Sixers, McGee To Work Buyout?

8:07pm: Philadelphia has no intention of discussing a buyout arrangement with McGee, Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports reports.

5:15pm: The Sixers and JaVale McGee are headed for a buyout, as Tom Moore of Calkins Media believes (Twitter link). McGee was acquired by Philadelphia from the Nuggets earlier today along with the Thunder’s 2015 first-round pick and the rights to Nigerian forward Chu Chu Maduabum in exchange for the rights to draft-and-stash prospect Cenk Akyol.

The 27-year-old center out of Nevada is earning $11.25MM this season, and is scheduled to make $12MM for the 2015/16 campaign. It’s unclear how much of next year’s fully guaranteed salary Philadelphia would be willing to absorb if the team decided to waive McGee as part of a buyout agreement. With McGee’s injury history it would be a bit surprising to see him give up a major chunk of next year’s salary, though that is just my speculation.

McGee missed most of the 2013/14 campaign due to a stress fracture in his leg and has also missed time this year because of an injury in the same area. The big man has only appeared in a grand total of 22 games for the Nuggets over the last two seasons.  The athletic 7-footer has career averages of 8.5 points, 5.6 rebounds, and 1.8 blocks. McGee’s career slash line is .541/.200/.587.