The Philadelphia 76ers have apparently been pinching some pennies this offseason.
The 76ers lost forward Guerschon Yabusele in free agency earlier this week. Yabusele left the team to sign a reported two-year, $12 million deal with the rival New York Knicks.
On Saturday, Stefan Bondy of the New York Post shared the details of the offer that the 76ers made to Yabusele this summer. Bondy reports that their offer was only for a one-year minimum contract (worth roughly $2.6 million).
In a recent interview, Yabusele called out the 76ers for lowballing him in negotiations and noted that it seemed like the team did not actually want him back. At an offer of less than half as much per year and roughly $9 million less overall than what he got from the Knicks almost immediately after the free agency period began, Yabusele was definitely correct with that assessment.
Yabusele, 29, was a key member of the rotation for Philly this past season. He averaged 11.0 points, 5.6 rebounds, and 2.1 assists per game to go along with stellar defense. With those kinds of statistics, Yabusele appeared to have clearly outplayed veteran’s minimum value.
For the 76ers, they probably want to watch their spending considering that they still owe the Joel Embiid-Paul-George-Tyrese Maxey trio a total of roughly $300 million over the next two seasons combined. But this is not the first time they have been called out for being cheap (or otherwise shady) in free agency during the Daryl Morey era.
