Tag: martin

2024 NBA free agency: Sixers to reportedly sign veteran wing Caleb Martin away from Heat; waive Paul Reed nba,free,agency,sixers,to,reportedly,sign,veteran,wing,caleb,martin,away,from,heat,waive,paul,reed,liberty,ballers,front-page,nba-free-agency,76ers-free-agency-rumors-news

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The Sixers aren’t done yet.

The team will reportedly sign veteran wing Caleb Martin to a four-year, $32 million deal. To gain the necessary cap space, the Sixers will waive Paul Reed. ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski was the first to report the signing and Reed being waived. The final year of Martin’s deal is a player option, per Michael Scotto of HoopsHype.

In Martin, the Sixers get a battle-tested and versatile wing. He averaged a career-best 10.0 point per game last season, though the volatility with Miami’s roster likely contributed to a drop in efficiency. He shot just 43.1% from the field and 34.9% from deep, his lowest marks since 2020-21.

Though Martin has consistently raised his level of play in the postseason. His best stretch might’ve occurred during the Heat’s surprising run to the Finals in 2023. He averaged 12.7 points per game that postseason on 65.7% true shooting. He saved his best performances for the Eastern Conference Finals, where he averaged 19.3 points in seven games against the Boston Celtics. Across 28 playoff games the past two seasons, Martin has averaged 12.5 points per game on 51.8/42.6/85.0 shooting splits.

Aside from the offense, Martin is a super versatile defender. At 6-foot-5 and with a 6-foot-10 wingspan, he’s capable of guarding one through four. That could be key for the Sixers as the roster currently lacks any real players that fit the four position. Martin is plenty capable of scaling up. With Martin, Paul George and Kelly Oubre, Jr., the Sixers’ potential starting group features a switchable and talented defensive trio of wings.

As simplistic as it sounds, Martin is able to dribble, pass, shoot and defend. Oftentimes it’s felt like the Sixers had so many players who were specialists of some kind. Martin offers plenty of versatility in a sport that’s becoming increasingly positionless.

Martin, who went to NC State before transferring to Nevada, is now 28 years old. He spent his first two seasons with the Charlotte Hornets before spending the last three in Miami. His twin brother, Cody, is currently with the Hornets.

For the Sixers and Reed, it’s surely a little bittersweet. The big man from DePaul was a draft success story for the team. Reed was the third-to-last pick in the 2020 NBA Draft, signed a two-way deal with the Sixers and went on to win the G League Rookie of the Year and MVP. After a successful postseason run in 2023, Reed signed an offer sheet with the Utah Jazz that the Sixers matched. After a difficult season in 2023-24, a clause in the contract that was meant to hurt the Sixers actually helped them. With the team failing to make the second round, Reed’s $7.7 million cap hit became non-guaranteed.

All the Sixers’ reported moves, including their agreement with Paul George, can become official starting at 12:01 p.m. Saturday. With Martin, the team will have nine players either officially under contract or agreed to terms. Second-round pick Adem Bona would make 10. Expect a bunch of minimum deals to come shortly.

2024 NBA Free Agency: Sixers have ‘had discussions’ with Caleb Martin nba,free,agency,sixers,have,had,discussions,with,caleb,martin,liberty,ballers,front-page,nba-free-agency,76ers-free-agency-rumors-news

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The Sixers didn’t wait long to make a major splash in NBA free agency by landing Paul George, and have only added to that with more solid moves like adding Andre Drummond and Eric Gordon.

Next, the Sixers are looking to further bolster their forward depth. As Barry Jackson and Anthony Chiang of the Miami Herald have now reported, the Sixers have had discussions with Heat free agent Caleb Martin:

The 76ers have also had discussions with Heat free agent Caleb Martin as they scan the free-agent market for options to fill their roster, according to a league source. …

The most the Heat can currently offer Haywood [Highsmith] or Martin while remaining under the ultra-punitive second apron is a contract with a starting salary of about $7 million with a maximum of 8 percent raises each season.

If the Sixers waive Paul Reed, they can still create about $9.2 million in cap space, which should give them enough spending power to sign someone like Martin. With the Heat also interested in finding a way to sign DeMar DeRozan using their remaining cap space, the Sixers could well be set up to outbid them for Martin.

Martin is one of the best forwards left on the free agent market. He certainly makes plenty of sense to help fill out the Sixers’ roster and give them even more versatile, wing-heavy lineup options. He’s a solid perimeter defender who can switch across several positions, a pretty confident three-point shooter (even if he isn’t the most efficient at 35.3 percent over the last two seasons, following a 41.3 percent mark back in 2021-22), a decent rebounder for his size, and he’s capable of attacking closeouts and making extra connective passes.

He’s also shown up many times on the playoff stage for Miami, especially in last year’s Eastern Conference Finals.

While the 6-foot-5 Martin doesn’t bring a lot of size or viability to play much at the 4, which is a spot the Sixers still need more help at, the team is also interested in another free agent forward from the Heat: former Sixer Haywood Highsmith.

