The one small silver lining for the Philadelphia 76ers with the Paul George suspension? It appears to help them solve a vexing financial problem.
Philadelphia was in a bit of a pickle in figuring out how to get under the luxury tax at next week’s trade deadline without subtracting key players. The 76ers also still needed to agree to standard contracts for key contributors Dominic Barlow and Jabari Walker; both are on two-way contracts, which only allow players to be active for 50 regular-season games and do not allow teams to use them in the postseason.
Prior to George’s suspension, Philadelphia was more than $7.13 million above the tax line, with 14 players under contract for the rest of the season. Trading players like Andre Drummond ($5 million) or Kelly Oubre ($8.4 million) to teams that could absorb their cap hits, in addition to doing the same with two other smaller contracts, seemed to be their only way to get under the tax.
Enter the George suspension. As it turns out, this will reduce the Sixers’ tax bill considerably.
According to the CBA, the forfeited salary of suspended players only counts half against the luxury tax, and thanks to George’s enormous salary ($51.7 million), he forfeited quite a bit. The CBA has a special formula to calculate the exact amount, but it nets out that a 25-game ban will cost George $11.74 million. As a result, the suspension will cut the Sixers’ luxury tax bill by half that amount, or $5.87 million.
Thus, Philadelphia is now just $1.26 million over the tax line, an amount they can easily cover by trading little-used vet Eric Gordon to another team and sending cash or a late second-round pick for their troubles. If they succeed, they’d go from having to pay an extra tax on their roster to actually receiving money from other tax-paying teams.
More realistically, the Sixers likely need to send out two minimum-salary players — so, in addition to Gordon, either beloved vet Kyle Lowry or little-used second-round pick Johni Broome — to make the math work on signing both Barlow and Walker to standard contracts. Only then would they be back up to the roster minimum of 14 players.
However, depending on how much wiggle room the 76ers end up with below the tax line, the Sixers could even do more for the back end of the roster. In addition to filling the 15th spot — perhaps with current 10-day contract signee Charles Bassey — Philadelphia can also place George on the ‘suspended list” after he’s missed five games and sign a 16th player to their roster for the remainder of his suspension.