Thanks to veteran NBA insider Marc Stein, rumors regarding Paul George’s future reached a fever pitch on Wednesday. It has been more than two months since Kawhi Leonard signed his three-year, below-maximum contract extension with the Los Angeles Clippers, according to Stein on his Substack. Although it was widely believed at the time that Paul George would shortly follow suit, he hasn’t done so yet.
In Leonard’s extension, Stein states that there are “suspicions that the subsequent offers to George have fallen an unknown amount shy of the numbers.” Leonard accepted a contract that was approximately $10 million below the maximum amount he was entitled to, whereas George most certainly wants something closer to a four-year deal. The Sixers will undoubtedly be snooping around if and when George and the Clippers’ extension talks collapse, according to Stein.
“League sources indicate that Philadelphia is still viewed as a potential suitor for George should he become available and provide the 76ers with an official chance to court him across the nation,” the author stated. “Despite the widely held assumption that he and Leonard want to continue playing together in their native Southern California, the Sixers are reportedly still interested in George.”
In a hypothetical scenario, let’s assume George is open to signing a summer contract with the Sixers—but only if they offer him a maximum deal of $212.2 million for four years. For the same reason the Sixers were unable to offer James Harden a five-year contract last summer, the Clippers are only able to offer him a four-year, $221.1 million contract. However, due to California taxes, signing in Pennsylvania may be the most prudent financial move of the two max choices.
Let’s examine both sides of whether that’d be a wise signing.
The case for signing George
Do you need me to talk you into signing with the Sixers when a nine-time All-Star and six-time All-NBA selection wants to sign? Yes and no, then.
It’s clear that George is appealing. He would essentially be superior to Tobias Harris in every aspect of the match. George has averaged 23.0 points on 45.2 percent shooting, 6.0 rebounds, 4.6 assists, 3.1 three-pointers, and 1.5 steals per game since moving to Los Angeles five years ago. In addition, he is making roughly eight three-pointers per game at a rate of 39.2 percent from outside the arc. Put another way, he outperforms Harris as a scorer, shooter, and playmaker.
Do you need me to talk you into signing with the Sixers when a nine-time All-Star and six-time All-NBA selection wants to sign? Yes and no, then.
It’s clear that George is appealing. He would essentially be superior to Tobias Harris in every aspect of the match. George has averaged 23.0 points on 45.2 percent shooting, 6.0 rebounds, 4.6 assists, 3.1 three-pointers, and 1.5 steals per game since moving to Los Angeles five years ago. In addition, he is making roughly eight three-pointers per game at a rate of 39.2 percent from outside the arc. Put another way, he outperforms Harris as a scorer, shooter, and playmaker.
With all due respect to Roy Hibbert, Steven Adams and Ivica Zubac, George has never played with a big man like Joel Embiid. George’s long-range shooting ability could make him an elite dribble handoff partner with Embiid, and with mad scientist Nick Nurse at the helm, the two could get weird and run inverted 5-3 pick-and-rolls at times as well. George could also serve as a secondary playmaker and get Tyrese Maxey some off-ball reps.
There would be minimal stylistic overlap between George, Embiid and Maxey. George has spent all season playing alongside Leonard and James Harden, and he’s logged plenty of time in recent years next to Russell Westbrook as well, so he’s used to sharing touches with other stars. He’s knocking down 43.8 percent of his catch-and-shoot three-point attempts this year, which should mesh well with the volume of double-teams that Embiid draws.
As George heads further into his mid-to-late 30s, there’s no guarantee that he’ll remain an All-Star-caliber player. His age and likely contractual demands are fair reasons to have pause about signing him this summer. But there shouldn’t be many questions about his potential fit next to Embiid and Maxey.
The case against signing George
George is turning 34 in early May. Based on the current $141 million cap projection for next season, he’ll be eligible for a $49.4 million maximum starting salary, and the final season of his four-year max deal—his age-37 season—would be nearly $56.8 million. The salary cap could be north of $170 million by then, but that’s still a ton of money to be paying someone with well north of 30,000 career regular-season and playoff minutes combined.
The bigger issue is how it would affect the Sixers’ roster-building options moving forward.
If George took a full max and Tyrese Maxey signs a max extension this offseason but doesn’t make an All-NBA team, the two of them and Embiid would combine for more than $136 million. If Maxey does make an All-NBA team, he, George and Embiid would combine for more than $143 million. Filling out the roster with minimum-salary players alone would still put the Sixers within $5-10 million of the $171.3 million luxury-tax line.
The Sixers could have up to $16.8 million of cap space left over if they sign George to a full max contract, but only if they miss the playoffs, waive Paul Reed, trade their draft pick and renounce the rights to all of their free agents, including Buddy Hield and De’Anthony Melton. Perhaps that $16.8 million would be enough to retain one of those two, but it likely wouldn’t be enough for both. The Sixers would also have the $8.0 million room mid-level exception, but they’d be limited to handing out veteran-minimum deals to external free agents beyond that.
Kyle Lowry seems like he might return on a minimum deal next season, and perhaps Robert Covington would as well. But Hield, Melton, Nicolas Batum and Tobias Harris will likely all be asking for far more in free agency, so it’s unclear how many (if any) of them the Sixers would be able to retain if they sign George. They’d basically be choosing the stars-and-scrubs approach over the two-stars-and-depth model.
If the star-laden Clippers and Phoenix Suns crash out of the playoffs early, teams might be more reluctant to pursue three-star models moving forward. Besides, the Sixers were one of the better teams in the league early in the season given the newfound depth they had around Maxey and Embiid after the Harden trade. Who’s to say they can’t recapture that magic when Embiid returns?
Just about every NBA insider has hinted that the Sixers will be star-hunting again this summer, long-term concerns about three-max models and the second apron be damned. Perhaps they’ll land a third star on a below-max price—say, Brooklyn Nets forward Mikal Bridges?—but the upside of signing George might outweigh the risks they’d incur by handing him a deal of that size.
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