Sixers mailbag: Is Quentin Grimes here to stay, and do the Sixers have enough three-point shooting?

The 2025-26 NBA campaign officially begins on Tuesday night, with the Oklahoma City Thunder raising a championship banner before facing off against Kevin Durant and the Houston Rockets, followed by the Los Angeles Lakers and Golden State Warriors doing battle once more.

On Wednesday, nearly the entire rest of the league will kick things off. That includes the Sixers, set to face off against the Celtics in Boston in a matchup between two teams with a whole lot of uncertainty entering this season.

As always, Tuesday morning means the time has come for a Sixers mailbag. Let's see what's on your minds as we near opening night:

From @MikeD55_: Do the Sixers retain Bird rights on Quentin Grimes after this season even though he took the qualifying offer? And if so how much could they offer him without getting into cap hell?

Yes, Quentin Grimes accepting his one-year, $8.7 million qualifying offer does not rid the Sixers of Bird rights. They still have Full Bird rights on Grimes, which means they can offer him any salary regardless of their salary cap standing as long as they are not up against any hard caps due to other transactions.

Believe it or not, the Sixers are clearly in the driver's seat in terms of retaining Grimes, even if the chances of the 25-year-old sticking around in Philadelphia declined dramatically over the summer. The expectation was that the Sixers would secure a long-term agreement with Grimes that cemented him as a controllable asset during his restricted free agency, but they never made much of an effort to bridge the gap in negotiations, essentially forcing Grimes to take the qualifying offer. The upside on his end comes in the form of control: Grimes can veto any trade all season and will be an unrestricted free agent next summer.

But if Grimes does not cultivate a strong market in free agency next summer, it will still be the Sixers who find themselves positioned to retain him.

Grimes is already an established productive player in the NBA, and if a disappointing summer can quickly turn into an exciting season, he would be in store for significant financial gains. Grimes will enter unrestricted free agency as a 26-year-old with a portable two-way skillset and upward mobility.

Quentin Grimes has scored 25-points in seven consecutive games, but he has also notched at least two steals in each of those contests.
Some of Grimes' best takeaways lately: pic.twitter.com/7IUuV6Bn6w

— Adam Aaronson's clips (@SixersAdamClips) March 23, 2025

How much the Sixers would be willing to pay Grimes if he follows up his stellar two-month cameo last season with a full campaign at similar production is unclear. But the Sixers currently project to have $44 million in breathing room below the second apron and $22 million in room below the luxury tax threshold in 2026-27, with nine players under contract.

If the Sixers use their taxpayer's mid-level exception next summer, they would be hard-capped at the second apron and have $38 million in room to sign Grimes and three or four other players. The other signings would all be on minimum deals unless the Sixers want to retain veteran free agents like Kelly Oubre Jr. and Andre Drummond.

In theory, the Sixers would have to exceed $30 million on a Grimes salary in order to find themselves in second apron trouble. It is nearly an impossibility. I would say that, given the presence of both VJ Edgecombe and Jared McCain, the Sixers will not extend themselves much to retain Grimes if they do not view the price point as definitively team-friendly.

MORE: Joel Embiid's return provides the Sixers some relief and Embiid some hope

From @sportmanzf6: The projected opening night lineup (Maxey/VJ/Oubre/Bona/Embiid) only has one actual shooter. Have any recent teams had success with that lack of gravity? Paul George coming back will help but the Thunder and Celtics rotations when they won only had a few non-shooters.

It is definitely possible to thrive with less-than-optimal team production from beyond the arc; the Denver Nuggets shot over 100 fewer three-pointers than any other team in the NBA last season and went 50-32. Four of the bottom nine teams in total three-pointers made – Denver, the Los Angeles Clippers, New York Knicks and Houston Rockets – were 50-plus-win teams.

The catch: Denver had Nikola Jokić, and shot a very high percentage on the three-point tries they did take. Los Angeles had the third-best Defensive Rating in the NBA. Houston was two spots behind them. New York was still a top-five offense in the NBA behind Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns.

