Welcome to the final Sixers mailbag of the 2024-25 season. Just like 5 Sixers thoughts, our mailbags run every week year-round, so you will have plenty more chances to get your questions in. But now would be a good time to say thank you to all of the kind folks who submitted questions during this bizarre Sixers season, particularly over at Bluesky, where the questions have been stellar for the last few months.
Let's get into this week's questions.
From @treenas27.bsky.social: What is your ideal rotation next year if everyone is somehow healthy at once? (Can include external additions if you think that's the way to go at some spots)
You are giving me way too much latitude to get creative with fake trades and whatnot, so I will give myself a few opportunities to a dream and some guidelines that prevent me from getting too ambitious. To safeguard from complete lunacy ensuing, I am going to not include any trades. Of course, if the Sixers find a team willing to take on the final three years of Paul George's contract and send viable rotation contributors in return, they should consider the deal, but that feels very difficult to fathom right now.
However… I am giving myself the No. 1 overall pick next June, and that means Cooper Flagg is a Sixer in this scenario. The question says "ideal," after all, and at the end of a season like this, why should we not have a bit of a fun? The Sixers appear on the verge of landing in the No. 5 slot in the NBA Draft Lottery standings, which would give them a 10.5 percent chance of landing the rights to select Flagg, so it is not as if this is a crazy impossibility.
18 year old Cooper Flagg explosive athleticism pic.twitter.com/aPcw1vu5Qr
— Pitless (@pitlessball) April 8, 2025
Alright, so the Sixers won the lottery and drafted Flagg. What comes next? Their three most notable free agents are Quentin Grimes, Guerschon Yabusele and Kelly Oubre Jr., with Grimes being the obvious priority. In an ideal world, these are all players the Sixers should want back. Grimes has the floor of an important, young role player, with a ceiling much higher. Oubre is a quality rotation wing, and Yabusele is the exact sort of versatile big the team has covered for years.
The key to making this work, however, is going to be where Yabusele's price tag ends up. If the Sixers can retain him for the taxpayer's mid-level exception, which maxes out at two years and $11.6 million, they will more or less have free rein to give Grimes and Oubre whatever it requires to bring them back. If it requires more money than that exception to keep Yabusele, the team will very likely have to let him or Oubre walk, with an Oubre departure feeling slightly more likely given the development of Justin Edwards and Flagg's theoretical arrival in this scenario.
In an ideal world, Yabusele takes the tax mid-level, which enables the Sixers to re-sign Oubre using his Early bird rights and wait out Grimes before signing the 24-year-old to a team-friendly deal in restricted free agency. The Sixers might be wise to attach a second-round pick or two to Andre Drummond's expiring $5 million salary to create a bit more breathing room, but bringing back those three players and adding Flagg gives the Sixers quite an interesting mix of skills. The rotation would look something like this:
Starters: Tyrese Maxey, Quentin Grimes, Paul George, Cooper Flagg, Joel Embiid
Bench regulars: Jared McCain, Kelly Oubre Jr., Justin Edwards, Guerschon Yabusele
When Embiid inevitably misses (lots of) time, the Sixers would have Adem Bona prepared to handle some backup center minutes, while players like Jared Butler and Lonnie Walker IV could work their way into the mix if they end up being brought back — as could the player the Sixers select with their second-round pick this June, which figures to be the No. 35 overall pick. The Sixers would also fill a roster spot or two with veteran's minimum deals, and this front office has had tremendous success with such deals, from Oubre two years ago to Yabusele this season.
This is quite an intriguing rotation when at full health, which is a four-word phrase that does some heavy lifting. It would be wonderful if Flagg helps the Sixers regain their competitiveness in the short-term, sure, but his mere presence as the new franchise cornerstone alongside Maxey and, to lesser degrees, McCain and Grimes, would be the real prize.
MORE: Where do Jared McCain, Joel Embiid and other Sixers shut down go from here?
From @lukelesher.bsky.social: Is it safe to say the Sixers can kiss their hopes of the 4th slot in the lottery goodbye? It now seems like a miracle would need to occur to tie them in the standings and win the coin toss, but crazier things have happened.
