For now, Quentin Grimes remains a restricted free agent. The Sixers’ most important piece of business in this summer’s free agency period will also be the one it takes the longest to resolve, with nothing else coming close. The team opted not to retain Guerschon Yabusele, and Grimes’ looming contract is part of the reason why Yabusele is now on the New York Knicks.
That is how critical it is for the team to not just come to terms on a long-term agreement with the 25-year-old guard — whose two-month stint with the team turned into a massive scoring explosion — but to ink Grimes to a team-friendly contract that enables productive team-building in the years ahead.
Barring a trade, the Sixers’ roster will be locked in at 15 standard contracts and three two-way players once Grimes re-signs. The makeup of their team is not going to be all that dissimilar from last year’s disappointing 24-58 squad, but the Sixers are hoping the results will be much different.
As the Sixers continue to wait for any movement on the Grimes front, now is a good time to examine the remainder of the team. So, here is one thought on each player currently set to be with the Sixers when the 2025-26 season begins:
Joel Embiid
Understandably, there is already widespread anticipation about Embiid’s availability for training camp and the preseason. He might not play in the preseason regardless of his health, especially because the Sixers should have a shorter slate of games because of their trip to Abu Dhabi. President of Basketball Operations Daryl Morey said last month that the team expects Embiid to be available right around training camp after undergoing arthroscopic surgery on his left knee in April. The comment was delivered as good news, but Embiid’s surgery came with a six-week reevaluation period and training camp will start nearly six months after the scope took place.
The bigger question than when Embiid will be available is whether or not his knee will be able to withstand the rigors of an NBA schedule. Embiid not making his season debut until the middle of November last season would not have mattered a ton if he stayed healthy beyond that point, but every time things seemed to be trending in the right direction, Embiid’s knee would flare up with swelling or soreness. The ultimate question: can the Sixers’ medical staff find a way to enable Embiid to play consistently — at any level of performance — without going on the shelf?
Paul George
Much has been made of the Sixers’ lack of power forward options, particularly in light of Yabusele’s departure. But what if the plan is for George to slide up to the four on a regular basis? He played there quite a bit in his first year with the Sixers, sometimes out of necessity. He certainly has the size to handle his business at that spot if the Sixers are not facing the rare double-big lineup. Given the makeup of this roster, where so much of the talent is concentrated in the shooting guard and small forward positions, it stands to reason that George should move up to the four as much as possible to ensure the best players on the team get the most minutes.
Does that extend to the starting lineup? It is certainly possible. Rather than trying to get away with starting a player not deserving of that sort of role, the Sixers can go slightly smaller with George at power forward, opening up a perimeter spot. Tyrese Maxey will be this team’s point guard; when Grimes returns, he will be the clear favorite to start at shooting guard. George playing the four could enable Kelly Oubre Jr. to remain in the starting five as a small forward. If Grimes proves capable of guarding up at the three, the Sixers could go even smaller in the frontcourt but open up a spot for Jared McCain or VJ Edgecombe in the starting five.
Tyrese Maxey
Maxey’s fifth NBA season was the most disappointing of his career, as he never quite recovered from a nightmarish start in which he shot poorly and then got injured while trying to handle an absurdly large role with Embiid and George out. The Sixers hope a better supporting cast and better health will help Maxey regain his typically excellent shooting marks, and if that happens, they will have a whole lot more team success on the offensive end of the floor.
