Should the Sixers Regret Not Signing Quentin Grimes to a Long-Term Contract?

This past offseason, the Sixers had a choice. They could either sign Quentin Grimes to a new contract, or they could lowball him and dare him to take his one-year, $8.7 million qualifying offer.

They chose the latter route, by all accounts.

In the Sixers' defense, Grimes' now-former agent seemed badly out of touch with reality. At first, Tony Jones of The Athletic reported Grimes was seeking a contract that averaged $25 million annually. That price later ticked down to $20-25 million annually, per ESPN's Shams Charania, but the Sixers offered him nowhere close to as much.

Grimes' former agent told Charania that the Sixers first offered a four-year, $39 million deal—which the Sixers promptly refuted—and then followed up with a one-year, $8.8 million offer, which was only $100,000 more than his qualifying offer. The latter also reportedly required him to waive his right to veto any trade this season. Grimes' camp declined both.

Grimes' former agent eventually suggested a one-year, $17 million deal without veto rights or a two-year, $34 million pact with a second-year player option, per Charania. The Sixers rejected both offers.

According to Adam Aaronson of PhillyVoice, the Sixers were concerned that "a multi-year deal with Grimes aging poorly would put the team in too dangerous of a position financially" since they already had Joel Embiid, Paul George and Tyrese Maxey signed to max contracts. Aaronson added that the Sixers were not "confident that Grimes would agree to any long-term deal that they consider to be safely cost-effective."

Unfortunately, the Sixers' inability to get Grimes signed to a longer-term pact could now come back to haunt them ahead of the Feb. 5 NBA trade deadline.

How Grimes' qualifying offer hurts the Sixers

Since Grimes took his qualifying offer, he's allowed to veto any trade involving him this season. If he does get traded, his full Bird rights will not travel with him to his new team.

Instead, his new team will only get non-Bird rights on him. That means it can't offer him a starting salary on his next contract that's worth more than 120 percent of what he's currently earning unless it uses a different salary-cap exception (such as the non-taxpayer mid-level exception).

With that in mind, Grimes has little incentive to approve a trade if he gets sent to a team that's projected to be well over the salary cap next year. He'd be better off staying with the Sixers, who would maintain his full Bird rights and could re-sign him despite being well over the projected $166 million salary cap.

That's the biggest hurdle for the Sixers to clear. But even if they can get Grimes to accept a trade this year, having him on an $8.7 million contract limits what they can get in return.

The Sixers are less than $1 million below the $195.9 million first apron after signing Charles Bassey to a 10-day contract. If they take back more salary than they send out in a trade, they'd get hard-capped at the first apron, which means they couldn't exceed that threshold between now and June 30.

Given their proximity to the first apron, the Sixers aren't likely to do hard-cap themselves there. That's where having Grimes on an $8.7 million contract instead of a contract in the $15-20 million range could come back to bite them.

If the Sixers had Grimes on a larger contract, they could aggregate him and Kelly Oubre Jr. ($8.4 million), Andre Drummond ($5.0 million) and/or Eric Gordon ($2.3 million) to acquire someone in the $20-25 million range easily. As is, they'd have to combine all three of Grimes, Oubre and Drummond to reach $20 million.

That effectively takes them out of the running for someone like New Orleans Pelicans forward Trey Murphy III ($25.0 million) or Golden State Warriors forward Jonathan Kuminga ($22.5 million). Instead, they'll likely have to go bargain-hunting for players on minimum or near-minimum deals given their salary structure.

With that said, the Sixers look increasingly justified in not forking over a long-term contract worth $20-plus million per year to Grimes. With Embiid, George and Maxey far healthier this season than they were last year, Grimes' production has dropped significantly.

In 28 games with the shorthanded Sixers last season, Grimes averaged 21.9 points, 5.2 rebounds, 4.5 assists, 2.9 threes and 1.5 steals in 33.7 minutes per game while shooting 46.9 percent overall and 37.3 percent from deep. This year, he's down to 13.3 points, 3.8 rebounds, 3.7 assists, 1.9 threes and 1.0 steals in 30.5 minutes per game while shooting 43.3 percent overall and 34.4 percent from deep.

Realistically, Grimes should be looking for something around the non-taxpayer mid-level exception. Had the Sixers offered him a two-year, $30 million contract or a three-year, $45 million deal this past offseason, they still could have stayed well below the second apron and had a much larger contract to dangle at this year's trade deadline.

Grimes was riding high this past offseason after his late-season breakout, but that might have been more of a small-sample-size illusion than a sign of his production to come. Unfortunately, his unrealistic asking price might wind up costing both him in the offseason and the Sixers at the trade deadline.

Unless otherwise noted, all stats via NBA.com, PBPStats, Cleaning the Glass or Basketball Reference. All salary information via Spotrac and salary-cap information via RealGM.

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