Quentin Grimes’ audition with the Sixers for the 2025 free-agency class couldn’t have gone much better. He averaged 21.9 points in 28 games on 46.9/37.3/75.2% shooting splits. He also bore no responsibility for the team’s record over that time as they began to pile the roster with G-Leaguers and journeymen from overseas in a tanking effort to retain their draft pick.
Likely thanks to an overambitious agent, that didn’t translate to lucrative offers though. Grimes’ restricted free agency became a tumultuous
stand-off that dragged on all offseason and ended with him taking an $8.7 million qualifying offer just as the Sixers were beginning training camp.
For the first month of the season, Grimes had appeared to put such a rocky negotiation behind him, scaling down perfectly into the sixth man role the team envisioned for him when they acquired him. Through November, he was averaging 17 points a night shooting 44.8% from the field and 36.9% from behind the arc.
As the season wore on, he struggled more and more to consistently be that complementary player. He shot 31% from three the rest of the season and as his percentage dropped, so did his willingness to take them.
He was getting up 6.4 threes a game in that first month and a half versus 4.6 the rest of the way. The drop off in his three-point shot hampered his other ways to score, as did the erratic playmaking that saw him post the second-highest turnover percentage of his career.
By the time the playoffs rolled around, the scuffling Grimes was still the only trustworthy one out of the Sixers’ “glut of guards” off the bench.
He was phenomenal in Game 5 of round one against the Boston Celtics, dropping 18 points while providing stellar defense on the other end, but it was short-lived. That ended up being Grimes’ only meaningful double-digit performance of the postseason (he scored 12, mostly in garbage time, in a Game 4 blowout loss to the Celtics). Game 2, the only game the Sixers had a shot in against the New York Knicks, was lost because this glut could not withstand the 1:12 Maxey sat on the bench.
The context has changed this time around with Grimes set to hit the market again, this time as an unrestricted free agent, but what kind of offers he will get and from who are just as unclear. Grimes is one of two key free agents for the Sixers this summer, along with Kelly Oubre Jr. Andre Drummond and Kyle Lowry’s contracts are also set to expire.
With three max contracts still on their books, the Sixers are in a pretty similar cap situation they were last summer, with room for about one real contract to hand out in free agency before hitting the first apron. It’s probably a safe assumption to say they’d want to stay under that so they’d be able to use the $15 million non-tax payer mid-level exception.
The Sixers’ choice is likely not going to be as binary as this, especially given the expected financial limitations, but if it comes down to keeping Oubre or Grimes, the choice doesn’t seem too hard at this point. Oubre is coming off a career-high three-point shooting season. With the work he’s put in to get his shooting hand and wrist healed the past couple of offseasons, that feels sustainable as well. The chemistry he’s developed cutting off Joel Embiid has made him malleable and scalable for this team in a way Grimes has yet to figure out.
The best case to be made for retaining Grimes is that his value around the league remains a lot lower than many would have expected after how his previous season ended. He no longer has the restricted tag that would scare teams with cap space away, but his struggles to fit in nicely as a role player seem likely to give any contender pause.
It would also go a long way in explaining how a guy with so many sought-after traits in the current NBA has already played for four teams through his first five seasons.
In his exit interview, with his season having just ended only hours prior, Grimes admitted he isn’t sure what he’s looking for in free agency just yet. He did feel like it was a solid season, one he felt he showed he could do different things when needed.
“Whenever guys were in and out or were dealing with injuries or whatever I feel like I was able to prove myself every time I stepped on the court,” he said. “If I had more responsibility, if I was in a bench role, I would come in and just try to make an impact anyway I can. So, I’m just kind of digesting the whole season as a whole right now.”
With a new agent, Grimes will hope his free agency goes better this time around. The Sixers, on the other hand, might be even more cautious than they were a year ago.
