The Philadelphia 76ers may be in their penny-pinching era.
Philadelphia officially re-signed their free agent guard Quentin Grimes on Wednesday after a lengthy offseason stalemate. Grimes, who was a restricted free agent, is returning to the 76ers on the one-year qualifying offer (worth $8.7 million).
Shams Charania of ESPN reports that the 76ers pulled a seemingly cheap move on Grimes. Charania cited some comments from Grimes’ agent David Bauman saying that their camp initially wanted a contract in the range of $20 million-$30 million per year. However, the 76ers allegedly never made a formal proposal to Grimes until Sept. 24 (nearly three months into free agency) and only ended up offering a contract for four years and $39 million (under $10 million per year).
Bauman then claims that the 76ers, days later, offered Grimes a one-year, $8.8 million deal (just $100,000 above the qualifying offer). That framework also would have been beneficial to the 76ers since Grimes would have to agree to waive his implied no-trade clause as part of that deal. Grimes ultimately turned down both offers from the team.
The reported negotiations this offseason between Cam Thomas, another restricted free agent, and the Brooklyn Nets put into context just how much of a lowball that appeared to be from the 76ers for Grimes.
Eventually, Bauman says, Grimes lowered his ask to around $17 million per year but still got those frameworks rejected by the 76ers. As a result, he is now accepting the one-year qualifying offer, which will give him a chance to hit unrestricted free agency next summer (essentially representing a full breakdown in the relationship between the two sides).
You can read Charania’s full report on the situation here.
In fairness to the 76ers, they have an extremely delicate balancing act here given the highly punitive nature of the NBA’s second apron. Philadelphia already owes a combined $300 million over the next two seasons to their star trio of Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey, and Paul George. They also had a good amount of leverage over Grimes here since they used their No. 3 overall pick in this year’s draft on fellow guard VJ Edgecome, who will be on an affordable rookie scale contract for the next few seasons.
But that still might not be the best look for the 76ers given the way that they have been conducting business this offseason otherwise. They were already accused of lowballing another free agent who ended up leaving the team, and now it looks like Grimes may bolt from Philly at the first chance he gets as a result of their alleged cheapness.