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6 Remaining NBA Free Agents Who Would Make Sense For The … – Forbes
SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH – DECEMBER 03: Justise Winslow #26 of the Portland Trail Blazers in action … [+]
The Sixers are still awaiting clarity about James Harden’s long-term status. He “wants to leave Philadelphia” and get traded to the Los Angeles Clippers, according to Sam Amick of The Athletic, but the Sixers are at least posturing as though they’d happily welcome him back next season.
That’s affecting what else they can do this offseason.
“Everything has been in a bit of a holding pattern because of (James Harden’s) trade request,” a team source told Spotrac’s Keith Smith. “We can’t sign a bunch of guys, then do a 3-for-1 trade and not have the roster spots.”
After signing 2022 second-round pick Filip Petrusev to a two-year, partially guaranteed contract, the Sixers have 14 players under contract and sit nearly $7.4 million above the $165 million luxury-tax line. They’re roughly $300,000 above the $172.3 million first apron and only $10.15 million below the $182.8 million second apron, each of which bring with them a host of additional trade and free-agency restrictions.
The Sixers have yet to dip into their $5 million taxpayer mid-level exception, but they seem unlikely to do so until they resolve Harden’s future one way or another. Spending the taxpayer MLE would hard-cap them at the second apron, which might restrict how much salary they could take back in a Harden trade.
While the free-agent market has largely been picked over by this point, a handful of available players would be worthy investments if the Sixers do eventually decide to fill their lone remaining open roster spot.
If the Sixers trade Harden and don’t receive a guard in return, De’Anthony Melton figures to join Tyrese Maxey as a backcourt starter. Patrick Beverley and Jaden Springer are the only two other guards whom the Sixers have under contract at the moment, which could make that an area of potential need as well.
Terence Davis played only 13.1 minutes per game for the upstart Sacramento Kings last season, but he averaged 6.7 points, 2.2 rebounds and 1.4 three-pointers while shooting 36.6 percent from deep. He averaged a career-high 10.4 points in only 17.9 minutes per game the season prior, although he played only 30 games that year because of a wrist injury that sidelined him from late January onward.
The Sixers haven’t had a microwave scorer off the bench since Alec Burks in 2019-20, or perhaps even Lou Williams’ heyday in the late 2000s. Davis has that type of scoring upside, as evidenced by the six-game stretch during the 2021-22 season in which he averaged 17.8 points on 51.9 percent shooting in only 23.6 minutes per game. He also had a 31-point outing in a blowout win over the Brooklyn Nets last November.
Davis is by no means a lockdown defender, but he can hold his own on that end of the court. He’s been above the 90th percentile in steal percentage among all wings since he arrived in Sacramento in late March 2021, and he’s been above the 80th percentile in defensive rebound percentage in each of the past two seasons. He has averaged 4.1 fouls per 36 minutes with the Kings, but that’s a minor concern given his limited number of minutes.
The Kings renounced their free-agent rights to Davis in early July, according to Keith Smith of Spotrac, which suggests that he’s unlikely to return to Sacramento. The Sixers could certainly do worse with their final roster spot than taking a flier on a 26-year-old with microwave-scorer potential off the bench.
After losing both Georges Niang and Jalen McDaniels in free agency, wing depth is the Sixers’ biggest need at the moment. If they don’t rectify that with a Harden trade, Hamidou Diallo could help bolster their rotation behind Tobias Harris and P.J. Tucker.
The 25-year-old ranked in the 99th percentile leaguewide in Dunks and Threes’ defensive estimated plus/minus last season, as he averaged 0.9 steals and 0.3 blocks in only 17.8 minutes per game. The Detroit Pistons also allowed 7.4 fewer points per 100 possessions with Diallo on the floor last season than they did with him on the bench, which was the best mark of any player on the team.
Diallo has averaged 10.6 points per game on 51.1 percent shooting over the past three years, but he’s done almost all of that damage inside the three-point arc. He’s a career 28.4 percent long-range shooter, and he attempted only 21 triples across 56 games last season. Matisse Thybulle, whom the Sixers moved at this past February’s trade deadline in part because of his own shooting limitations, is a career 33.4 percent three-point shooter.
Heading into last season, team president Daryl Morey made it clear that he was prioritizing two-way players who could carve out rotation roles in the playoffs. Diallo’s lack of a reliable three-point stroke might keep him on the fringes of the postseason rotation, but the Sixers could otherwise badly use another wing defender like him.
There’s no need to hypothesize how Danny Green might fit alongside Maxey, Joel Embiid and the rest of the Sixers. He spent the 2020-21 and 2021-22 campaigns in Philly, where he averaged 7.8 points, 3.2 rebounds and 2.1 three-pointers in only 25.1 minutes per game across 131 appearances (97 starts).
Green started all 69 of his regular-season games in 2020-21 before alternating between the bench and the starting lineup the following year. He’s a streaky three-point shooter who is no stranger to the occasional cold spell, but his career 40.0 percent mark makes him one of the better three-point specialists left on the free-agent market.
It’s fair to wonder how much else Green has to offer at this point in his career, as he played only 11 games last season after tearing his ACL and LCL during the 2022 NBA playoffs. After signing in mid-February with the Cleveland Cavaliers, who were desperate to find an answer at small forward all of last year, he played only 95 total minutes across eight regular-season games and 40 minutes in his four playoff appearances.