But Maxey actually made a substantial defensive leap last season. He was never a cone on defense, but generally among the Sixers’ weaker links. He did not transform into an on-ball stopper, but added bulk helped him stand his ground more effectively when forced to guard on an island. More importantly, Maxey transformed from not much of a defensive playmaker on the perimeter to one of the better steal and deflection guards in the NBA. It never quite made sense how little of an impact he made in that department previously; Maxey has excellent speed and long arms. If the Sixers can consistently put out players who are skilled in defending at the point of attack, Maxey can be his best self on defense. Grimes will help in that department, and so will another player…
VJ Edgecombe
Edgecombe raved about Maxey soon after being drafted by the Sixers. He flashed a wide smile and excitedly said, “That’s going to be my backcourt mate, man.” Edgecombe being a regular starter over Grimes and McCain seems unlikely, but crazier things have happened, in part because Edgecombe is such a good fit with Maxey. He can handle the primary defensive assignment at either guard position and allow Maxey to roam off the ball, and the more ball-handlers Edgecombe plays with early on the better. He can spot up from beyond the arc and do damage as a transition scorer while really honing in on his defense.
Edgecombe has work to do on his own on-ball offense; he can do that behind the scenes and have his ball-handling duties slowly expand as he improves. While he should be a critical component of the Sixers’ bench rotation — and the Sixers would be better off giving him too much playing as opposed to not enough — it will greatly improve his chances of being a true positive contributor as a rookie the more limited his role is. That is a tremendously difficult threshold to clear, but if Edgecombe has a role catered to his strengths, he can pull it off.
MORE: Watch Edgecombe's best highlights
Kelly Oubre Jr.
Generally speaking, when someone picks up a player option, they are inherently on a contract that is not conducive to ideal roster-building. But that is not exactly the case here, as Oubre picked up an $8.3 million option for next season to avoid entering a barren market. Oubre is not without flaws, but at that price on an expiring contract, every team would take a player of his caliber capable of providing strong defense across all three perimeter positions, rim pressure and high-volume three-point shooting.
But Oubre does have warts in his game that are going to limit his effectiveness if he is given full exposure. He made some significant alterations to his approach on the fly last season and experienced encouraging results, but he is still a questionable decision-maker prone to turnovers and inefficient looks. He rarely creates shots for others and his rim pressure sometimes leads to reckless attempts at the rim that do not yield positive results. But if the Sixers can find an ideally-sized role for Oubre where his strengths are accentuated and his weaknesses are mollified, they will have a cost-effective rotation wing. If he struggles, Oubre has the team’s most trade-friendly contract.
Andre Drummond
It is hard to overstate how much Drummond struggled in his first full season with the Sixers. He was largely a non-factor as a scorer. A brief and fruitless fascination with three-point shooting made him worse than that at times. He looked slower than ever and was constantly exploited when forced to defend in space. He failed to protect the rim. Even Drummond’s rebounding — typically historically great on a yearly basis — dropped off a bit. Perhaps some of his struggles stemmed from a toe injury that he suffered on Dec. 23 and had lingering for the remainder of the season, but his struggles predated that injury.
Forget being an elite backup center, the Sixers now have to hold out hope that Drummond will be a viable backup center for them after picking up his $5 million player option. He will probably be third on the depth chart, as Adem Bona did more than enough to surpass him last year. But a third-string center on the Sixers is far more important than one on just about any other NBA team given Embiid’s constant injuries. The Sixers are going to have to get decent minutes out of Drummond, which they could not do last year.
Jared McCain
While Grimes is definitely the favorite to start alongside Maxey in the backcourt, McCain working his way into that unit should not be ruled out entirely. A lot of time has passed, and the sample was cut short at 23 games, but what McCain did as a 20-year-old early on in his rookie season was almost unbelievable. His shooting was elite as advertised, and his on-ball scoring turned out to be leaps and bounds ahead of expectations. McCain had an eight-game stretch in November, beginning with the eighth game of his NBA career, in which he averaged 25.1 points per game, shot 49.0 percent from the field on 17.9 shot attempts per game and 45.5 percent from three-point range on 9.6 attempts per game, good for an astounding 64.9 true shooting percentage despite a massive 27.5 usage rate.
