Sixers Notes: Covington, Free Agency, Brown, Fultz

The new extension for Robert Covington leaves the Sixers with two possible free agency strategies for the future, according to Bobby Marks of ESPN. The team could skip next year’s market and try to get J.J. Redick ($23MM) and Amir Johnson ($11MM) to again sign one-year deals close to their current salaries. That would give Philadelphia roughly $30MM to chase free agents in the summer of 2019. The Sixers figure to improve through the draft while they wait as they have their own pick for 2018 and an 86.9 chance to get the Lakers’ selection, according to ESPN’s Basketball Power Index.

Another path would be to let Redick and Johnson leave next summer and enter the 2018 free agent market with about $25MM in cap space. Marks sees that as risky because the top two players available, LeBron James and Paul George, are unlikely to consider Philadelphia, and the next three, Chris Paul, DeAndre Jordan and DeMarcus Cousins, don’t represent positions of need.

What the Sixers need most is shooters, Marks notes, and both Klay Thompson and Jimmy Butler will be free agents in 2019. He adds that the organization’s window for using cap space will end after the 2019/20 season when Ben Simmons, Dario Saric and Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot will become restricted free agents if they are not extended before then.

There’s more news out of Philadelphia:

• Covington set a record for the largest single-year renegotiation in history by increasing his salary from $1.6MM to $16.7MM, Marks tweets. He is the eighth player in the past 20 years to have his contract renegotiated.
• Sixers coach Brett Brown sees his young team as “ahead of schedule” in its quest to become a contender, relays Keith Pompey of The Philadelphia Inquirer. With a 7-6 record heading into tonight’s game, Philadelphia is off to its best start in five years. “I do feel that way,” said Joel Embiid. “Me personally, I’m still not there yet and we are still learning how to play with each other. … We are definitely ahead of the curve.”
• First-round pick Markelle Fultz is participating in practice drills and he tries to work his way through a shoulder problem, Pompey writes in a separate story. Fultz, who has been diagnosed with a scapular muscle imbalance along with soreness in his right shoulder, hasn’t appeared in a game since Oct. 25 and doesn’t have a target date to start playing again. “I think that’s just up for the [doctors], not me to decide,” Brown said. “What I can control is having him with the team, the design of his workouts – those types of things. In relation to a time frame, that will be determined by our medical staff.”