July 29, 2025
Another week has gone by with no Quentin Grimes updates of remote substance.
Grimes, 25, remains a restricted free agent, and it very well might stay that way for a while. It is not that the Sixers do not want to keep him. In fact, it is the opposite: they want to keep Grimes, and do so on the most team-friendly contract possible. They appear ready to continue playing the waiting game.
The Sixers are now at 13 players before re-signing Grimes now that they have decided to waive Ricky Council IV, but the eventual makeup of the team's 2025-26 roster is pretty clear at this point -- assuming the Grimes situation is indeed resolved eventually.
The day is Tuesday, so the time has come to answer your latest Sixers questions in another mailbag:
From @sixersallie: What are some things you are looking forward to going into your next season as a Sixers beat writer?
This may be hard to believe, but there are too many things I am looking forward to for me to write them all out. I cannot imagine a single person enjoyed last season more than I did, because I really appreciated the challenge of finding interesting angles for stories during a season in which players were constantly injured or relative unknowns. With that being said, I would not mind a healthier mix of good and bad next year for the sake of the collective mood of my readership!
When Tyrese Maxey authored one of the greatest shot-making sequences in recent history to save the Sixers' season at Madison Square Garden in 2024, I remembered sitting in an arena with no fans watching him score 39 points as a rookie against the Denver Nuggets. Maxey was one of seven available players that night -- I still call that unit the "Seven Sixers" -- and went from the last piece of the rotation on a normal night to the focal point of an offense on this one. I thought about the second round of the playoffs that year, when he helped swing a road elimination game in the Sixers' favor to keep their hopes alive for one more contest.
Maxey was the first player whose rise from hopeful rookie to full-blown star I have been able to watch and cover up close. It is a fascinating process to watch unfold on a day-to-day basis. Even if none of them become an All-Star like Maxey, I am excited to continue monitoring the highs, lows and long-term growth of young players: not just Jared McCain and VJ Edgecombe -- each of whom has a real chance of becoming a star -- but also players like Justin Edwards and Adem Bona.
I could, in earnest, give you a list of at least 25 different and hyper-specific story ideas I have in my head right now that I am excited to write next season. But zooming out, continuing to monitor the development of a strong collection of young players is what I am most excited for once training camp opens up.
MORE: McCain and Edgecombe growing close: 'I'm excited to play with him'
From @MaxiMonster111: Who's your favorite realistic trade target for the Sixers + why?
I am not expecting the Sixers to make any trades this offseason, so I will answer this question with an eye toward the trade deadline in the first week of February. If the Sixers are not playing particularly well with any kind of reasonable hope that they can continue winning games, there is not a major trade to be made. The Joel Embiid and Paul George contracts are not movable until further notice. Dipping into the team's nucleus of young talent or collection of draft picks to make a short-term upgrade would be a fool's errand. They would largely be stuck unless someone covets a player like Kelly Oubre Jr. on a rental.
If the Sixers do win enough games from the outset next year -- and get lucky enough on the health front enough -- that they are genuine trade deadline buyers, there remains one name I keep coming back to: P.J. Washington of the Dallas Mavericks. Washington, soon-to-be 27, would not come at a cheap price.
But if the Sixers are back in a position where they can justify trading for short-term upgrades, Washington is the perfect fit in every sense.
First of all, Washington remains young enough that if the Sixers re-sign him and then their overall situation takes a turn for the worse, he will remain an enticing trade asset around the league. But on the basketball court, his defensive ability as a 6-foot-7, 230-pound power forward is exactly what this team lacks.
Washington's outlier abilities are also ones the Mavericks have in spades after drafting Cooper Flagg. Dallas clearly believes in loading up on interior defense -- have you heard that defense wins championships? -- but with Washington on a $14.1 million expiring contract, Daniel Gafford just extended, Dereck Lively II heading for a new deal this summer, Flagg on a $62.7 million rookie deal and Anthony Davis' max contract, there is only so much money a team can spend on its frontcourt -- and so many minutes available.
The Sixers' bidding at the top of the market for Washington feels unlikely, because their offers should all be tamed by the understanding that Embiid could land wrong at a moment's notice and shut down the team's chances of contending. But a starting five of Maxey, Grimes, George, Washington and Embiid -- with at least McCain and Edgecombe as key reserves -- is tantalizing. They would firmly be a luxury tax team in 2026-27, but it could give them their last, best chance at winning a championship in a barren Eastern Conference.
MORE: Thoughts on ESPN's Joel Embiid profile
From @mmmmbrownlee.bsky.social: There is currently a push in MLB to have a salary cap, something I’m against mainly because I feel the NBA salary cap (and how complicated it is) worsens following the sport. Do you think the NBA would be more or less enjoyable to follow (or, I guess, write about) with no salary cap?
If you have not heard, multiple reports on Monday emerged detailing a confrontation in the Phillies' clubhouse last week between Bryce Harper and Rob Manfred. Harper took issue with the commissioner dancing around the idea of wanting to implement a salary cap -- that is expected to be an issue at the core of a potential MLB lockout after the 2026 season. MLB and its owners clearly support a cap which limits spending on payroll; naturally the players are not too thrilled about the idea.
At least so far, it has seemed that MLB's eventual goal would be to have a hard salary cap like the NFL, where teams cannot exceed a certain number of dollars spent on players no matter what. That is different than the NBA's system. The NBA has a soft salary cap, which means there are ways to exceed the number. In fact, there are so many ways to exceed the salary cap in the NBA that 29 of the 30 teams in the league have already done it this summer.
The infamous cap spike of 2016 notwithstanding, the NBA's economic system has done a very good job of accomplishing its goals relating to competitive balance over the last several years. But over the last two years in particular, tracking what a team is and is not capable of doing has become tremendously difficult. The era of aprons and hard caps has complicated the trade machine and made the league's transaction windows infinitely more difficult to follow without a tremendously in-depth understanding of all of the rules.
So, earlier this month in Las Vegas, I posed a similar question to someone working in the league with a strong salary cap acumen.
Is every shred of competitive balance worth it if the rules required to strike it are causing a decline in interest when it comes to the trade deadline and free agency, pillars of two of the league's most significant news cycles? There is no question that competitive balance is the top priority, but should it be to such a degree that even more passionate NBA fans have trouble understanding what their favorite teams are allowed to do?
As I talked about it with this executive, I came away thinking that the issue is not impossible to solve. But the NBA has to make a concerted effort to promote understanding of these complex rules. That means creating easy-to-understand FAQs answering every possible query about the salary cap. It means having people media members can contact to ensure their information is accurate before publishing it.
Perhaps this is something already in the works or being discussed. But the league has the ability to make all of the complex rules of its new salary cap more digestible for the general public if they make it a point of emphasis. I think that is a better solution than abolishing the salary cap altogether.
MORE: Edgecombe says he has 'no fear at all.' He proved it with Summer Sixers
