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[Philadelphia 76ers]

Paul George hoping a summer of health and stability will lead to a bounce-back season

Photo by Mitchell Leff/Getty Images

Paul George was the prize of the Sixers’ last offseason, but played in just 41 injury-riddles games. He believes a summer to recuperate will help him regain his form.

The Sixers signing 34-year-old Paul George to a four-year max extension was risky. He’s dealt with injuries in the past and the team was signing him to play next to Joel Embiid, a player with his own interminable injury history.

But even the most Negadelphian among us couldn’t have seen this coming.

George played in only 41 injury-marred games, struggling to resemble his nine-time All-Star self for most of them. As frustrated as fans might be, this was not the season George was hoping for in his cross-country move to Philly.

“This is an amazing fan base, amazing city to play for,” he said, “and obviously there were great interactions with fans and ... I won’t even say bad interactions, but there are interactions that as a player, you can only put yourself in their shoes and respect their opinion.

“Again, it definitely left me with, ‘alright, I wanna get to work this summer’ and this is a place that you want to win.”

Putting aside George’s age, the fit seemed ideal. The six-time All-NBA pick is a two-way wing, perfectly suited to play off of a former MVP center in Embiid and an ascending star guard in Tyrese Maxey. George would likely be the third option on most nights, but at this stage of his career, that seemed appropriate.

Instead, George averaged just 16.2 points per game, his lowest mark since 2011-12 (not including the year he came back from a catastrophic leg injury and played only six games). It was far from his most efficient season, shooting 43% from the field on his lowest volume since 2011-12, and 35.8% from three, the third-worst mark of his career. George was actually most productive on the defensive end, racking 4.0 deflections per game — a top-five mark — in Nick Nurse’s havoc-wreaking schemes.

But suffice it to say, the Sixers were looking for a whole lot more.

So was George, who dealt with two knee hyperextensions, a torn ligament in his pinkie and a groin injury that seemed to linger all season. He didn’t realize the full extent of those injuries until late in the season.

“Again, the injury stuff was some stuff that I didn’t necessarily know I had going on until deep diving,” he said, “and finding out like there was other stuff that I didn’t know was going on that was causing a little limitation which was frustrating — not being able to do things that I normally could do and then finding out the reasons why. Those things are being addressed, so that’s the positive.”

The biggest two obstacles for George were his health and the health of everyone else.

The team’s Big 3 played in only 15 games together. There were a few glimpses of hope in those games. The biggest win was on Christmas Day against the defending champs in Boston. Maxey and Embiid starred — along with the now-Dallas Maverick Caleb Martin.

George struggled from the field but was excellent in helping to slow down the Celtics’ star wing duo of Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, who got theirs but also combined for eight turnovers. George had three steals and a block on the day.

After wins in Utah and Portland, the Sixers melted down in Sacramento and got demolished by Golden State. They took an easy win against Brooklyn but that would be the last game Embiid played for a while.

George’s healthiest and most productive time of the season was in January when his knee seemed to be in a good place and before issues cropped up with his finger and groin. In nine games, George averaged 21.8 points, 6.3 rebounds, 5.0 assists and 1.3 steals. He shot 46.8% from the field and 45.2% from three.

The player the Sixers signed is still in there. How much health allows that player to come out is the big question moving forward. The 15-year NBA vet is hoping a summer of health and already being acclimated to his new home will help.

“I think it’ll be a different summer — at least for me,” he said ahead of the team’s season finale Sunday. “I’m not deciding where my future is or who I’m gonna play for in the upcoming season. I know exactly where I’m at, what I need to do this summer and kind of go from there.”

The last time the Sixers signed a big-name free agent away from the Clippers it was the team’s current GM, Elton Brand. Brand signed what was dubbed the “Philly Max” in 2008 ahead of his age 29 season. He was a two-time All-Star and the type of star player the Sixers needed after trading away Allen Iverson in 2006.

Unfortunately, Brand was coming off a serious Achilles injury and played only eight games for Los Angeles in 2007-08. In his first year with the Sixers, Brand only managed to suit up for 29 games. Though Brand did play in more contests during his Sixers tenure, he was never the same player.

Brand unretired in 2015-16 to mentor the Process Sixers and has since moved to the front office. It’s likely Sixers fans are hoping for a much different fate for George.

“I know what level I can play at when I am healthy,” he said. “Obviously it’s a struggle when I’m not healthy. For me, it’s just try to get my body in best shape as possible [this summer], get as healthy as possible, and continue to do the work that I’ve been doing as far as basketball training to prepare for a season.”

