Due to some big news involving a certain $211 million player that you might have heard about, this week's Sixers mailbag was delayed, but just for one day. Let's not wait any longer to get into your questions. Many folks wanted to ask follow-up questions about Quentin Grimes and his upcoming restricted free agency — no surprise in the wake of Grimes posting a 46-point masterpiece in Houston on Monday.
Some more thoughts on the decisions facing Grimes, the Sixers and another key team this summer, plus my take on how the NBA Draft order should be determined:
From @lukelesher.bsky.social: Do you think Nets loom as a significant threat to sign away Quentin Grimes? If the Nets were willing to offer Grimes $20 million per year, do you think that would that be a smart piece of business for them?
Luke here clearly read this story from last week about why the Brooklyn Nets loom as the only genuine threat to the price out the Sixers on Grimes this summer. For those of you who did not, here is a quick summary:
Because Grimes will be a restricted free agent, the Sixers can match any offer he theoretically signs with another team this summer. But the Nets currently project to be the only team with significant cap space this summer, meaning if the Nets do not make a run at Grimes, the Sixers will be in prime position to ink him to a team-friendly contract without much of a threatening market out there. Teams rarely sign restricted free agents to offer sheets without an understanding that there will be a genuine chance that the incumbent team could let the player go; teams are not going to waste their time signing Grimes to a contract that will be easy for the Sixers to match. At this juncture, the Nets are the only team with the financial capacity to sign Grimes to a deal that could make the Sixers seriously contemplate whether or not they have the bandwidth to match an offer sheet.
A $20 million annually is a nice ballpark from Luke, as it would put the Sixers on the borderline of surpassing the NBA's punitive second apron if they keep their first-round pick and do not trade any of Joel Embiid, Paul George and Tyrese Maxey. A four-year offer sheet worth upwards of $80 million might be what it takes for the Sixers to have any reaction other than matching the deal without a second thought.
So, would that be good business for Brooklyn? Of course, to some degree that depends on the free agent and trade markets. The same way the Nets have free reign in restricted free agency should they want to pry a young player away from another team, they are far and away equipped to take on bad money in trades better than any other team. If the Nets can add valuable draft capital by absorbing unwanted salaries, that is a viable path as well.
In a vacuum, if I was in charge of the Nets I would be willing to offer Grimes four years and $80 million. I would front-load the contract, and I would do that for two reasons: it would be more difficult for the Sixers to match such a deal because they have luxury tax bills and apron considerations to worry about, and because it makes the deal more valuable in future years for Brooklyn, whether they hold onto Grimes or eventually use him as a trade asset.
Because I think about these things in painful detail, I came up with the exact four-year deal I have in mind, which has the maximum annual decreases in salary of five percent each year:
| Season (Grimes age) | Salary |
| 2025-26 (25) | $21,621,622 |
| 2026-27 (26) | $20,540,541 |
| 2027-28 (27) | $19,459,460 |
| 2028-29 (28) | $18,378,379 |
| Total | $80,000,001 |
Given the NBA salary cap's continued to rise — which will only escalate in the next few years with a new, massive TV rights deal secured — a $20 million average annual value is not nearly as significant as it used to be, and the idea of a 28-year-old version of Grimes making $18.3 million actually sounds quite appealing. If I were Brooklyn, I would have a lot of interest in throwing offer sheets at Grimes and/or Memphis Grizzlies big Santi Aldama.
MORE: Diving into Grimes' significant growth as a scorer and ball-handler
From @lukelesher.bsky.social: How much of what we’re seeing from Grimes can be attributed to high usage right now due to injuries, versus what we can project forward if Sixers are able to retain him?
There is no question that Grimes has benefitted from incredible opportunity. His gargantuan scoring totals were not necessarily impossible to see coming, even if nobody expected them to be this significant. In nine games during the month of March, Grimes has scored 28.6 points per game while averaging 19.4 shot attempts. At first, the natural inclination is to focus on the tremendous number of chances he is receiving to score and the fact that the vast majority of his excellent scoring performances have come in losses.
But then you look at Grimes' efficiency — and take note of the supporting cast around him right now — and it becomes a bit bewildering to ponder how good he has been. For example, when Grimes scored 46 points against the Rockets on Monday, the Sixers had eight other players available. Every single one of those eight players has spent time in the G League this season; the only two who began this season on standard NBA contracts were Ricky Council IV and Jalen Hood-Schifino. Grimes is at the top of every scouting report in his first run as a go-to scorer, and does not have any teammates he can consistently rely on to help relieve him of his immense scoring workload.
The efficiency marks really are absurd — in this nine-game stretch since the beginning of March, Grimes is shooting 53.7 percent from the field and 41.3 percent from three-point range on 8.3 long-range attempts per game, landing on an astounding 64.7 true shooting percentage. These are genuinely elite numbers across the board, and it does not mean Grimes is an elite scorer at the NBA level now. But it is more than just someone needing to put up points on a losing team. There is something meaningful here.
MORE: Don't tell these Sixers the rest of the season is meaningless
From @common-nocturne.bsky.social: If you could change the way the current draft order is decided would you? And if so what would those changes be?
I am a major proponent of the lottery system, which I believe is a fun way to ensure some semblance of competitive balance while also introducing an element of randomness that prevents the draft order from being entirely manipulated through tanking efforts. My preferred method of choosing the draft order is what the NBA had until a handful of years ago.
At the start of the decade, the NBA adjusted its lottery format a bit: instead of the lottery drawing for the first three picks, it now does so for the first four selections, and the odds of landing in those spots are now smoothened out a bit. The worst teams in the NBA still have the best chances of landing at the top of the draft, but not by nearly as much as they used to.
In my view, the issue people run into when trying to "solve" tanking is that they are already embarking on an impossible mission. The cat is out of the bag, the bell cannot be unrung: everybody knows the way to win championships is to have one of the single best players in the NBA, everybody knows that for the vast majority of NBA teams the only path to getting one of those players is through the draft, and everybody knows that landing multiple chances at top picks is the most realistic way to accomplish that goal.
Eradicating tanking should not be anybody's goal, because teams are too smart in 2025 to be persuaded against it. There will always be a few teams with ownership that refuse to initiate a tank, but for nearly every small market team it is the optimal route if the goal is championship contention. In order to rid the NBA of tanking, the league would need to make a number of massive changes to the way the league operates that most would not be in favor of.
MORE: Sixers tank watch 4.0… Nets are main adversary now, Raptors still loom
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