The Philadelphia 76ers are in the midst of one of the biggest offseasons in the rich history of the franchise. After landing the top free agent who was truly on the market in Paul George, the Sixers managed to add Caleb Martin, Eric Gordon, Andre Drummond, and Reggie Jackson while re-signing Tyrese Maxey, Kelly Oubre, Kyle Lowry, and KJ Martin. What makes the moves that much more impressive is that the Sixers’ front office accomplished without giving up a single asset, either draft or player, in the process.
Philadelphia’s offseason has been so impressive in fact, that the franchise was recently praised by a portion of the league for their offseason performance. A recent anonymous survey run by ESPN asked a combination of NBA coaches, scouts, and executives to vote on several offseason topics, including ‘Who had the NBA’s best offseason?’ ‘Who had the NBA’s worst offseason?’ ‘What was the best move of the NBA offseason?’ and more.
Coming into the summer, the Sixers faced an offseason of uncertainty. A risky move to bet on cap space was deemed the best course of action by president of basketball operations Daryl Morey, and it quickly became clear that the team was willing to see this plan to the potentially bitter end.
In the end, the plan was successful, landing the Sixers the best available free agent, Paul George, ahead of a number of legitimate role players who will help the team as it looks to win a championship for the first time in more than forty years. That success was not lost on the voters, 44.4 percent of whom voted the Sixers the team that had the best offseason this summer.
An excerpt from the articles written by ESPN’s Tim Bontemps spoke about the voting results:
“There wasn’t a lot of significant movement this summer, and it’s no surprise that the top three teams that earned votes made the biggest headline-grabbing deals: Paul George to Philadelphia, Mikal Bridges to New York and Alex Caruso to Oklahoma City. In the end, it was the 76ers’ offseason makeover — they also added key role players in Andre Drummond, Caleb Martin, Eric Gordon and Reggie Jackson — that received nearly half the votes after turning the most cap space in the league into the one max free agent available this summer in George.”
Bontemps also records an Eastern Conference executive’s specific opinion on the Sixers’ offseason: “They took themselves to the next level. We’ll see if it’s good enough, but you went from Point A to Point B.”
With the offseason nearly over and the 2024-25 season on the horizon, Philadelphia now hopes to see its success translate not just into the regular season but also into the playoffs. That remains a distance away, but for now, there is an immense amount of excitement surrounding the Sixers as they remain one of the premier teams to watch heading into the season.