Will George regain All-Star form? Or will his time in Philly be sullied by injuries and ineffectiveness?

For 2025-26 and beyond, the Sixers would gladly take something in the middle of those outcomes.

Source: https://www.libertyballers.com/2025...clippers-joel-embiid-tyrese-maxey-daryl-morey

 

[Philadelphia 76ers]

What Nick Nurse and Daryl Morey can learn from Michael Malone and Calvin Booth

Photo byJesse D. Garrabranty/NBAE via Getty Images

The Nuggets parted ways with both Michael Malone and Calvin Booth because of a ‘cold war’ that was brewing behind the scenes. Can Daryl Morey and Nick Nurse avoid the same fate?

Last Tuesday, the Denver Nuggets made the shocking decision to fire title-winning head coach Michael Malone with only three games left in the regular season. They also announced that they wouldn’t be extending the contract of general manager Calvin Booth, which expires after this season.

ESPN’s Ohm Youngmisuk reported “there was growing tension between Malone and Booth” heading into the season that “grew into a ‘cold war.’” According to Tony Jones, Sam Amick and Zach Powell of The Athletic, Malone and Booth “had been at odds over everything from roster construction to the way players were used, creating tension that started to bleed into the rest of the organization.”

“Booth wanted Malone to use younger players that he drafted and to stray away from using veterans for so many minutes,” they wrote after the news broke. “Jalen Pickett is a good example of this, according to league sources. Booth was dismayed that Malone went with Russell Westbrook over Pickett down the stretch of multiple games last week. On a macro level, Booth and Malone disagreed on several things.”

The Sixers haven’t run into that issue yet with head coach Nick Nurse and team president Daryl Morey. If anything, the Sixers’ relentless wave of injuries this year forced Nurse to lean more heavily on young players than anyone anticipated coming into the year. Although that didn’t translate to many wins, it could have positive downstream effects for the Sixers once they get closer to full health.

Before tearing his meniscus in mid-December, Jared McCain showed flashes of stardom while emerging as the early Rookie of the Year front-runner. When Quentin Grimes arrived at the trade deadline, he seized the opportunity in front of him and established himself as a clear starting-caliber player moving forward. And with the Sixers playing out the string on a lost season in recent weeks, rookie second-round big man Adem Bona has been demonstrating the developmental strides he’s made throughout the year.

All three could be game-changers for the Sixers, who project to be well over the salary cap as long as they have the trio of Joel Embiid, Paul George and Tyrese Maxey on their books. The NBA’s new collective bargaining agreement is effectively designed to hamper teams with multiple max contracts by limiting what they can do in trades and free agency. Teams like the Nuggets and Sixers not only need to hit on their draft picks, but they also have to lean on them more than a win-now team typically would under the old paradigm.

That’s been an issue with Nurse dating back to his Toronto days. It was on full display early this season, too. Kyle Lowry and Reggie Jackson were clear net negatives, but Nurse continued to play them over some of the Sixers’ other young options off the bench. Playing Justin Edwards or Ricky Council IV over either of them wouldn’t have saved the Sixers’ season, but the ineffectiveness of the Sixers’ AARP bench unit didn’t help with their early-season tailspin.

Morey and Nurse need to be in philosophical alignment about the balance of veterans and young players both on the roster and in the rotation moving forward. It’s going to become increasingly difficult for them to replenish their supporting cast around their Big 3.

Luckily, they both seemed on board with the same vision at their end-of-season press conference on Sunday.

“I would say one of those things is I was very focused on finding veteran-type players who generally perform very well in the playoffs, and I didn’t put enough emphasis on the team getting through the regular season,” Morey said. “So next season, for sure, we will be a younger, more dynamic group.”

Nurse added that the “game keeps getting faster and more dynamic,” and that the Sixers needed to be “a little bigger, longer, stronger, more athletic” for “really basic things like defensive transition or defensive rebounding.” (They finished 28th this season in defensive efficiency in transition and 30th in defensive rebound rate.)

The Nuggets are the perfect cautionary tale for the Sixers in that regard. Since they won the 2022-23 championship, they’ve experienced a talent drain. Key reserves Bruce Brown Jr. and Jeff Green both left for richer deals in 2023 free agency, while starting 2-guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope signed with the Orlando Magic this past offseason.

