The Sixers are still trying to pick up the pieces from the shocking news about Joel Embiid’s ill-timed appendicitis, but they don’t have much time to waste. The play-in tournament begins on Tuesday, and it increasingly appears like they’re headed for the No. 8 seed.
With that in mind, the Sixers made a notable roster change on Friday, as Tony Jones of The Athletic first reported.
https://x.com/Tjonesonthenba/status/2042674253619679642
Payne suffered a hamstring strain in Monday’s loss to the San Antonio Spurs that was expected to sideline him for at least two weeks. With the Sixers perhaps battling for their playoff lives next week, they didn’t have time to wait for him to recover, particularly with Embiid sidelined as well.
Since Terry was on a two-way contract, he would not have been eligible to play in the postseason unless the Sixers converted him by Sunday. Now that they are, he will be allowed to appear in the play-in tournament next week.
Will Terry get postseason minutes?
Granted, just because Terry is now allowed to play in the postseason doesn’t mean that he will. He hasn’t appeared in a game for the Sixers since March 25, although he had only one game of eligibility left on his two-way deal based on when he signed it.
In 13 appearances with the Sixers this season, Terry is averaging 4.3 points, 1.8 assists and 1.5 rebounds in only 13.0 minutes per game. He shot 41.3% from deep in limited minutes during his 34 games with the Chicago Bulls this season, but he’s shooting only 25.0% from three-point range in his brief Sixers tenure.
This move doesn’t necessarily portend a major change in the Sixers’ rotation. Payne wasn’t playing much before his injury, either. This just gives the Sixers a bit more insurance at the 2 behind VJ Edgecombe and Quentin Grimes.
The good news is that the Sixers left themselves just enough wiggle room under the luxury-tax line to make a late-season switch like this.
Coming into Friday, the Sixers were roughly $139,000 below the tax. If the Sixers sign Terry ahead of Friday’s game against the Indiana Pacers, he’ll earn roughly $40,000 on his prorated minimum contract. That would leave the Sixers just under $100,000 below the tax.
They could always wait until Sunday to sign him to save an extra $26,000, but that wouldn’t affect their tax status either way. Never doubt the Sixers’ devotion to saving money during a lost season, though.
Embiid released from hospital
In other promising news, the Sixers announced Friday that Embiid was discharged from the hospital in Houston and is returning to Philadelphia. The team noted his surgical recovery “will be managed by team physicians in consultation with his surgeon,” although “a timeline for return to basketball activities has not yet been determined.”
Injury expert Jeff Stotts said Sixers fans should “anticipate a multi-week absence that could impact just how the team’s season ends.” He noted that since the 2005-06 season, an in-season appendectomy results in players missing 23 days on average, which would stretch Embiid’s absence beyond the play-in tournament to at least the first round of the playoffs.
The Sixers battled valiantly without Embiid on Thursday in Houston after falling into a huge hole early in the game, but they still fell short. It might be a tall task for them to even get out of the play-in tournament at this point, much less make noise in the playoffs.
That would set up yet another fascinating offseason in Philadelphia.
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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.
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