Green used to be one of the league’s premier three-and-D role players, as evidenced by the three championships he won with the San Antonio Spurs, Toronto Raptors and Los Angeles Lakers. If his knee injury robbed him of some agility and limited his defensive upside, though, it might be tough for him to carve out a consistent role in a playoff rotation.
At this point of his career, the 36-year-old Green isn’t likely to command more than a one-year, veteran-minimum contract wherever he signs. If the Sixers have confidence in his ability to bounce back from his knee injury, they might value his veteran presence and locker room leadership, particularly amidst the ongoing Harden trade saga.
(Update: Jones signed a one-year, fully guaranteed deal with the Dallas Mavericks on Wednesday evening, according to Shams Charania of The Athletic.)
Derrick Jones Jr. surprisingly opted to decline his $3.4 million player option with the Chicago Bulls for the 2023-24 season, presumably with the hopes of landing a bigger payday this offseason. But with money largely dried up after the first major wave of free agency, Jones remains on the open market.
The 26-year-old began his NBA career as a wing, but he slid up more to power forward over the past two seasons with the Bulls. The Sixers are relatively set at that position between Tobias Harris and P.J. Tucker, although Danuel House Jr. is their only other player who could realistically swing between either forward spot.
Across 64 appearances with the Bulls this past season, Jones averaged 5.0 points on 50.0 percent shooting, 2.4 rebounds, 0.6 blocks and 0.5 steals in only 14.0 minutes per game. The Bulls outscored opponents by 6.7 points per 100 possessions with him on the floor last year, and he had the second-highest net rating swing on the team, trailing only Alex Caruso.
Jones is a career 30.4 percent three-point shooter on low volume, although he did knock down a career-high 33.8 percent of his three-point attempts this past season. However, that was across only an 80-shot sample size, which isn’t large enough from which to draw meaningful conclusions. Teams will still gladly leave him open along the perimeter and dare him to beat them from deep.
Jones’ shooting limitations could cause the Sixers to shy away from signing him, but he’d provide a dose of youth and athleticism that they desperately need. He grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs as well, which might make him more amenable to signing with them even if he can’t get assurances about his projected role or playing time.
Justise Winslow was largely a role player for middling Miami Heat teams across his first three NBA seasons, but he broke out with 12.6 points, 5.4 rebounds, 4.3 assists and 1.5 three-pointers in only 29.7 minutes per game in 2018-19. However, injuries have caused his career to sputter ever since, as he’s played only 114 games over the past four seasons combined.
While Winslow never quite caught on during his brief stops with the Memphis Grizzlies and Los Angeles Clippers, he had a chance to resuscitate his career with the Portland Trail Blazers over the last year-and-a-half. He played only 40 games for Portland during that stretch, but he averaged 7.9 points, 5.4 rebounds and 3.3 assists in only 26.8 minutes per game.
Like Derrick Jones Jr., Winslow is not a credible three-point threat. After shooting 37.7 percent from deep across the 2017-18 and 2018-19 seasons, he’s knocked down only 23.4 percent of his three-point attempts over the past four years. His defensive versatility helps to make up for that to some extent, but he’d cramp floor spacing, particularly in playoff settings.
However, his playmaking helps separate him from some of the other remaining wing free-agent options. He was in the 95th percentile among all forwards this past season in assist-to-usage ratio, and his assist percentage has ranked in the 80th percentile or above in each of the past two seasons.
If the Sixers trade Harden and don’t receive a ball-handler in return, they might need to take a collective approach to filling their playmaking void. Winslow could be a particularly appealing free-agent target in that regard despite his iffy shooting.
From a pure talent perspective, Kelly Oubre Jr. is one of the best remaining options on the free-agent market. He scored a career-high 20.3 points per game on the Charlotte Hornets this past season, and he’s averaged at least 15 points per game in each of the past five years between Charlotte, Golden State, Phoenix and Washington.
There’s a reason why Oubre has been so nomadic in recent years, though. He’s the definition of a high-volume, low-efficiency scorer who doesn’t bring much else to the table.
Oubre has shot above 45 percent from the field only once across his eight NBA seasons, and the same goes for him shooting at least 35 percent from three-point range. Although he topped 20 points per game for the first time in his career last year, it took him 17.1 total shots and 7.1 three-point attempts per game to get there. He ranked in the 30th percentile among all wings in points per shot attempt.
Oubre did average a career-high 1.4 steals per game with Charlotte last season as well, and he was one of only five rotation players leaguewide who averaged no more than 1.5 turnovers per game despite boasting a usage rate above 25 percent. However, he was in the 6th percentile among all wings in assist percentage, and he has never been above the 15th percentile in assist-to-usage ratio in any season.
If the Sixers are hoping to add a wing scorer, Oubre is by far their best remaining option on the free-agent market. But if they’re looking for more of a three-and-D role player at that spot, they’d likely pass on Oubre in favor of perhaps a less heralded option.
Unless otherwise noted, all stats via NBA.com, PBPStats, Cleaning the Glass or Basketball Reference. All salary information via Spotrac or RealGM. All odds via FanDuel Sportsbook.