Christian Braun has adequately filled KCP’s shoes in the starting lineup this year, but the Nuggets are short on reliable bench depth. Their other young players have yet to pop in the way that Booth planned.

The emergence of McCain and Grimes gives the Sixers a head start over the Nuggets in that regard. But given their expected roster-building restrictions this offseason—they’ll likely be limited to the $5.7 million taxpayer mid-level exception and only minimum contracts beyond that—they might struggle to add an impact player via free agency. That puts a premium on both internal development and the signings that they do make.

That’s another area where the Nuggets whiffed in recent years. They signed Reggie Jackson to a two-year, $10.3 million contract with their taxpayer mid-level exception in 2023 and wound up spending three second-round picks to salary-dump him the following offseason. They spent their taxpayer MLE this past offseason on Dario Sarić, but The Homie has played only 210 total minutes for them to date.

Again, Morey and the Sixers’ front office have an advantage over the Nuggets in that regard. They nailed a pair of minimum signings over the past two years—Kelly Oubre Jr. in 2023 and Guerschon Yabusele this past offseason—and have found other inexpensive contributors via the draft (McCain, Bona) and free agency (Edwards, Patrick Beverley). In fact, Morey cited the front office’s ability to work the margins as one of the main reasons why he was comfortable building a Big 3 while other teams look to shed costs in the second-apron era.

“In those situations, I like having the challenge,” he told reporters last May. “To me, finding the guys that are overlooked [for lesser deals]. The Kelly Oubres of the world. Getting a Kyle Lowry. Getting players like that. I like that challenge. I think that’s something that the front office is very good at.”

The Sixers need to look no farther than the 2024 Philadelphia Eagles for a crystal-clear example of how the front office/coaching staff dynamic can propel a team to a championship. General manager Howie Roseman knocked it out of the park last offseason both in the draft (Quinyon Mitchell, Cooper DeJean) and free agency (Saquon Barkley, Zach Baun). From there, head coach Nick Sirianni pushed the right buttons throughout the year to get his team to the promised land.

Heading into last offseason, Roseman said the Eagles needed to embrace more of a youth movement and that Sirianni was on board.

“I think that for us to play our young players, to develop them, I think that’s something that Coach and I have talked about to not be afraid of,” Roseman told reporters. “That’s why you draft them. That’s why you sign them.”

Morey and Nurse seem to be on a similar page heading into this offseason. But if they deviate from that plan or begin to clash at some point, they could find themselves suffering the same fates as Malone and Booth if the Sixers underachieve again next year.

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

Follow Bryan on Bluesky.

Source: https://www.libertyballers.com/2025...ey-denver-nuggets-michael-malone-calvin-booth

 

[Philadelphia 76ers]

Editor-in-chief mailbag: At last, it’s finally over ...

Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports

... now I’m ready to be free! (Shoutout if you get the reference.) Hit me with your questions as the Sixers’ offseason begins in earnest.

Hello, friends.

We freaking did it. We made it through one of the most disappointing seasons in Sixers history. The only saving grace is the terrific tank job the team did down the stretch to secure the fifth-best lottery odds in the 2025 NBA Draft. Remember, the Sixers’ first-round pick will convey to the Oklahoma City Thunder if it falls outside the top six.

The lottery will take place on May 12 (should we throw a watch party?) with the draft on June 25. With plenty of time to kill between those two dates, hit me up with some questions!

(Bonus points if you understood the headline reference.)

Source: https://www.libertyballers.com/2025/4/15/24408882/editor-in-chief-mailbag-at-last-its-finally-over

 

[Philadelphia 76ers]

Mavericks GM Nico Harrison ‘valued Caleb [Martin] more’ than Quentin Grimes

Photo by Sam Hodde/Getty Images

Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison met with select media this week and doubled-down on his decision to trade Quentin Grimes to Philadelphia for Caleb Martin.

The only NBA fandom that has had a worse year than those that care about the Philadelphia 76ers is that of the Dallas Mavericks — and with every passing day, the organization seems to twist the knife in further.

Mavericks president of basketball operations and general manager Nico Harrison emerged from the shadows to speak to the media this week for just the second time since trading away Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers in the middle of the night on Feb. 1.

And in that spirit of complete transparency, Harrison held the meeting with select media members and stipulated that no cameras or recording devices would be allowed. Because that’s normal.

I’m not sure that limiting the media or the recording of it helped in any way, as the full transcript of the meeting reveals Harrison’s comments and replies to reporters questions that somehow continue to make things look even worse on behalf of the organization. Such highlights include doubling-down on his February blockbuster, with Harrison stating “there’s no regrets on the trade”.