With good length and the ability to cover forwards and some guards, plus 39.6 percent three-point shooting last season, Highsmith has found his way in the NBA as a 3-and-D role player since leaving Philly. He just had what was easily the best year of his career, playing a notable role for the Heat in 20.7 minutes per game. Partner his key traits with his size at 6-foot-7 and experience playing the 4 in Miami, and he’d be a helpful addition in Philly. It looks like Highsmith could wind up being a bit too expensive for the Heat to keep, too.

Both players make sense as targets for the Sixers right now. Maybe they can even find a way to steal both! We should hear more soon enough.

2024 NBA free agency: How the Sixers should exploit KJ Martin’s cheap cap hold after landing Paul George nba,free,agency,how,the,sixers,should,exploit,kj,martin,s,cheap,cap,hold,after,landing,paul,george,liberty,ballers,front-page,76ers-analysis,76ers-free-agency-rumors-news

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The Sixers made their big free-agent splash overnight Monday, agreeing with Paul George on a four-year, $211.6 million maximum contract. They’ve also agreed to re-sign Kelly Oubre Jr. (two years, $16.3 million), Andre Drummond (two years, “$10-plus million”) and Eric Gordon (one year, $3.3 million veteran minimum), which means they’ve already burned through most of their spending power this offseason.

From here, the Sixers must get creative to round out their roster. KJ Martin might be their best lottery ticket in that regard.

Martin is an unrestricted free agent, but he has a tiny $2.1 million cap hold, and the Sixers have his full Bird rights. They’d slightly cut into their cap space if they kept him on their books instead of an incomplete roster charge ($1.15 million), but having Bird rights on him allows them to re-sign him to anything up to his max salary.

The Sixers could take advantage of that cheap cap hold to both their own benefit and Martin’s. They could keep it on their books, spend the rest of their cap space and then overpay him on a two-year contract with a non-guaranteed second season. They could later look to flip him as salary filler in a midseason trade.

The Indiana Pacers gave Bruce Brown a two-year, $45 million contract last offseason, only to ship him to the Toronto Raptors six months later in the package for Pascal Siakam. The Sixers were reportedly open to emulating that strategy with Klay Thompson and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope this offseason if they struck out on George, according to Jake Fischer of Yahoo Sports.

Martin could enable them to do a miniature version of it.

If the Sixers had a specific midseason target in mind, they could do an exact dollar-for-dollar match on Martin’s new contract. That would enable both the Sixers and the other team to trade those contracts in a straight one-for-one deal and not trigger a hard cap. If they were instead just looking to add a tradable contract to their books, they could use the dollar amount of the taxpayer mid-level exception ($5.168 million), room MLE ($7.983 million) or non-taxpayer MLE ($12.822 million) as options.

The Sixers could try to sign-and-trade Martin if they’re looking to fill that void more quickly, although as cap specialist Yossi Gozlan noted, Base Year Compensation rules would complicate that. Only 50 percent of Martin’s new contract would count as outgoing salary, which would make it more difficult for the Sixers or whichever team trades for him to avoid triggering a hard cap at the first apron. They’d be better off signing Martin to a balloon deal and preserving his contract for a midseason trade.

The only downside to this strategy is if the Sixers plan to hard-cap themselves at either apron with another move. They won’t be adding unnecessary salary to their books in that case. Otherwise, there’s no reason not to do this. They’re going to be over the luxury-tax threshold when they fill out their roster either way, so they might as well go deeper into it to increase their midseason flexibility.

Without Martin factored in, the Sixers can still create roughly $9.2 million in remaining cap space even if they keep Ricky Council IV ($1.9 million) but waive Paul Reed’s $7.7 million non-guaranteed contract. If they keep Martin’s cap hold as well, they could still have around $8.3 million in cap space. Based on the prices for Derrick Jones Jr. (three years, $30 million), Naji Marshall (three years, $27 million) Goga Bitadze (three years, $25 million) and Gary Harris (two years, $14 million), that should be able to net them at least one more solid player.

Once the Sixers used the rest of their cap space, they’d use a minimum exception to sign Gordon, officially sign Tyrese Maxey to his five-year, $203.9 million extension (without a player option!) and presumably use the $8.0 million room mid-level exception to sign Oubre. That means George and Drummond are the only two who are going into the Sixers’ cap space.

The Sixers could also take advantage of expanded salary-matching rules and look to flip Reed’s contract for a more expensive salary—they can take back up to $7.5 million more than they send out as long as they stay below the first apron. Staying below the first apron might be a challenge once they finalize Maxey’s new max deal, though. (Keep that in mind regarding any Dorian Finney-Smith trades you cook up over the coming days.)

They’d be better off spending the remainder of their cap space and then signing Martin to a 1+1 balloon deal with the intention of potentially moving him at the trade deadline. Signing him to such a deal would give the Sixers a way to upgrade midseason that they otherwise wouldn’t have. Again, the only risk here is if they hard-cap themselves some other way.

If not, the Sixers owners should be willing to foot a larger tax bill to improve their new Big Three’s chances of winning a championship. There are no more half-measures after signing George. The Sixers are all-in on winning now.

With some creativity, Martin—and his next contract—could help them do just that.

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.