Anyone with significant interest in this should be tuning in for Tuesday night's game in Brooklyn between the Nets and New Orleans Pelicans. If the Nets can defeat the Pelicans, the Sixers will clinch at least a tie for the No. 5 slot in the lottery standings, but if the Pelicans win, the Sixers will only be a game back of New Orleans for the No. 4 slot, which presents an intriguing upside.
It is incredibly difficult to imagine the Sixers outright overtaking New Orleans for that No. 4 slot, as it would require the Pelicans beating the Nets and then winning two of their final three games after that. The Pelicans finish their season hosting the Milwaukee Bucks before visiting the Miami Heat and Oklahoma City Thunder; finding a pair of wins in there will not be easy.
If New Orleans wins in Brooklyn, though, the door opens for a tie if the Sixers lose out and the Pelicans win just one of their final three contests. In the case of a tie, a random drawing would ensue, which could give the Sixers a significant boost in their odds of keeping their top-six protected first-round pick. Here are the numbers behind the possible random drawing, a process used to determine which team picks higher than the other of neither jumps into the top four:
| Lottery position | Chance of keeping pick |
| 4 | 81.1% |
| T4, win random drawing | 79.6% |
| T4, lose random drawing | 65.3% |
| 5 | 64.0% |
| T5, win random drawing | 62.2% |
| T5, lose random drawing | 47.7% |
If the Pelicans fall in Brooklyn, all of this will be irrelevant. But if they beat the Nets, the Sixers will be paying very close attention to New Orleans' final three contests, as just one more tanking blunder could be costly for the Pelicans.
MORE: Jared Butler making a difference for Sixers as quarterback on the court
From @kellenpastore.bsky.social: Does the disconnect between reports from the front office and what Nick Nurse knows in terms of Tyrese Maxey's late season availability give any insight to his hold on the job for next year?
There is definitely a disconnect concerning Maxey's situation, but I am not sure the disconnect is between Nurse and the Sixers' front office. A quick summary of events, for those unfamiliar:
On Thursday afternoon, Shams Charania of ESPN reported that Maxey was expected to be ruled out for the remainder of the season due to his ongoing finger ailment, shortly thereafter reporting that Rich Paul, Maxey's agent and the head of Klutch Sports, had confirmed the news.
Maxey has not played in over a month, and with the Sixers chasing ping pong balls in the lottery, nobody sees much value in him returning. But later that day, Nurse held his pregame media availability before the Sixers faced the Milwaukee Bucks and said that Maxey had only been ruled out for that night's game. Nurse, who is also represented by Klutch Sports, said Maxey was merely day-to-day, which has been the team's public position for over a month. When Nurse was asked if ESPN's report was inaccurate, he replied "I don't know."
Whatever Maxey's status actually is, Nurse knows about it. No coach would ever be left out of the loop on a player's availability like that, particularly when dealing with a star of Maxey's caliber. While no Sixers official has made any comments of this sort, the most plausible theory is that in a season in which the NBA has made a concerted effort to admonish teams for tanking, the Sixers are trying to avoid the league office commencing yet another investigation into the team this season. Maxey fits the NBA's star criteria in its Player Participation Policy, so the league was always going to be monitoring the situation closely.
To be clear, Maxey is genuinely injured. His shooting numbers when he tried to play through this injury were absolutely dreadful, he still has to wear a splint on the finger and has had to drastically alter his shooting mechanics, which have gone from fluid to entirely awkward. There is no reason for him to be playing through significant pain at reduced effectiveness at the end of this season.
But that disconnect, if it exists, it not between the front office and Nurse, but between the front office and Paul, who went on the record to confirm a piece of news the Sixers clearly were not prepared to have out in the public sphere. Whether it was a miscommunication or a calculated decision by Paul, it was obviously not done in tandem with the organization. It should not have an impact on how people view Nurse.
MORE: Predicting Sixers' team and player option decisions, from Oubre to Edwards
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