NBA Free Agency: Furkan Korkmaz re-signs with Sixers on three-year, $15 million deal

Within the first few minutes of 2021 NBA free agency, a flurry of deals were confirmed. And after a little over an hour, we had confirmation of the Philadelphia 76ers’ first move.

ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski has reported that the Sixers are re-signing Furkan Korkmaz on a three-year, $15 million contract.

Korkmaz obviously has his limitations, from his lateral quickness on defense and his ability to attack off the dribble on offense, but he’s made improvements through his career and has proven the value he has as a shooter. After a slow start to last season, Korkmaz finished the year shooting 37.5 percent from three on 4.9 attempts per game and 9.1 per 36 minutes (he’s shot 39 percent over the last two seasons).

He offers some shooting off movement and is happy firing at high volume, which is something the Sixers could always use — he tied for 2nd on the team in three-point attempts per game with Seth Curry at 4.9, despite ranking only 8th in minutes per game. Korkmaz has also worked to develop his defense through his career, and took a real step forward in 2020-21 by honing his positioning, activity in passing lanes (he averaged a career-high 0.9 steals in 19.3 minutes per game), and mobility somewhat, too.

Given how valuable quality shooting is in the NBA, it wouldn’t have been surprising whatsoever for Korkmaz to pick up $2-3 million more per year elsewhere. Another benefit of this deal for the Sixers is that they had Korkmaz’s full Bird rights, meaning this signing doesn’t hurt the Sixers’ flexibility around the salary cap or force them to use any of their taxpayer midlevel exception.

Korkmaz gets a new deal, and the Sixers retain some quick-trigger shooting with a useful role player for a fair price. Not a bad start to free agency for Philly.

Pop the Kork.