In short: nothing should be ruled out for a player capable of producing at that sort of level so early in their career. Maxey and McCain are both smaller guards, and while Grimes and Edgecombe are each equipped to help Maxey optimize his defensive chops, McCain is not. However, McCain’s offensive ceiling could be so significant — not just in 2025-26, but much deeper into the future — that it is worth collecting as much information as possible on how the pairing looks and whether or not McCain and Maxey can coexist. If the Sixers want to maximize their chances of winning games this season, Grimes will start next to Maxey. But if they want to operate with a longer view, perhaps McCain has a case, too.
Trendon Watford
Extensive studying of Watford’s film with the Brooklyn Nets leads to the conclusion that he has a striking amount of versatility as a passer. He is not an elite ball-handler or playmaker, but his skills in those departments are very strong for a 6-foot-9 forward. The Sixers have taken a recent interest in bigs with passing chops; Watford is just as much point forward as he is big man. However, Watford did not get to operate as a short-roll passer very often in Brooklyn because he did not play with many players capable of commanding singular attention from an opposing defense.
Watford’s passing skill has presented itself in so many ways — like transition initiation, pick-and-roll playmaking and entry passing — that it seems reasonable to assume they will translate to the many 4-on-3 and 3-on-2 situations he inherits playing with his close friend Maxey, and even McCain and Grimes, both capable of forcing defenses to blitz by getting hot from the perimeter. Plus, Watford signed a two-year veteran’s minimum contract with a team option in the second season. So, if he has an emergence anything Yabusele before him, the Sixers will be better situated to keep him around than they were with his predecessor.
MORE: Trendon Watford film study
Kyle Lowry
Lowry is back to play his 20th and final NBA season, and he will do it for his hometown team. Lowry probably knows directly impacting winning on the court will be an immense challenge for him next year; the Sixers certainly understand that after the troubles he has last season. But the respect Lowry commands in the locker room — and the admiration he has drawn from Maxey, McCain and other young players, not to mention head coach Nick Nurse — is real. Even if Lowry does not suit up for one second of action, he will be a valuable part of the Sixers next season.
The question is not if Lowry’s leadership matters. (It does.) The question is also not why the Sixers did not hire him as an assistant coach. (Lowry still wants to be a player.) The question is this: on a team with multiple aging veterans and injury-prone stars — right after a season in which the team’s depth was tested by injuries and it failed the test miserably — is a locker room leader without much basketball-centric utility worth a roster spot? If the Sixers had stronger depth, it would be silly to worry too much about this. But there are enough question marks on this roster to question whether or not the Sixers can afford to carry Lowry on the roster.
Eric Gordon
Gordon does not project to be a significant piece for the Sixers next season. He will be their fifth guard once Grimes is back in the fold, and that does not include Oubre, who can very easily slide down to a backcourt spot. But, as frustrating as Gordon’s first season in Philadelphia was for him, he did have one month where it all came together. Gordon made more than 50 percent of his three-point attempts in January on significant volume, working his way from the outskirts of the rotation back into Nurse’s starting lineup.
What was more interesting than his red-hot shooting — Gordon is one of the most accomplished three-point shooters of his time, a stretch of that sort felt inevitable — was Gordon’s defense. His athletic deficiencies as a guard are abundantly clear, but Gordon is incredibly strong and knows how to utilize it against wings. So, Nurse started putting Gordon on players with massive size advantages over him. Gordon was even the primary defender against LeBron James in a game, and it did not go poorly. If Gordon does find his way into the rotation at some point next season, how Nurse uses him defensively will be a subplot worth monitoring.
Ricky Council IV
Council’s salary for the two remaining seasons covered in his contract will not become guaranteed until Jan. 10 of each campaign. So, as things stand now, that is the date to watch for the incoming third-year wing whose sophomore NBA campaign was about as disappointing as possible. A slew of injuries enabled Council to play a lot — he led the Sixers in games played — but he only seemed to struggle more, failing to ever gain the trust of his coaching staff because of continued poor decision-making. There is unquestionably an NBA player somewhere in there — Council has a great blend of size and athleticism and a real knack for getting downhill — but if he does not turn things around quickly, his Sixers tenure could be on its last legs.
