Quote (MildSambal @ Feb 21 2024 04:47pm)
Morey is a big believer in NBA drama. He thinks that if there isn't a move to be made now, that's fine, just wait a month or two. He'll probably try to sabotage the Pacers and Knicks from resigning OG and Spicy for bargain contracts.
What else is this cap space going to do? Lately the NBA landscape has seen most of its stars simply resign with whatever team they were already with.
I could see Philly being a team that is willing to spend a 1st to draft Bronny just to have a couple LeBron seasons
Daryl Morey has been telegraphing his long-term strategy since last July.
Pretty straight forward approach:
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“What we’re attempting to do is have the best team possible this year, but also have the ability that, if we get into a next-season situation, to be a very unique team with the most cap room of a team that’s as good as us,” Sixers president Daryl Morey told Anthony Gargano of 97.5 The Fanatic back then. “That’s a very unique situation to have.”
The Sixers did nothing to compromise that approach at the Feb. 8 NBA trade deadline. If anything, they only gave themselves more flexibility in that regard.
The Sixers shipped out Marcus Morris, Furkan Korkmaz, Danuel House Jr., Patrick Beverley, Jaden Springer and four second-round picks and received Buddy Hield, Cameron Payne and two second-round picks along with a distant top-55 (aka fake) second-rounder from Detroit in return. In addition, they dipped below the luxury tax for the second straight season, which reset the clock on the repeater tax for them through at least the 2026-27 season.
Depending on how the playoffs unfold, the Sixers now have the ability to create up to nearly $65 million in cap space this summer if so desired. It might be more realistic to project them in the $40-45 million range—they don’t have to renounce all of their free agents to create cap space, after all—but they’re poised to have far more flexibility than any other contender this offseason.
As far as what they would do with all of that cap space:
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“A lot of our moves are for planning the new CBA environment, which I think is very impactful, and setting ourselves up for those big moves in the future,” Morey said.
The new CBA was seemingly designed in part to break up expensive superteams. It introduced a new second apron, currently set at $17.5 million above the luxury-tax line, which put severe roster-building restrictions on teams that go above that threshold. Starting this offseason, teams above the second apron won’t be allowed to aggregate contracts in trades, trade a first-round pick seven years in the future or give out anything aside from minimum contracts to external free agents, among other things.
As a result of these new rules, one Eastern Conference executive told Howard Beck of The Ringer that he expects a lot of player movement this offseason.
“There’s going to be some options, some high-level guys that ask to get moved,” the executive said.