Bryan Toporek has been a contributor at Liberty Ballers since 2022. Against all odds, he still trusts the Process.
In retrospect, we all should have expected this Sixers season from hell. The vibes were too immaculate all offseason. The pendulum was destined to swing back the other way at some point.
The Sixers entered the offseason with $60-plus million of salary-cap space thanks to their decision not to sign Tyrese Maxey to an extension in 2023. They wound up spending that on Paul George, Caleb Martin and Andre Drummond before re-signing Maxey and Kelly Oubre Jr. and handing out minimum contracts to Eric Gordon, Kyle Lowry, Guerschon Yabusele and Reggie Jackson. They finished their busy offseason by signing Joel Embiid to a three-year, $192.9 million max contract extension in September.
Now that we've reached the All-Star break, we have the benefit of a half-season of hindsight to revaluate the Sixers' offseason moves. While it initially looked like the Sixers had a home run of a summer -- they were routinely mentioned among the offseason's biggest winners -- many of those moves haven't panned out quite as expected.
Jared McCain (No. 16 overall pick): McCain was perhaps the Sixers' biggest hit of the offseason from a value perspective. The Duke product was expected to be on the fringes of the rotation as a rookie, but injuries gave him an opportunity early in the season, and he took off running with it.
Prior to suffering a season-ending meniscus tear, McCain was the clear Rookie of the Year favorite. He averaged 15.3 points in only 25.7 minutes per game across 23 appearances while shooting 46.0 percent overall and 38.3 percent from deep. He's also one of only four Sixers rookies ever to score 20-plus points in seven straight games, along with Embiid, Allen Iverson and Jerry Stackhouse. Not bad for someone who wasn't even drafted in the lottery!
Adem Bona (No. 41 overall pick): Bona figured to spend most of his rookie season shuttling between the G League and the NBA, but injuries to Embiid and Drummond have given him a relatively consistent role over the past month. He's still raw and foul-prone, much like many rookie bigs, but he's far springier and more explosive than Drummond.
Regardless of what happens with Drummond this offseason, the Sixers likely won't want to rely on a 22-year-old as their primary backup to the oft-injured Embiid. However, they'd be wise to continue developing Bona as their third-string center.
Undrafted free agents (Justin Edwards, Jeff Dowtin Jr., David Jones): The Sixers' original UDFA signings were a mixed bag. Jones didn't even make it out of training camp, and the 27-year-old Dowtin has played sparingly. The good news is that Edwards, the No. 3 overall prospect from the 2023 recruiting class, made such a positive impression over the past few weeks that he recently earned himself a standard contract.
Tyrese Maxey (five years, $203.9 million): Signing Maxey to a five-year max deal was the Sixers' biggest no-brainer of the offseason. He was fresh off his first All-Star nod and winning the Most Improved Player award in 2023-24. They had to reward him for holding off on his extension in 2023, which gave them enough cap space to sign someone to a max contract this past summer.
While Maxey got off to a slow start this year, he went supernova in January. Prior to his dud against the Toronto Raptors right before the All-Star break, he scored 25-plus points in 18 straight games. He's one of only three players in Sixers history to have done that, joining Embiid and Iverson.
No matter what happens with Embiid and George from here, the Sixers are in good hands with Maxey moving forward.
Paul George (four years, $211.6 million): When the Sixers pried George away from the Los Angeles Clippers, it was arguably their biggest free-agent coup in franchise history. On paper, he was the perfect complement to Maxey and Embiid. That hasn't quite played out as expected thus far, though.
Injuries have largely been to blame for that. George suffered a pair of bone bruises early in the season that caused him to get off to a slow start, and he's recently been hampered by a torn tendon in his finger. He's still a far better defender than Tobias Harris, but his 16.1 points and 5.3 rebounds per game are otherwise giving major Tobias 2.0 vibes.
The Sixers can only hope that injuries are the main reason for his nosedive in productiveness, not age. Otherwise, what once looked like the final missing piece to their championship puzzle -- their own version of Saquon Barkley -- could turn into a franchise-strangling albatross.
Caleb Martin (four years, $35.0 million): At the time, Martin looked like another offseason steal for the Sixers. After all, he reportedly turned down a five-year, $65 million extension offer from the Miami Heat to test free agency, which backfired when he had to settle for $30 million less. Martin was a key piece of the Heat team that made it to the 2023 NBA Finals, so his playoff experience made him appealing to a team that routinely collapses in the conference semifinals.
However, the Sixers signed Martin to be a low-usage, three-and-D gap-filler alongside their Big 3. He wasn't able to scale up like Maxey or Oubre with George and Embiid shuffling in and out of the lineup all year. Hip and shoulder injuries also caused him to miss 17 games during his brief Sixers tenure.
The Sixers cut bait on Martin at the trade deadline, sending him to the Dallas Mavericks for Quentin Grimes and their own 2025 second-round pick back. They later had to amend the trade and include a 2030 second-round pick because he got red-flagged during his physical.
The last thing the Sixers need is to build around more damaged goods -- they already have plenty of that with Embiid and George! -- and the early returns on Grimes are promising. But this signing clearly did not pan out as expected.
Andre Drummond (two years, $10.0 million): Drummond became a fan favorite during his first half-season stint in Philly back in 2021-22, as he was the best backup to Embiid that the Sixers ever had. That hasn't been the case this time around. He's had to start more games than expected because of Embiid's injuries, but he's been largely ineffective on both offense and defense.
