Sixers power forward Al Horford shot down an ESPN report that his new team was guilty of tampering prior to free agency. He addressed the issue on the Dan Patrick Show (hat tip to NBC Sports Boston’s Chris Forsberg). Horford declined his team option with the Celtics and signed a four-year, $109MM contract with Philadelphia. “It’s ridiculous. … (Celtics GM) Danny [Ainge] was really good to me. I know he’s definitely frustrated that things didn’t work out with us,” Horford said.
Add Tobias Harris‘ name to the growing list of USA Basketball players pulling out of consideration for this year’s FIBA World Cup. Harris, who re-signed with the Sixers for five years and $180MM this summer, has decided to focus on the upcoming NBA season, Keith Pompey of the Philadelphia Inquirer tweets.
Anthony Davis, James Harden, Bradley Beal, CJ McCollum and Eric Gordon have also withdrawn from Team USA participation this summer, starting with training camp in Las Vegas early next month. Two other players, Damian Lillard and Kevin Love, are also undecided and will announce their decisions in the next few days, Joe Vardon of The Athletic reports.
Team USA will bring 12 players to the FIBA tournament. Among the players under consideration to replace the stars who have withdrawn, according to Vardon, include Marcus Smart, Jaylen Brown, D’Angelo Russell, Mike Conley, Josh Richardson, Thaddeus Young and Julius Randle. Select Team members could also be considered for the final 12-man roster, including Trae Young, Vardon adds. Top pick Zion Williamson has withdrawn from the Select Team this summer.
The original list of 20 invitees to the USA Basketball camp can be found here.
The Sixers are about to enter their final season for a while of not being a taxpaying team, Derek Bodner of The Athletic writes in detailed breakdown of all the contracts the organization issued since free agency began.
Philadelphia has been among the most active teams this offseason, adding free agents Al Horford, Kyle O’Quinn and Raul Neto, trading Jimmy Butler to the Heat for Josh Richardson, re-signing Tobias Harris, Mike Scott and James Ennis, extending Ben Simmons and giving a four-year contract to former two-way player Shake Milton. Even with all those additions, the Sixers are comfortably below the tax line.
That changes next year when Simmons’ maximum rookie extension kicks in. The Sixers will not only be a taxpayer going forward, but would need to unload significant salary to say below the apron and retain the ability to use their full mid-level exception. The same situation will exist for 2021/22 unless they lose Richardson, who has a player option for that season. Bodner doesn’t expect that to happen, stating that the team is likely to consider keeping Richardson more valuable than having the full MLE.
There’s more this morning from Philadelphia:
- The Sixers‘ tax status for the upcoming season gave them the freedom to start Harris’ new five-year, $180MM deal with a higher first-year salary than they needed to, Bodner adds in the same story. Instead of beginning with a $31MM salary for 2019/20 and 8% raises the rest of the way, Harris will get a max salary of $32.742MM this year, followed by lower raises in years three and four when the organization will have tax concerns.
- J.J. Redick, who signed as a free agent with the Pelicans, said on his latest podcast that he expected to retire in Philadelphia, tweets Will Guillory of The Athletic. However, he added, “Sometimes the economics of things don’t work out.” Redick, who spent the past two years with the Sixers, referred to New Orleans as “Duke south” and said he has known new GM Trajan Langdon since his freshman year at the university. He dealt mainly with Langdon in free agent talks, while his agent negotiated with executive vice president of basketball operations David Griffin.
- Kyle Korver strongly considered the Sixers before reaching an agreement with the Bucks yesterday, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN. Korver started his career in Philadelphia, but his relationship with Milwaukee coach Mike Budenholzer, whom he played for in Atlanta, swayed his final decision.
Two more potential Team USA players have decided not to participate in the 2019 World Cup. Rockets guard Eric Gordon is withdrawing from the team, tweets Shams Charania of The Athletic, and Trail Blazers guard C.J. McCollum is joining him, according to Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports (Twitter link).
With James Harden and Anthony Davis pulling out of the competition earlier this week, Team USA is now left with 16 players in training camp who will compete for 12 spots. The withdrawing players all said they want to focus on the upcoming season rather than the tournament, which will be held in China from August 31 to September 15. NBA training camps open in late September.
One of those remaining players, Kyle Lowry, had a surgical procedure on his thumb this week, and may not be physically ready to participate. His potential absence, plus the withdrawal of the four stars, should create more opportunity for members of the select team, who will be scrimmaging with the 16 players left in camp.
The players will gather for camp from August 5-8, and exhibition games will follow later in the month.
Canada’s World Cup team also lost an NBA player this week when Tristan Thompson elected not to participate, Charania tweets. In addition, Ben Simmons confirmed that he won’t be taking the court for Australia.
The Celtics feel there was tampering involved in the departure of Al Horford to rival Philadelphia, according to Brian Windhorst. The ESPN analyst said as much on a Hoop Collective Podcast (hat tip to NBC Sports Boston’s Justin Leger).
“What happened with Horford, again from what I’m told, really upset the Celtics,” Windhorst said. “They were thinking they were going to be able to negotiate with him, talk to him about a new contract, and all of a sudden it was like he already knew what his market was and he was out of there.”
The Sixers inked Horford to a four-year deal that can be worth up to $109MM.
We have more on the Celtics:
- Swingman Javonte Green is expected to sign a two-year deal with the Celtics, with a partial guarantee in the first year and a non-guaranteed second year, Adam Himmelsbach of the Boston Globe tweets. The news that Green was signing with Boston surfaced on Thursday. Green, who has played overseas since going undrafted in 2015, averaged 10.8 PPG, 4.8 RPG, 2.8 APG, and 1.8 SPG in 22.6 MPG over five Summer League games at Las Vegas this month.
