We are only a week and change into 2025 NBA free agency, but for the Sixers there is likely only one piece of business left to handle before preparation for the upcoming season can really begin.
The Sixers have all three of their two-way spots occupied, and 14 players on a standard roster that can go up to 15 members. The latest addition was Kyle Lowry, whose 20th and final NBA season will indeed be played for his hometown team.
So, when I put out my weekly call for mailbag questions, I was not surprised to see most people inquiring about Quentin Grimes, the team’s 25-year-old restricted free agent who is expected to eventually fill their final open roster spot.
Plenty of uncertainty remains when it comes to Grimes — and a new suitor could emerge in the coming days or weeks. Let’s break it all down in another mailbag:
From @hallublin.bsky.social: Does the salary cap space the Jazz cleared up put them back in the Quentin Grimes sweepstakes? If so, what do you do if you’re the Sixers and the Jazz make a crazy offer? What are your options if you decide not to match?
By trading away John Collins for Kyle Anderson and Kevin Love in a three-team trade involving the Los Angeles Clippers and Miami Heat on Monday morning, the Jazz have enabled themselves to become a cap space team for the remainder of the summer while also creating a massive $26 million trade exception that will be usable for 365 days once the deal is finalized officially.
Utah has about $8.4 million in cap space with 16 players on roster, but if the Jazz waive their two non-guaranteed salaries, they can get up to $18.7 million in room. Ironically, those two non-guaranteed salaries belong to a pair of old friends, KJ Martin and Jaden Springer. At that point, if the Jazz have interest in Grimes, they could be involved in the negotiations.
If the Jazz wanted to offer Grimes a four-year, $80 million contract, they would need about $18.6 million in cap space. At that point an offer with annual raises of five percent gets them there. But that is an offer I would match as the Sixers; it is still not quite commensurate with Grimes’ ability and potential. That will be a tradable contract down the line if the Sixers need it to be one.
But if Utah makes further cost-cutting moves — waiving and stretching Love adds another $2.8 million or so, while trading Anderson’s $9.2 million salary for as little money as possible would be the most aggressive financially-motivated decision they can make — they suddenly become more dangerous. What if Utah gets up to $25 million in space and offers Grimes a deal starting there? It could get up to four years and $107 million, a massive price.
As the Jazz did with Paul Reed years ago, if they pursue Grimes everyone should expect them to create an offer sheet with all of the bells and whistles that make it harder for the Sixers to match — front-loading the deal would be wise if they can pull it off, and adding a 15 percent trade kicker is a no-brainer. There is no indication so far that Utah has interest in Grimes, but if they do want to make a run at him, there is a world where they can make the Sixers awfully nervous.
If the Sixers became extremely fearful of Utah waiving those salaries, perhaps shedding additional salary and making a formidable offer to Grimes, they could theoretically try to engineer a sign-and-trade that sends Grimes to Utah. Now armed with that enormous trade exception, the Jazz could pay Grimes significantly more if they take him in a sign-and-trade where he gets absorbed into the trade exception. Utah has a remarkable collection of draft picks, and if the Sixers are queasy about paying Grimes more than they expected and inching closer to the second apron, they could opt to cash in on his value by acquiring whatever picks they can from the Jazz.
Ultimately, all of that feels unlikely — particularly because there is no evidence that Utah wants to make a run at Grimes as of this writing. But between their path to major cap space and newfound trade exception, the Jazz do have multiple roadmaps to making the Sixers sweat out their ability to retain Grimes.
MORE: Sixers’ remaining roster pivot points this summer
From @EtxanJ: If Grimes is resigned to a multi-year deal, would the Sixers be looking to trade him this season if VJ Edgecombe plays well? Or do you think he’s viewed as part of the core moving forward?
I do not think the Sixers will re-sign Grimes to a multi-year deal with a specific plan to deal him midseason. But it is an unavoidable truth that the four best young players on this team will be guards, and Grimes is the only one that can even slide up to the wing for brief spurts against certain opposing lineups.
Something will have to give at some point, but that does not mean it has to be a few months into the season. The Sixers could keep Grimes, Edgecombe, Tyrese Maxey and Jared McCain all on the team for a full season and see how all of the different pairings and three-man combinations look, then reevaluate next summer. Having Maxey, McCain, Grimes and Edgecombe all around for a full season protects the team from any one injury derailing its backcourt rotation — not to mention enabling Edgecombe to be eased into a role that suits him early instead of being rushed into an outsized workload.
If the Sixers believe they have significant needs elsewhere during the season, they could absolutely trade Grimes to help fill that hole. The important thing to note is that they would be dealing from a position of power: unless Grimes gets a stunningly large offer sheet that the Sixers match, any deal he signs this summer will make him an appealing trade asset, if not one of the more appealing ones in the NBA among non-rookie scale players. The Sixers will be able to get something extremely valuable for him; it is just a matter of when the right team would be to capitalize on his value.
The idea of Grimes being a long-term small forward playing next to two of Maxey, McCain and Edgecombe feels far-fetched, and it is. But that arrangement would give the Sixers such tremendous offensive firepower and versatility that it is worth finding out if there are ways to make it a viable defensive grouping.
If the Sixers’ goal is to eventually reroute Grimes for a player who fits better from a positional perspective, the objective should not be to do that as quickly as humanly possible, but for the best possible returning piece they can get.
MORE: Grimes free agency deep dive
From @christomelbourne.bsky.social: Is there a world where the Warriors and Sixers concoct a sign-and-trade swapping Grimes and Jonathan Kuminga? Would the Warrior fit our rotation better and what could the deal look like?
Unfortunately, as much as I would love to explain all of the incredible intricacies of a double sign-and-trade of restricted free agents, this solution is not quite viable, even if Grimes and Kuminga received identical contracts. That is because any team to receive a player being sign-and-traded takes on a hard cap at the first apron, and the Sixers and Warriors both doing so is nearly an impossibility.
Golden State is currently $25 million below the first apron according to Yossi Gozlan’s capsheets.com, but they only have nine players under contract. After taking on Grimes, they would have an extremely tight squeeze to find at least four more players they could have on roster. It is not quite an impossibility, but it would be an uphill battle that would prevent Golden State from accumulating the kind of depth they would like to have.
For the Sixers, it is basically an impossibility. That is because they are already within striking distance of the first apron. Adding Grimes, Kuminga or any quality young rotation player would take them over that threshold handily:
Updated Sixers cap figures with 14 players on roster and RFA Quentin Grimes unsigned:
-$219,193 over luxury tax
-$7,830,807 below first apron
-$19,709,807 below second apron
The Sixers haven’t triggered a hard cap; they can go over either apron to keep Grimes if they need to.
— Adam Aaronson (@SixersAdam) July 7, 2025
Unless the Sixers perform massive cost-cutting — it would probably have to be a trade involving Paul George — they are not in position to acquire any sign-and-traded players this summer.
MORE: A guide to crafting realistic Sixers trades, and why Grimes is at the center of it all
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