Ben Simmons is the fulcrum for the 76ers offseason

3. What do the 76ers do in free agency?

Free agency content won’t get the most attention in Philly, but it will be crucial to their success on the court. They won’t be signing Mike Conley or DeMar DeRozan, but if they push the right buttons, they could be a juggernaut next year.

Since the Sixers are so far over the cap, their only tools in free agency will be the mid-level exception (MLE), bi-annual exception (BAE) and sign-and-trades. But before even considering those moves, they have to deal with their own free agents: Danny Green, Furkan Korkmaz and Dwight Howard.

Green was a very clean fit with this group last year. He knew exactly where to be in the flow of the offense, and for the most part, defended his assignments well. He’s the definition of “plug-and-play,” as he made sense in just about every lineup he was a part of. He should be a priority to re-sign if the price is right.

The Sixers have Green’s early bird rights, meaning they can offer him up to 175 percent of his previous salary. That figure comes out to $26.9 million, and no team is giving him anything close to that, so the Sixers can retain him if they choose to.

Like the rest of the bench, Korkmaz had a bit of an up-and-down season. When the all-bench unit lacked offensive spark, Korkmaz was asked to be a secondary creator at times, which dampened his impact considerably. Next to other high-usage guys his strengths are amplified, and he can focus on being a catch-and-shoot guy and a slasher.

How much is that guy worth to the Sixers? Probably not a lot. His offensive role should be no more than a fourth option, and his defense leaves a lot to be desired. There’s enough juice there to make you think he has untapped potential in a bigger role, but when he gets that spotlight, the warts are easier to see.

The Sixers can outbid the entire league for Korkmaz, but their price point won’t be high. Unless a team swoops in and steals Green for more than what Morey thinks he’s worth, his cutoff for Korkmaz will probably be no more than $5 million per year.

That brings us to Howard, who was valuable in a specific role that got overplayed when it mattered most. It’s not Howard’s fault that he got exposed in the playoffs — Doc Rivers should’ve stopped using him after round one — but it speaks to the mortality of backup centers in today’s NBA. Howard was very helpful for navigating the Sixers’ bench through the regular season, but there is clearly a ceiling on players like him.

A team led by Embiid does need its backups to step up often, which Howard did when the matchup allowed for it, but there are better options out there. If he buys into a reduced role at the veteran’s minimum, then the Sixers will be happy to have him. But his skill set is easily replaceable if a team wants to offer him any more than that.

Even with a tint of rose in your glasses, that money starts to add up real quick. Assuming that the Sixers fully guarantee Hill’s $10 million, they’d have around $12 million left to play with before the $143 million luxury tax apron. If they go over that figure, they can only use the taxpayer’s MLE (which was only $5.7 million last year compared to the full MLE of $9.3 million), and cannot acquire players via sign-and-trade.

If they want to use the full MLE, they essentially have to decide between Hill and Green. If they want to execute a sign-and-trade, they basically have to choose between re-signing Green or using the full MLE. If they want to run it back with Green, Hill, Korkmaz and Howard, they’ll have $5.7 million and a few minimum slots to use.

Financial flexibility is not in the building right now. But luckily, creativity is.

4. What will the 76ers do about Joel Embiid’s next contract?

If you think this team is tough to build around, it’s about to get a lot harder. Because Embiid made an All-NBA team twice in the last three seasons, he can negotiate a “designated player extension” or “supermax” as soon as this summer.

There’s almost no question the Sixers will put an offer on Embiid’s desk this summer, and it’ll probably come with a blank check too. He’s the lifeline of the team, an MVP candidate when healthy, and already one of the best players in franchise history. The performance-based bonuses of his last contract don’t need to be in this one (because he’s already that good), and the injury protections are only useful if the team were to waive him at any point during the contract (which there’s a very low chance of).

The only holdup would come from Embiid’s end. Without getting too technical, Embiid can essentially make the supermax a year longer by waiting to negotiate until next summer — as long as he makes an All-NBA team in 2021-22. There’s a risk to doing that, especially for someone like Embiid, who is a lock to miss 20 percent of the regular season, but the potential reward is an extra year of supermax money — roughly $55 million more in his pocket.

Embiid could also hold off to see how committed the front office is to him. His feelings on Simmons after Game 7 were loud and clear, and it’s obvious that the two probably can’t win a title together in Philadelphia. When Morey was hired last offseason, he made moves that favored Embiid. Now it’s time for him to go all-in for his franchise player.