- The Celtics will have an open competition for the final roster spot, Himmelsbach reveals in the same tweet. Players with partial guarantees and their two-way contract players will try to earn that spot. Guards Max Strus and reportedly Tremont Waters are their two-way players.
- Kemba Walker received the max allowed for a free agent from an opposing team but the opportunity to join a contender seeking a point guard tipped the scales to Boston, Rick Bonnell of the Charlotte Observer relays. “It really came down to my happiness and how I want to compete night-in and night-out,” Walker said. “It’s a winning organization, and I want to win. That’s what it’s all about. Throughout my basketball career as a pro, I haven’t won consistently, and I want to get a taste of that.”
6:01pm: It’s an Exhibit 10 contract, according to Rich Hofmann of The Athletic (Twitter link). The deal is now official, per RealGM’s transactions log.
4:46pm: The Sixers have agreed to a one-year, partially-guaranteed deal with center Christ Koumadje, Michael Scotto of The Athletic tweets.
The news that Koumadje would sign a contract with Philadelphia was first reported by Mark Deeks of SkySport, though that was prior to Summer League competition and it was unclear if the deal would extend into training camp.
The 7’4” Florida State alum played for Philadelphia’s summer league team after going undrafted. He played four seasons with the Seminoles and started all 37 games as a senior. He averaged 6.6 PPG, 5.6 RPG and 1.4 BPG in 16.0 MPG in his final year.
In five Summer League appearances, he averaged 6.0 PPG and 5.8 RPG in 13.6 MPG.
The addition of Koumadje gives Philadelphia 14 players on the roster, along with a pair on two-way deals. There’s a crowd at center —Joel Embiid, Kyle O’Quinn and Norvel Pelle (who is on a two-way contract) are already on the depth chart and Al Horford can swing over to that spot.
Koumadje is a developmental project who will likely spend most of next season in the G League.
- Sixers guard Ben Simmons confirmed on Twitter that he won’t be playing in the FIBA World Cup. He plans to host camps in Australia and train with the national team, but he won’t take part in any games. Simmons expressed an intention to participate in the Olympics next summer.
- The Celtics attempted to work out sign-and-trade deals with the Sixers and Nets for Horford and Irving, respectively, but both teams wanted more draft pick compensation than Boston was comfortable with, tweets Gary Washburn of The Boston Globe. Turning those free agent departures into sign-and-trades might have allowed Boston to retain more cap flexibility or pick up an extra asset or two.
JULY 17: According to ESPN’s Bobby Marks (via Twitter), Simmons’ extension would have a different starting salary depending on which level of All-NBA team he makes. Based on the figures Marks provides, it looks like Simmons’ starting salary will be worth the following percentage of the cap:
- All-NBA First Team: 30%
- All-NBA Second Team: 29%
- All-NBA Third Team: 28%
- No All-NBA spot: 25%
We’ve updated the chart at the bottom of this story to reflect the new info from Marks.
JULY 16: Ben Simmons‘ new five-year, maximum-salary extension with the Sixers doesn’t feature any options, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski (via Twitter). That means the deal, which starts in 2020/21, will run through the 2024/25 season.
Wojnarowski provides two more interesting details on Simmons’ extension, reporting that the deal includes a 15% trade kicker and has Rose Rule language that would increase the value of the contract if he earns a spot on an All-NBA team next season.
The trade kicker means that Simmons will receive a bonus worth 15% of the remaining money on his deal if he’s dealt. However, that bonus can’t push his cap hit beyond the maximum salary, so it likely won’t matter until the later years of the contract.
The Rose Rule language is more interesting. Typically, a maximum-salary deal for a player with Simmons’ years of NBA experience (less than seven) would start at 25% of the cap. However, the Rose Rule allows a player who makes an All-NBA team to earn a starting salary worth up to 30% of the cap instead.
Teams and players can negotiate a starting salary between 25-30% if the player achieves certain performance criteria. For instance, Devin Booker‘s maximum-salary contract with the Suns this season would have started at 27.5% of the cap if he’d been named to the All-NBA Third Team in 2019, 28.5% if he was named to the Second Team, and 30% for a First Team nod.
Here’s what Simmons’ next contract will look like, based on the NBA’s current cap projections for 2020/21:
| Year | No All-NBA (25%) | 3rd Team (28%) | 2nd Team (29%) | 1st Team (30%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ’20/21 | $29,250,000 | $32,760,000 | $33,930,000 | $35,100,000 |
| ’21/22 | $31,590,000 | $35,380,800 | $36,644,400 | $37,908,000 |
| ’22/23 | $33,930,000 | $38,001,600 | $39,358,800 | $40,716,000 |
| ’23/24 | $36,270,000 | $40,622,400 | $42,073,200 | $43,524,000 |
| ’24/25 | $38,610,000 | $43,243,200 | $44,787,600 | $46,332,000 |
| Total | $169,650,000 | $190,008,000 | $196,794,000 | $203,580,000 |
Ben Simmons‘ near-$170MM extension with the Sixers may sound like an exorbitant amount for the 22-year-old, but Derek Bodner of The Athletic argue that the deal could turn into a bargain.
The point guard still needs to further develop his jumper to become great, Bodner cautions. However, Simmons has all the tools to easily become a top-10 talent for the Sixers and should that happen, he would be severely underpaid.