Drummond is still an elite rebounder, and it won't be the end of the world if he picks up his $5.0 million player option in 2025-26. The Sixers could benefit from having a few non-minimum contracts to use for salary-matching in trades, after all. However, his presence on the roster has been more of a negative than a positive this year.
Kelly Oubre Jr. (two years, $16.4 million): Oubre was the steal of the 2023 offseason for the Sixers, who signed him to a one-year, minimum-salary deal in late September. After he averaged 15.4 points and 5.0 rebounds per game while starting in 52 of his 68 appearances in 2023-24, it was fair to wonder whether he had priced himself out of Philly, particularly if the Sixers went big-game hunting in free agency. Instead, they managed to sign him to a 1+1 deal using their room mid-level exception.
While the Sixers at large have been a glaring disappointment this year, Oubre is one of the only players who hasn't completely embarrassed himself. He's attacking the glass with fervor and is averaging a career-high 6.5 rebounds per game, although his 28.8 percent clip from deep is a legitimate concern moving forward. Still, the Sixers should look to leverage their Early Bird rights on Oubre this coming summer to re-sign him if he opts out.
KJ Martin (two years, $16.0 million): Martin's two-year, $16 million balloon deal seemed to be specifically designed for salary-matching purposes in a trade. They figured to package him with a draft pick or two and land another rotation player to round out what they hoped to be a championship-caliber supporting cast.
Instead, the Sixers spent two second-round picks to salary-dump Martin at the trade deadline so they could get under the luxury-tax threshold. It was an egregious waste of both picks and Martin's contract from a trade perspective. This could have been a home run signing -- a sneaky loophole to bypass the restrictions that apron teams face -- but it was instead yet another wasted opportunity in a season full of them.
Eric Gordon (two years, $6.8 million): Gordon got off to a dismal start this season, raising concerns about whether he was yet another washed vet a la Paul Millsap, DeAndre Jordan, etc. He averaged only 5.0 points while shooting 36.0 percent overall and 27.5 percent from deep across his first 19 games with the Sixers. However, he turned his season around after undergoing oral surgery in late December. Across the month of January, Gordon averaged 9.8 points while shooting 52.0 percent overall and 52.6 percent from deep across 17 games (12 starts).
To some extent, it's surprising that the Sixers didn't look to cash in on Gordon at the trade deadline. But if the post-oral-surgery version of Gordon is here to stay, the Sixers might want to keep him around next season regardless of whether he picks up his $3.5 million player option for 2025-26.
Kyle Lowry (one year, $3.3 million): Lowry wound up playing a surprisingly big role for the Sixers last season after they signed him off the buyout market, so it was no surprise that both sides were interested in a reunion this year. However, Nick Nurse told reporters at media day that he didn't envision Lowry playing as much this season as he did last year.
Lowry is averaging only 18.9 minutes per game, the fewest since his rookie season, and he's scoring a career-low 4.0 points per game while shooting a career-worst 35.1 percent from the field. Combine that with a nagging hip injury, and Lowry isn't providing much on-court value this year. He's basically the Sixers' version of Udonis Haslem at this point of his career.
Reggie Jackson (one year, $3.3 million): In theory, Jackson seemed like a low-risk, medium-upside signing. He figured to compete with Lowry for backup point guard minutes behind Maxey after spending the past year-and-a-half backing up Jamal Murray on the Denver Nuggets. His longstanding friendship with Paul George didn't hurt, either.
You know what did hurt? The 4.4 points that he averaged per game while shooting only 39.1 percent from the field. The Sixers wound up cutting bait on Jackson at the trade deadline, shipping him with a late 2026 first-round pick to the Washington Wizards for Jared Butler and four second-round picks. That might help salvage the Jackson signing from being a total loss.
Guerschon Yabusele (one year, $2.1 million): We saved the best for last. Much like with Oubre in 2023, the Sixers' relatively unheralded late-summer signing this past offseason wound up being their biggest free-agency steal. Yabusele flamed out of the NBA after only two years with the Boston Celtics, but he's making the best of his opportunity this time around.
With Embiid and Drummond in and out of the lineup all year, Yabusele has already started 27 games as a small-ball center or as a 4 next to Embiid. He's averaging 11.1 points and 5.5 rebounds in only 26.6 minutes per game while shooting 51.6 percent overall and 40.1 percent from deep. Team president Daryl Morey all but admitted that the Sixers' cost-cutting at the trade deadline was done in part to free up more flexibility to re-sign Yabusele this offseason.
Joel Embiid (three years, $192.9 million): The Sixers had until Oct. 21 to sign Embiid to an extension this season. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been eligible for a new deal until this coming summer, which could have been a contract year for him. Rather than risk having him decline his $59.0 million player option to become an unrestricted free agent in 2026, the Sixers gave him a three-year max extension to ensure he'd be under contract through 2027-28.
Morey said the Sixers consulted upward of a dozen doctors before making that commitment, but the early returns have not been promising. Embiid has been dealing with unpredictable knee swelling that has already caused him to miss 30-plus games this season. Both Morey and Embiid have expressed optimism that his knee will continue to improve as he gets further removed from his knee surgery, but Embiid also recently hinted that he might need another surgery.
If that knee continues to plague Embiid next season and beyond, that will likely spell the end for this era of the Sixers. No pressure.