The Milwaukee Bucks made NBA history this offseason when they waived star point guard Damian Lillard, who still had two years and nearly $113 million on his contract. They wound up stretching his dead cap hit over the next five seasons, so they’ll be paying him more than $20 million per year through the remainder of the decade not to play for them.
The Phoenix Suns appear likely to follow suit with Bradley Beal, whom they bought out of the remaining two years and $110.8 million of his contract to escape
from the chokehold of his no-trade clause. Beal wound up giving nearly $14 million back—almost all of which he immediately recouped from the Los Angeles Clippers—since the Suns already had dead money on their books and couldn’t stretch his full contract had he not. Like the Bucks, the Suns will now pay Beal nearly $20 million per year through 2029-30 not to play for them.
Could this become a new trend, or are the Bucks and Suns outliers? Yossi Gozlan of The Third Apron suggested the Sixers might be the next team to consider it.
Can we expect more teams to replicate this in the future? That is hard to predict since it would require a team to have both a historically negative contract and be in a dire situation due to compounding mistakes.
If there’s one team looming with that potentially deadly combination, it’s the Sixers. They aren’t flush with future draft picks and are obligated to pay Joel Embiid and Paul George’s contracts at 35 percent of the salary cap. Embiid’s health is in serious question, and George, at 35 years old, likely won’t produce $50 million in value over the remainder of his contract. There’s a strong possibility the Sixers may have to consider stretching one of these players in the future.
To be clear, Yossi is not suggesting that the Sixers are currently considering stretching either player. But for hypothetical purposes, let’s explore if/when it would even be possible.
There are two key rules to know about stretching:
- Stretched salary can’t take up more than 15 percent of the salary cap in a given year.
- If a team stretches a player’s contract between July 1 and Aug. 31, that gets applied evenly to twice the number of years left on the deal, plus one. If a team stretches a player’s contract between Sept. 1 and June 30, his current season is paid as normal and the remainder of the contract is divided up into twice the number of years left on the deal, plus one.
The salary cap this year is $154,647,000, which means teams can’t have more than $23,197,050 in stretched salary on their books. That’s the key number to keep in mind for both George and Embiid this year. (You’ll see shortly why we used the exact figures here.)
Currently, George has three years and roughly $162.4 million remaining on his contract. If the Sixers wanted to waive-and-stretch him this year—say, if something goes horrifically wrong with his recovery from his latest knee surgery—his contract would get divided evenly across their books over the next seven (!) years. They’d be left with a dead cap hit of $23,197,020, which is exactly $30 less than the maximum amount they’d be allowed to stretch.
Embiid is set to earn $55.2 million this coming season before his three-year, $187.6 million max extension kicks in ahead of the 2026-27 campaign. Since the value of his extension won’t be officially determined until next offseason once the 2026-27 salary cap is set, it’s unclear how (or even if) the Sixers would be allowed to stretch him this offseason. But for the sake of this hypothetical, let’s assume his extension lands exactly at the current projection of $187,645,248.
Since Embiid has four years left on his contract (including his $67.2 million player option in 2028-29), his dead cap hit would be stretched over each of the next nine (!!!!) seasons. That would come out to $26,985,530, which is nearly $4 million more than the max amount they’d be allowed to stretch. Embiid could earn no more than $208,773,450 over that four-year timespan for him to be stretch-eligible. Much like the Suns did with Beal, the Sixers would have to try to negotiate a buyout in which he gave back roughly $35 million.
Embiid might not be stretch-eligible next offseason, either. If the cap lands at $165,472,000, as Spotrac is currently projecting, the max stretch amount would be $23,638,857. Embiid would just be starting his $187.6 million extension, which would come out to $26,985,530 if divided evenly over seven years.
It’s thus possible that Embiid wouldn’t be stretch-eligible until the 2027-28 season. At that point, he’d have two years left on his deal worth nearly $130 million, which would put his stretched amount at $25,946,010 across five seasons. If the cap lands at $173,746,000—and to be clear, these are extremely rough estimates—teams could stretch up to $26,061,900 in salary that year.
So, the TL;DR: The Sixers do have an escape hatch from George’s contract as early as this season, and he’ll remain stretch-eligible moving forward across the remainder of his career. Granted, they’d be saddled with a dead cap well north of $20 million, which could prove to be a massive team-building impediment in the years to come. But if they’re looking to waive-and-stretch Embiid at any point, the earliest they might be able to realistically do so is 2027-28.
At least George and Embiid aren’t routinely appearing on lists of the worst contracts in the leagu… oh.
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.
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