deep in #SmokescreenSZN, there’s no shortage of questions about what the Sixers have up their sleeve over the next few weeks.
On Wednesday, we asked you for another round of offseason questions, and you delivered once again with a wide variety. So, let’s jump into some draft and trade questions before finishing with an off-the-wall one.
Great question! To some extent, this is what the “Ace Bailey vs. V.J. Edgecombe” debate boils down to.
If Cooper Flagg and Dylan Harper are off the board at No. 3, Bailey arguably will have the highest upside of anyone left. Since Daryl Morey tends to staunchly adhere to the best-player-available draft philosophy, he might be willing to overlook Bailey’s warts because of his ceiling. Edgecombe’s athleticism and defensive aptitude seemingly give him a higher floor than Bailey, although questions remain about his ball-handling and shot-creation ability.
So, which one should the Sixers prefer if they stay at No. 3? That largely depends on how serious they are about continuing to build around Joel Embiid and Paul George. If they believe both are headed for bounce-back seasons, they might decide that they don’t need to shoot for the moon and go with the more NBA-ready Edgecombe. But if they think the ship has sailed on the Embiid/George era, they’ll need to take some home run swings like Bailey to find another star to pair with Maxey in the future.
It does seem like the Sixers would be an ideal landing spot for Bailey’s development, as they wouldn’t have to lean on him as a high-volume offensive option right away. Getting to work with George, one of his idols whom he’s modeled his game after, could help him whittle down the weaknesses in his game. But if the Sixers are legitimately still in win-now mode, Edgecombe likely would help more in that regard than Bailey.
Either way, I wouldn’t expect whomever the Sixers select at No. 3—assuming they stand pat there—to have a Cooper DeJean/Quinyon Mitchell-esque impact as a rookie. At least we’ll always have Super Bowl LIX.
I haven’t seen anything specific regarding Embiid and the Warriors. A quick Google search only turned up this fake trade proposal, which would be illegal for multiple reasons.
To the broader point: If the Sixers shopped Embiid this summer, they might be able to find a taker for him, but they’d likely get little (if anything?) of real value in return. He still has three years and $179.1 million in guaranteed money remaining on his contract before a $69.1 million player option in 2028-29. That’s prohibitively expensive for an injury-prone big man who has played in only 58 games over the past two seasons combined.
The Nets are the only team projected to have significant cap space this offseason, so it’s not even like the Sixers could get much cap relief by trading Embiid. Their best bet is to run it back with him next year, pray he stays healthy and then re-evaluate their longer-term future during the 2026 offseason, when more teams could have enough cap room for at least one max contract.
The cop-out answer is Gordon. Other teams could acquire him via the minimum-player-salary exception without having to send out an equivalent amount of salary. If Gordon picks up his option and the Sixers would rather fill that roster spot with someone else on a one-year min deal—which would save them roughly $1.2 million—they could look to salary-dump him to a team in need of more shooting.
Otherwise, Drummond seems like the obvious choice. Morey keeps bringing up Adem Bona unprompted in his media appearances this offseason and has repeatedly proclaimed that the Sixers will be getting younger and more athletic next year. Drummond is one of the most prolific rebounders in NBA history, but he’s turning 32 in August and is fresh off a disappointing, injury-ravaged season.
Given the dearth of cap space around the league this offseason, the Sixers might think they could land a third big man on a minimum contract. Even if Embiid somehow stays healthy moving forward, he still figures to miss at least 15-20 games and play fewer minutes as they aim to keep him fresh for the playoffs. Would someone like Clint Capela see the Sixers as an opportunity to rehabilitate his value ahead of free agency in 2026? If so, the Sixers could save roughly $2.7 million by salary-dumping Drummond and pivoting to Capela or another big man on a minimum contract instead.
Oubre will have the most trade value of the three by far. He’s also the most important to their rotation, particularly if they don’t take Bailey at No. 3. But if he opts in, he’ll be one of their biggest trade chips from a salary perspective. So, if the Sixers were looking to land someone in the $15-20 million range and didn’t want to give up one of their Big Three, Oubre would almost have to be included for salary-matching purposes.
I’m sorry, you expect an actual injury update? From the Sixers? Are we talking about the same team here?
All jokes aside, no, I don’t believe we’ve gotten a concrete recovery about McCain. With that said, he is currently at the NBA Finals as part of the NBA Player Correspondent Program—he asked Shai Gilgeous-Alexander a fascinating question Wednesday about mindfulness—so roughly five months removed from surgery, he’s at least ambulatory.
Given that McCain got hurt in mid-December and was ruled out for the season after undergoing surgery, it seems like he got the full meniscus repair rather than the meniscectomy that Embiid underwent in 2024. That’s been found to have better long-term outcomes, so it’s reasonable to expect McCain to be full go by the start of next season.
If the Sixers re-sign Quentin Grimes, I’d expect Grimes to start alongside Maxey and for McCain to come off the bench as a potential Sixth Man of the Year candidate. He should still get 25-30 minutes per night since Nick Nurse can (and should) trot out three-guard lineups at times, and he’s able to play either backcourt position, which should make him, Maxey and Grimes largely interchangeable.
Morey has expressed some skepticism about the defensive fit between Maxey and McCain, so that’d be the big-picture thing to keep an eye on. If the Sixers don’t think that pairing is defensively viable, they might have to choose between one or the other at some point. Luckily, they’re at least a year or two away from even having to consider that.
I’m limiting this exclusively to active players so I don’t have to pretend that I’ve grinded tons of Bob Cousy tape from back in the day.
Skill
The dribbling of: Kyrie Irving
The dunking of: Anthony Edwards
The 3-point shooting of: Stephen Curry
The layup ability of: Ja Morant
The stealing ability of: Dyson Daniels
The blocking ability of: Victor Wembanyama
The assist/point guard ability of: Tyrese Haliburton
Body Part
The hands of: Kawhi Leonard
The legs of: Giannis Antetokounmpo
The torso/middle-area of: Giannis Antetokounmpo
The head of (for marketability): Kelly Oubre Jr.
The ding-dong of: Nick Foles (obviously)
/Bill Simmons voice
These are my readers!
We’ll wrap it up here. Thank you to everyone who submitted questions this week! I do have a few articles in the pipeline already, but if there are any deeper dives you’d like to see ahead of the draft or free agency, please let me know down below and I’ll do what I can.
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.
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