30 teams in 30 days: Philadelphia 76ers offseason preview

Philadelphia paid a high price, but they got their man by trading up from the third pick to first to grab point guard Markelle Fultz in last week’s draft. They now have the future solidified at point guard, power forward, and center with Fultz, Ben Simmons, and Joel Embiid, and filling in the rest of the roster around those guys is priority number one for the 76ers.

In terms of filling out a roster, the Sixers are have plenty of opportunities. They’ll likely have almost $40 million in space before deciding on the contracts for Gerald Henderson and Shawn Long:

Henderson is owed $9 million for next season but is only guaranteed $1 million through June 30. Waiving or stretching that $1 million could open up as much as $8.7 million more for the 76ers to use this summer, but Henderson is a quality veteran and it might be worth it to keep him on the team to mentor the younger players. Long is a minimum guy and can be cut anytime before 9/26 with no penalty to the 76ers’ books. He’s likely to get the axe if they need the roster spot but can wait until the conclusion of their free agency business before making that decision. Other non-guaranteed contracts include Richaun Holmes and T.J. McConnell, but bringing both of those guys back is a no-brainer decision. Robert Covington’s team option for 2017-18 has also been picked up in another no-brainer.

That leaves $39.7 million for the 76ers to spend in free agency. Potential big-name targets would likely come on the wing to complement their young core; links have already been established between Philadelphia and both Andre Iguodala and J.J. Redick, two veterans who would bring a lot of professionalism to a young locker room. Short deals with a high annual value makes sense for Philadelphia for both guys, though it’s unclear how willing Iguodala would be to come back to Philadelphia or if he’s using several other teams to negotiate more money out of the Warriors. Redick, on the other hand, looks to be all but out of Los Angeles and will command a salary starting around $20 million, which would still leave them with a ton of money to go after other targets, though at that point their biggest concern would be fitting everybody onto the 15-man roster.

Dumping Henderson and Long would open up two spots and give them about another $10 million in space, enough to max out two restricted free agents. As it happens, two max-level free agents would fit the 76ers extremely well — Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Otto Porter have both reached the end of their rookie contracts and would slide right into the wing positions for Philadelphia. Both are still young enough to grow with the 76ers’ core and bringing them in would probably push them into a playoff position next season. Of course, both Detroit and Washington have match rights on Caldwell-Pope and Porter, respectively, so it’s unlikely Philadelphia can sign both players, but either one would be a fantastic get. There’s another downside risk of putting all their eggs in the restricted free agency basket — while their cap space is tied up for two days with Caldwell-Pope and Porter, their other targets may come off the market and Detroit and Washington can still match, leaving Philadelphia with nothing.

Furkan Korkmaz, a first-round pick in the 2016 draft, plays into Philadelphia’s offseason plans as well. Since he’s coming over after fewer than three years overseas, he’ll still be tied to the NBA’s rookie scale. Signing Korkmaz wouldn’t have a major impact on their cap space, but he would take up another roster spot. It’s extremely unlikely that Korkmaz would come over on a two-way contract; he’d be better off staying in Europe, both financially and for his own professional development.

Looking further down the calendar, extension talks loom with Embiid. An extension for Embiid could prove incredibly fruitful for the 76ers. He was a monster in 31 games last season and is the face of the franchise already, but there are real injury concerns and Philadelphia can use them as leverage to negotiate Embiid down from a max extension. If he’s unwilling to budge, then they’ll let him hit restricted free agency next summer and match any max offer he receives at that time. If he has another injury-riddled season, they might be able to bring him back for less.

Next: 30 teams in 30 days: Phoenix Suns offseason preview

With somewhere between $40 million and $50 million in space, the 76ers have everything in place to go after some big free agents in their final summer to spend before things start to get expensive with Embiid’s second contract. Large offers for Redick and Iguodala or offer sheets for Caldwell-Pope and Porter would be a prudent use of their space, as would a host of smaller offer sheets for guys like Tony Snell and Jonathon Simmons to make their incumbent teams sweat. If they strike out across the board, they’ll still have the space to take on other teams’ bad money in exchange for future assets or young players on good contracts. They have their future stars and a cheap but effective set of bench role players; Phase I of The Process is complete, now it’s time for the 76ers to open their checkbook and fill in the remaining holes in the starting lineup and set about Phase II: Winning Time.