In other words: it requires other superpowers to overcome insufficient three-point value. Once upon a time, there was no doubt that Embiid was that kind of franchise-altering centerpiece. Not only is he not going to play enough for that to be something the Sixers can consistently rely on, but it remains unclear just how impactful he can be and how much of an offensive workload he can handle when he does play. Embiid has had one of the highest offensive floors in NBA history because of his volume and efficiency on free throws; what happens if he pivots to a more finesse-based game than a power-centric one to preserve his health?

This is why George and Jared McCain are going to be such critical pieces of this team. Even if George never plays like a star again and his contract ages poorly, he can be an extremely helpful two-way player with elite shot-making ability. Even if McCain does not reach the summit in terms of his long-term outcomes, he will be an elite marksman in his own right that the Sixers can give a significant number of minutes in their backcourt. Right now, the only players in this rotation that are high-caliber three-point shooters and positive-impact defenders are Embiid and Grimes. George will make a third, and McCain is such a massive plus as a shooter that it will outweigh his defensive limitations.

The Sixers would probably not be able to get by over the course of an 82-game season and potential playoff run with the amount of shooting they currently have. But George and McCain are coming back eventually, and both returns could limit the minutes of much lesser shooters.

MORE: Predicting Nick Nurse's full opening night rotation

From @kellenpastore.bsky.social: What under-the-radar stories are you most looking forward to covering in this upcoming Sixers season?

A few stand out:

• McCain is not close to being an under-the-radar player, but I think the upside that exists for the 21-year-old guard has become at least somewhat underrated – locally and nationally – because of how long it has been since he has played. Before McCain went down, his three-level scoring was absolutely absurd for a player so young with such little experience. McCain has legitimate star upside, and while many recognize it some are quick to dismiss him in favor of Edgecombe. It is understandable to a degree – Edgecombe was a top-three pick, McCain was drafted outside of the lottery – but McCain's 23-game sample of offense is far more exciting than anything about Edgecombe's offensive profile so far. The two are much closer in terms of long-term value than one might think.

• Everyone wants the Sixers to set the tone as emphatically as possible as early as possible, and they have a chance to do so. Their early-season schedule is pretty favorable, not entirely in terms of opponents but particularly in terms of logistics. The Sixers should not have a flight longer than 2.5 hours until the last week of December; their travel arrangements are extremely convenient for the first two months of the season.

• The Sixers are going to be extremely reliant on a pair of two-way players, Dominick Barlow and Jabari Walker. Their management of available two-way days will be crucial, as teams can only use those guys a certain number of times. I track all two-way matters obsessively, for better or worse (it is mostly for worse). No two-way player can be active in more than 50 NBA games. And because the Sixers only have 14 players inked to standard deals, they can only use 90 two-way days across their crop of players (Barlow, Walker and Hunter Sallis) until they get to 15 standard players.

With Barlow contending for a starting job already and Walker looking like a viable bench piece, I asked Sixers head coach Nick Nurse on Thursday if the team was going to be considering two-way status early in the season or if it was more of a "cross that bridge when you get there" situation.

"I am going to think about playing the best guys, right here, right now, for now," Nurse said. "I mean, I know – it's a very valid and very good question, I think that right now I just want to plug in the guys that I think best can help us. And then, yes, if it becomes a problem later, hopefully it's a good problem because we got some results out of that."

• Will the Sixers care about the NBA Cup? It is scoffed at by many fans, but an extremely competitive league seems to have started buying in on playing with a bit of extra juice for Group Play and Knockout Round games. The Sixers begin their NBA Cup schedule with a Group Play contest at home against the Celtics on Halloween; will they be willing to push Embiid just a little bit more to win a game like that?

MORE: McCain discusses thumb injury, recovery process and more

Follow Adam on Twitter: @SixersAdam
Follow PhillyVoice on Twitter: @thephillyvoice