The full transcript is long but wildly entertaining, for what it’s worth. Well, it’s entertaining as long as Harrison isn’t the general manager of the team you love and support.

But what does any of it have to do with the Sixers? Not much! So let’s focus on the other trade the Mavericks made that garnered less attention on the outset, but is looking like another extremely questionable move from Harrison — Caleb Martin for Quentin Grimes.

Just a few days after the league-shocking Doncic trade, the Mavericks acquired Martin from the Sixers and, in return, sent Quentin Grimes and a 2025 second-round pick to Philadelphia. At Tuesday’s meeting, Harrison was asked about the move.

Tim Cato, DLLS: Nico, you didn’t speak following the trade deadline, having addressed the Quentin Grimes trade. I think I understand loosely why that trade was made. You guys did not feel that you were going to retain Quentin Grimes as he went into free agency. Why was a draft pick attached to that trade, and what were the logic behind the negotiations of that deal in general?

Nico Harrison: Well, it was really about getting Caleb Martin. It was less about Grimes. We, obviously, we traded for Grimes, and we got a good look at Grimes. Great player. I think it worked out for both teams. It worked out for him. He’s a free agent situation, so we got to go to a team where he could shoot all the balls and really display his offense. And for us, we weren’t interested in that. We were interested in how he could help us win games. And we had the opportunity to get Caleb, which the opportunity only afford itself because Anthony Davis, he gave us that ability, because he had a trade clause, a trade kicker, and he opted out of that. And so that gave us the room to be able to do that.

(Am I supposed to be able to take the phrase “he could shoot all the balls” seriously?)

Well, shoot all the balls, Grimes did! He played 28 games for the Sixers, averaging 21.9 points, 5.2 rebounds and 4.5 assists per contest shooting 46.9% from the floor and 37.3% from long range. And that’s all while no stat line is going to show the other things Grimes did for Philadelphia, including keeping the Sixers afloat physically and mentally throughout the final weeks of the season, practically single-handedly.

Martin, meanwhile, played in just 14 contests for the Mavericks, averaging 5.4 points, 2.9 rebounds and 1.9 assists shooting 38.9% from the floor and 25.0% from three-point range. At the time of the trade, Martin had missed the previous dozen games for the Sixers due to a hip injury that ultimately kept him sidelined another whole month before taking the floor for Dallas.

When pressed further about the specifics of the trade, especially the Mavericks’ decision to give up what is now a high-value 2025 second-rounder in addition to Grimes, Harrison didn’t mince words.

Tim Cato, DLLS: “The perception is that Grimes is a younger, better player than Caleb Martin. Maybe you disagree, but why was a second-round pick, a valuable second round pick attached to that deal?”

Nico Harrison: “Well, if you don’t like Caleb, then you’re not going to like the trade. But we valued Caleb more so, and we also got a second-round pick back.”

Alright then.

First, let’s get it out of the way that the second-round pick that the Mavericks got “back” was not originally in the trade deal at all. That concession was made only after there were concerns with Martin’s hip after his physical for his new team. The original deal that Harrison was happy to take was simply getting Martin in return for Grimes and the 2025 second, so I’m not sure Harrison should even get credit for the pick added later. Plus, that second-rounder the Sixers coughed up for Dallas to take Martin is their own for 2030 — where in the draft order that 2030 second-rounder will ultimately fall is completely up in the air as well.

The 2025 second they sent to Philadelphia, however, has settled at 35th overall — just five picks into the later round. Second-round players do not always pan out well in the league, but it is a high-value pick with big potential that the Sixers got out of the deal.

To recap: the Mavericks traded away the better, younger player in Grimes and a valuable second-rounder for a struggling, hobbled Martin that is on a contract that doesn’t expire until after the 2027-28 season (with a player option for that final season) and a 2030 second-rounder that could end up being the last overall pick in that draft.

The Sixers not only got Grimes for the latter half of this season, but will have a chance to keep Grimes around as he is due to be a restricted free agent, giving Philadelphia the chance to match any offer sheet he may sign with another team to retain him.

All because Harrison “valued” Martin more... OK then. Well, on behalf of the Sixers, thanks, Nico!

Daryl Morey (and all other general managers) should really send Harrison a fruit basket, because he’s making them all look better by comparison.

Source: https://www.libertyballers.com/2025...cic-nico-harrison-quentin-grimes-caleb-martin