Whether or not Council makes it beyond that Jan. 10 date on the roster could hinge on the team’s other options to fill that roster spot. A trade could happen by then which changes the calculus, and if the Sixers are having a strong season they could be vying for buyout players a few weeks later when the trade deadline passes. The Sixers also have an extremely intriguing group of two-way players — Jabari Walker, Hunter Sallis and Dominick Barlow — that could factor into this equation. Walker has three years and 166 games of NBA experience under his belt and much of the NBA community was stunned to see him sign a two-way deal; he is the prime candidate of the group to earn a spot on the Sixers’ standard roster. But Barlow is a fringe NBA player, too, and Sallis was the Sixers’ highest-priority undrafted free agent signing. Any of those players making a push is easily conceivable, and if the Sixers have 14 guaranteed contracts and Council’s non-guaranteed deal on their books, Council would be the likely casualty.
Justin Edwards
Council’s consistently questionable decision-making has probably done a lot of good for the stock of Edwards, who is an inferior athlete (though not a bad one) but was immediately a far more impactful player because of his excellent feel. While Council is still trying to gain genuine trust that he can execute gameplans and avoid damaging mistakes, Edwards did just that within a few weeks of getting his first rotation minutes. Now, Edwards is under contract for the next three years, with two guaranteed seasons preceding a team option. It is a significant milestone for Edwards, a five-star recruit-turned-undrafted two-way signing last summer, and yet if he plays anything like he did as a rookie moving forward, his deal — worth about $7 million in all — will be a tremendous bargain for the Sixers.
Edwards’ versatility as a defender and ability to play at either forward position makes him the sort of player Nurse can slot into almost any lineup. That is the sort of thing a coach absolutely loves. Edwards starting games alongside George as the team’s two forwards next year is far from out of the question, particularly if Edwards continues to improve his three-point efficiency.
Adem Bona
If this is indeed the final draft of the Sixers’ opening night roster, there is a lot of responsibility coming for Bona. He was far and away a better option than Drummond by the time his rookie season concluded, but last year’s No. 41 overall pick still has significant progress to make. And yet, no players have more to gain from Yabusele’s departure than Bona and Drummond. Not only will one of them need to be a productive backup behind Embiid, but the Sixers are going to play plenty of games without Embiid, even if by design. There is a potentially massive number of minutes at the five that need to be absorbed, and Yabusele would have commanded a lot of those had he returned. Now, there is additional pressure on Bona to continue taking steps forward.
There was a lot to like from Bona as a rookie: his motor never stops, his length and athleticism really pop, he blocked shots at a stellar rate, he made strides as a rim protector and grew comfortable making short-roll passing reads. But even after making progress, he has to continue cutting down on his fouls by becoming more disciplined. Developing a semblance of a jumper would help him inch closer to having utility beyond screening and rolling on the offensive end. But if one of Bona or Drummond is going to look like a quality backup center in the season ahead, Bona should be the clear favorite.
MORE:Quentin Grimes free agency deep dive
Johni Broome
No rookie second-round pick should face intense scrutiny, even on teams aiming to be competitive. But Broome is about to turn 23 years old, so the unfortunate truth is that he has to produce a lot sooner than younger players to pay off the Sixers’ investment of the No. 35 overall pick and a contract with two fully guaranteed years. Broome’s chances of helping the Sixers down the road will not vanish if he does not produce as a rookie, but the clock will be ticking a lot faster on him than it was when Bona began his NBA career.
Under Morey, the Sixers have coveted young prospects with outlier athletic testing results with later picks. Broome is set to be one of the oldest rookies in the NBA, and his athletic resting results were outliers… but in the wrong direction. That the Sixers still chose Broome reflects a significant level of belief in his skill and mental makeup, and he should be given every chance to make an impact. But prospects his age have a tighter window to become NBA rotation players.
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