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Free Agency: The Darkest Timeline

Free agency hinges on whether or not Butler leaves. This is going to cover the "darkest" timeline, aka the one where Butler decides to not come back. Under this scenario, we will easily fall under the cap and therefore the bird rights to all of our non-max free agents are almost irrelevant. I will assume that we will automatically renounce them as soon as Butler departs. I assume we are also in a no trade draft situation, you can see my draft post here: https://www.libertyballers.com/2019/5/14/18277858/sixers-off-season-plan-with-draft-focus (therefore we cut Jonathan Simmons). The 3 second rounders at 33,34,41 rookies will be signed on 4 year deals, and therefore cut into our cap a bit.

These leaves us with what I'd consider two major options.

Option 1. Re-sign Tobias Harris and fill out the roster with younger well-fitting role players.

We will have approximately $35 million in cap room with Tobias' cap hold after renouncing the rest of our free agents. I'd spend it on the following:

Max or near max Tobias Harris for 5 years

$15 million on Marcus Morris (with an agreement to bring in Markieff on the minimum)

$10 million on Jeremy Lamb

$10 million on Patrick Beverly

$5 million Room Exception on Nerlens Noel

Veteran Minimum to Jeremy Lin

The number of years on the deals could vary depending on the market, but I'd imagine the exact deals would be as follows with explanations for why:

Max or near max Tobias Harris for 5 years

Tobias is too good of a player in terms of fit and talent to just let walk, and he's young. We have the upper hand on other teams to be able to offer the 5th year, and I expect we will do so. His cap hold is lower than his new salary so that also provides some ability to fill out the roster.

$15 million on Marcus Morris (with an agreement to bring in Markieff on the minimum)

The minimum is for a maximum of 2 of years so I'd make both of these deal 1+1 player option. That gives Marcus and Markieff the opportunity to decide their own fate together. Collectively they will be making ~$17 million a year which seems very fair in terms of what the market will be like for both players.

Similarly to Tobias, I think their athleticism, size and all-around basketball games will fit very well with what we have here.

$10 million on Jeremy Lamb

$10 million is the initial salary, but we could make it up to 4 years with subsequent raises. Something like a 4 year / $42 million deal that no other team would be able to get close to.

Again, similarly to Tobias and the Morris twins, Lamb is an athletic, larger guard with an all-around game. He should fit very well.

$10 million on Patrick Beverly

Again, $10 million is the initial salary, but we could make it up to 4 years with subsequent raises. So again, something like a 4 year / $42 million deal that no other team would be able to get close to.

Beverly is a little more of a specialist in terms of 3&D, but he's so great at them that he just slots in perfectly next to Ben Simmons as a guard duo.

$5 million Room Exception on Nerlens Noel

This can be any other backup Center that can shoot and/or defend at a high level. I like Nerlens because he's played in our system before and has seemed to finally accept his role while playing for OKC. I think this is more money and opportunity for playing time than any other team will offer.

Veteran Minimum to Jeremy Lin

I like Lin on the veteran's minimum if he will take it because he can shoot, pass, and dribble. I also don't think he minds sitting on the bench, out of the rotation, if that happens to be the case. He should sign here if we have playing time for him.

Along with my draft this leaves the rotation as follows:

PG: Tobias Harris (36 Minutes) / Jeremy Lin (12 minutes)

Wing: Ben Simmons (36 Minutes) / Marcus Morris (30 minutes) / Markieff Morris (18 minutes) / Jeremy Lamb (24 minutes) / Patrick Beverly (24 minutes) / Zhaire Smith (12 minutes)

C: Joel Embiid (36 Minutes) / Nerlens Noel (12 minutes)

That's a 10 man rotation that could be tightened even more come difficult stretches of the season. This leaves Jonah Bolden, and the 4 rookies plenty of time to grow on the bench.

Option 2. Let Tobias walk too, signing 1 year deals and taking on bad contracts for picks.

We can have $59 million in cap space this offseason, after signing our rookies, after signing all our 2nd rounders, and Pasecniks still $53 million let. That is a ton of space. We could take on draft picks from teams that are looking to dump contracts to go after Tobias, Butler, Durant, ect. Its hard to really mock this all out because of the unpredictability of what this will look like, but I imagine the team we will field will most be our rookies, Embiid, and Simmons and maybe some vets looking to cash in (like JJ, Scott, Ennis).

The reason to take this path is mostly in the future, we will still be left with a maximum contract slot in the summer of 2020, 2021, and onwards since Embiid/Simmons contracts will likely be the only large ones on the books. This puts us in play for top free agents in those classes.

Not a real option. Tagging RFAs.

Teams always match good RFAs. This is not a real option. Malcolm Brogdon and D'Angelo Russell may seem tempting, but their teams will just match any offer and we will be left with a ton of cap space and nothing to do with it.

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