Sixers Pursuing Dario Saric For Next Season?

JUNE 22ND, 8:18am: Saric won’t play for the Sixers in 2015/16, agent Jeff Schwartz tells Chad Ford of ESPN.com (Twitter link).

JUNE 10TH, 11:16pm: The Sixers are in talks with Turkey’s Anadolu Efes to bring 2014 draftee Dario Saric to the NBA next season, David Pick of Eurobasket.com reports (Twitter links). Saric is signed to a deal with the Turkish team that contains no NBA buyout clause for 2015/16, but Philadelphia reportedly wants the talented forward to join the team immediately, Pick adds. The 21-year-old’s contract does include a buyout clause for the 2016/17 campaign.

Philadelphia would only be able to pay a buyout of $625K, per league rules, and Efes will almost assuredly request a higher amount, notes Derek Bodner of USA Today (Twitter link). The sense amongst several agents who have worked with Anadolu Efes in the past is that the team will ask for at least $2MM to part ways with Saric, Jake Fischer of LibertyBallers relays in a series of tweets. The forward could kick in some of his salary for 2015/16, with the legal ceiling being a total combined buyout amount of approximately $2,067,720, Fischer notes. If Efes demanded over $2MM for a buyout, Saric would sacrifice $1,442,720 of his possible $1,898,300 for his rookie season, the LibertyBallers scribe adds.

A number of sources also told Fischer (via Twitter) that the league doesn’t regulate negotiations between NBA teams and foreign clubs, so the Sixers could technically pay any amount regardless of the rules. This is not to suggest that Philadelphia would actually do so, but the possibility does exist.

Saric was non-committal last month when he was asked about the possibility of him playing in the NBA next season.  “Next season? I don’t know and I can’t speak about that because I don’t know yet the situation, how things are going to work out,” Saric said. “I can say that I’m happy here at Efes and I’m also happy that people from Philadelphia came here and want me there. That’s all I can tell you right now. I don’t have any information or any feeling regarding what could happen. I’m just focused on the rest of the season. If I stay here or if I go to the NBA, I will be happy [either way]. I don’t know what could happen this summer or next summer. Now it’s not the time to talk about that.”