What is going on with Quentin Grimes?

How bad can this situation get next season?

But what if things are better than expected?

Once again, our weekly Sixers mailbag revolves around the same overarching questions. Let’s chat about what’s on your minds:

From @buff985: What’s the “deadline” for a Quentin Grimes contract?

There is no exact deadline for when Grimes and the Sixers must come to some sort of agreement and put the 25-year-old’s restricted free agency to an end. But Grimes has been extended the qualifying offer — a one-year, $8.7 million contract that comes with a no-trade clause and the right to enter unrestricted free agency next summer — and that offer is supposed to expire on Oct. 1.

“Supposed to” are the key words there, because teams can extend that deadline all the way until the beginning of March. If Grimes did not sign with any team or accept his qualifying offer by March 1, the qualifying offer would expire but he would remain a restricted free agent. Even if he was willing to sacrifice an entire season as he nears his physical and athletic prime, Grimes does not have a pathway to regaining control of his own future without taking a massive gamble that he can play yet another season on a below-market deal, maintain the ascent of his stock and then cash in as a free agent in 2026.

The longer Grimes’ restricted free agency has dragged on, the more stressful of a situation it has become for many fans. And the natural inclination is to begin worrying. But Grimes certainly has no reason to rush right now, and no waiting game he plays will change the makeup of the market and the fact that the Sixers have the right to match any offer sheet he signs with another team.

MORE: What is the Sixers’ next move if Grimes accepts his qualifying offer?

Whispers in the media about Grimes seriously considering taking the qualifying offer have started. Those should grow louder between now and training camp, which should begin in the last week of September for the Sixers. Taking that offer is not necessarily advisable for Grimes, but the fact that he can completely upend the Sixers’ long-term control of him by accepting it is the only leverage he has in this entire situation. It would be silly for Grimes’ representation not to float the idea in hopes of scaring the Sixers into offering more money in their long-term offers. But the Sixers surely expect such gambits and will call Grimes’ bluff.

At some point, this has to get done. It would be surprising if training camp opened and Grimes was still not on an NBA team. But he has no incentive to put everyone’s concerns to rest as soon as he can. If anything, securing a deal would give him peace of mind and enable him to go full-throttle with offseason workouts in a way that he has likely not been able to do yet this summer

From @take_sentry: Two hypothetical outcomes: 1) The team stays relatively healthy, but fails in the first or second round of the playoffs (again) and 2) The team has another year of injury disaster and has to tank to try to keep their pick (again). Do Nick Nurse and Daryl Morey survive either one?

Neither scenario is a good one for the Sixers’ two key decision-makers. The first outcome feels like a death sentence for Nurse’s job security; the second one feels like a death sentence for Morey’s job security. After the nightmare that was 2024-25, there is massive pressure on both of them in the season ahead. They know it.

Of course, there is a whole lot of unknown — even in the scenarios you outlined — that would color how folks feel about Nurse, Morey and the Sixers and which people are culpable for which shortcomings that exist within the organization.

Losing in seven games to the best team in the conference in round two is a lot more honorable than succumbing in round one to a team with a similar talent level. In a vacuum, it stands to reason Nurse and Morey would survive the former scenario if they still have buy-in from the best players on the team. It is much harder to envision them surviving the latter outcome.

It is really something to see just how much the landscape has changed since last summer. The Sixers landing on Nurse seemed to represent one of the very few recent coaching hires in Philadelphia sports that actually generated optimism (perhaps some of that was because of Doc Rivers fatigue). Naturally, the frustration in the city grew quickly with Nurse, sometimes with fair bases and sometimes without. The jury is still out entering his third year as Sixers head coach, in part because it has often felt like the creativity he was known for during his time with the Toronto Raptors has not carried over.

Hiring Morey predictably incited skepticism in 2020, but the front office regime preceding him had made so many mistakes that even the people without a fondness for Morey seemed willing to give him a chance. Morey has never been without ardent supporters and even more passionate critics in his career, regardless of whether his team was firing on all cylinders or not. But for the first four years of Morey’s tenure, it was impossible to dispute that, even with the organization’s remaining flaws, the team was not in a significantly better position than it was in when he inherited a disjointed group.

Then came the summer of 2024 and nearly $400 million of commitments to Joel Embiid and Paul George. Ironically, Morey’s hit rate on transactions last summer was very strong: Jared McCain was a home run with the No. 16 overall pick, as was Justin Edwards in undrafted free agency. Early returns on the Adem Bona pick at No. 41 overall are strong. The Guerschon Yabusele signing at the minimum was a hit.

Because of the massive contracts handed out to Embiid and George that are not primed to age well — and, to a lesser degree, an outsized reliance on veterans — Morey’s approval rating within the city has never been lower. He has a whole lot riding on those two players surpassing expectations in 2025-26.

MORE: Morey speaks in Las Vegas

From @qq928537025: Will Paul George attend training camp?

Yes, George will certainly be in attendance for training camp. The real question: what will the nine-time All-Star actually be capable of doing there?

On July 14, the Sixers announced that George had suffered yet another left knee injury and underwent an arthroscopic procedure done by the same doctor the Sixers had perform the scope of Embiid’s knee a few months earlier. The Sixers said in the latest in a long line of medical updates that George would be re-evaluated prior to the start of training camp.

My anticipation is that the team’s next substantive update about George’s knee will come at Media Day or very soon before, as the team will go straight from that to beginning a truncated practice schedule before they depart for a preseason trip to Abu Dhabi. In the days following breaking the story about George’s latest knee injury, Shams Charania of ESPN cautioned that the Sixers and George are expected to take their time as far as getting him back on the floor:

As deflating as it would be to start the season without all key players available yet again, it is hard to argue that a 35-year-old George should be rushed back into game action with his extensive injury history, particularly just concerning that knee since he arrived in Philadelphia.

If George misses the beginning of the season and the Sixers once again pile up early losses, the crime would not be that George did not have his timeline accelerated. The crime would be that the team could not find a way to win without a player whose production lagged far behind his reputation last season.

MORE: Which Sixers are rotation locks next year?

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