Will having the No. 3 overall pick prevent Sixers from keeping key free agents?

As is always the case around these parts, the joy of an exciting moment – the Sixers landing the No. 3 overall pick in the 2025 NBA Draft during Monday night's lottery – quickly turned into lingering anxiousness.

The questions quickly started flooding: How does having the No. 3 pick impact the Sixers' ability to retain their two key upcoming free agents, Quentin Grimes and Guerschon Yabusele?

Luckily, I've spent the past four months figuring this out. I have information and you want answers, so no reason to waste time:

The current projection for the No. 3 overall pick's salary as a rookie is $11,108,880. It's a substantial number, particularly on a team that has three max contracts on the books already.

Projected rookie scale contract for Sixers’ No. 3 overall pick (first two seasons fully guaranteed; next two guaranteed if options are exercised)
2025-26: $11,108,880
2026-27: $11,663,880
2027-28 (team option): $12,219,720
2028-29 (team option): $15,445,727
Total: $50,438,207

— Adam Aaronson (@SixersAdam) May 12, 2025

Every dollar matters nowadays, far more than it did before the NBA ushered in a new salary cap environment that features the extremely punitive second apron. The Sixers owe more than $100 million combined annually between two very suspect contracts belonging to Joel Embiid and Paul George, so any financial breathing room is welcomed, and an $11 million addition to the cap sheet is no small thing.

MORE: Who will the Sixers draft at No. 3?

How does the cap sheet project to look after the Sixers make their pick? The following table makes a few key assumptions:

• Kelly Oubre Jr. picks up his $8.3 million player option

• Andre Drummond does the same with his $5 million player option

• Eric Gordon basically picks up his player option, but formally declines to re-sign on a new deal in a salary cap gymnastics move which earns him about $200,000 extra while saving the Sixers more than $1 million against the cap.

Before continuing, it's worth noting that Justin Edwards will unquestionably be on next year's team, but the likeliest path to that happening is the Sixers declining his $1.9 million team option so they can sign him to a multi-year deal. Edwards' salary cap hit in 2025-26 figures to be in the same ballpark as Bona's but maybe a bit closer to Council's number.

The only player listed above who could possibly be waived is Council, whose salary is non-guaranteed and whose disastrous sophomore campaign could cause the Sixers to reconsider his status within the organization. But if we're to assume he sticks around – his salary is nearly the same as a veteran's minimum deal, regardless – the Sixers would be at 11 players when counting Edwards. Assuming they keep the No. 35 overall pick and don't take a draft-and-stash player, they'll be at 12 players. We'll work with projected salaries for Edwards and the No. 35 pick:

Now, this is before retaining any of Grimes, Yabusele or other free agents, such as Jared Butler and Lonnie Walker IV. And it's where, as I have written a few times this offseason, Yabusele's market becomes the key to fitting the rest of the pieces together.

With the 12 players above at these salaries, the Sixers have a payroll of just more than $183 million – already nearing the luxury tax threshold with two important contributors still to be signed. And the Sixers appear very hopeful to retain both of them; Grimes experienced a significant breakout after arriving in Philadelphia and is a 24-year-old restricted free agent while the team declined to trade Yabusele in February despite appealing offers on the table to signal a clear desire to keep the 29-year-old around beyond his first season with the team.

The nature of the free-agent market this summer is extremely favorable to the Sixers as they hope to keep Grimes on a team-friendly deal. It's not friendly to Grimes and his goal of maximizing his value after a massive emergence late in the season. As things stand now, the Brooklyn Nets will be the only team in the NBA with notable cap space. Unless Brooklyn makes a push for Grimes, the Sixers will have a chance to squeeze him into a deal that will age extremely well for the team. It's difficult to project deals like this one, but maybe something in the ballpark of $12 million annually would be the eventual landing spot.

In theory, the Sixers don't have many limitations on what they can pay Grimes, whose Full Bird rights they own. But that could change if keeping Yabusele requires a contract that will create limits on what the Sixers can spend elsewhere.

The ideal mechanism for the Sixers to re-sign Yabusele is the taxpayer's mid-level exception. That offers a maximum of two years and $11.6 million with a salary of $5,685,000 next season. If the Sixers signed Yabusele for that exact deal, they would be at $189 million in total salary with 13 players under contract.

MORE: Which teams could pursue Yabusele?

Teams that use the tax MLE are hard-capped at the second apron. That means they cannot exceed it under any circumstances whatsoever. As of now, the second apron is projected at just under $208 million. So in this scenario, the Sixers would have neatly $19 million in breathing room to sign Grimes – and, if they wanted to, also sign Butler, Walker or an external free agent on a minimum deal and go with a full roster of 15 players.

If the Sixers need to go beyond the tax MLE to sign Yabusele, things get far more complicated. They would have to use the non-taxpayer's version, which can be worth up to four years and $60 million. Yabusele surely wouldn't command that entire total, to be clear, but if the Sixers use any portion of it to sign him or any other player, they would become hard-capped at the first apron. That is projected at $195 million – only $12 million more than the team's payroll before retaining Grimes or Yabusele.

Suddenly, the Sixers would need to pull off some substantial cost-cutting maneuvers to have enough room under the first apron to meet the better-than-expected market on Yabusele and ensure there is enough money left to keep Grimes, even while expecting that deal to be a value signing.

The most obvious path is trading away Oubre and Drummond. There is a decent chance the Sixers could find a taker on Oubre, whose salary – if he picks up his option – fits into many trade exceptions across the league. Oubre is a rotation-caliber wing who's not bad on either end of the floor. Even if he's a flawed player he has proven more than enough to have some sort of market in that range. Meanwhile, it could cost the Sixers multiple second-round picks to shed Drummond's salary after the season he just had.

The Sixers and their fans have grown to adore Yabusele, who is not just incredibly likable but a valuable rotation big who has role versatility. But if his market surpasses the two-year, $11.6 million offer via the tax MLE, the Sixers would have to seriously evaluate if he's valuable enough to justify dumping Oubre and Drummond and losing whichever assets are required to make that happen. The team could instead sign another rotation player with that money, keep Oubre and Drummond, and count on Bona'd development. It wouldn't be popular, but it would at least be justifiable.

If Yabusele's market does reach that point, the unfortunate reality is that the Sixers picking at No. 3 overall will have a noteworthy impact on the team's spending power in free agency. But if not, the Sixers have a chance to thread the needle in a very productive manner.

For now, the guess here remains that Yabusele will return for the tax MLE, which would instantly give the Sixers significant flexibility as they reshape their roster around Embiid, George and Tyrese Maxey by also retaining Grimes and, now, welcoming a top-three pick to the mix. But there's a lot of time between now and June 30.

SIXERS YEAR-IN-REVIEW

Joel Embiid | Guerschon Yabusele | Paul George | Jared McCain | Tyrese Maxey | Andre Drummond | Quentin Grimes | Jared Butler | Kyle Lowry | Kelly Oubre Jr. | Justin Edwards | Ricky Council IV | Eric Gordon | Lonnie Walker IV | Adem Bona

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