Everyone loses: Quentin Grimes accepts qualifying offer, returns to Sixers

At last, there is a resolution on Quentin Grimes' contract.

The shooting guard accepted the Sixers' qualifying offer with hours to spare before the deadline on that contract, according to Shams Charania.

Grimes' qualifying offer will pay $8.7 million over the 2025-26 season.

In accepting the qualifying offer, Grimes possesses a no-trade clause for the duration of this season and will be an unrestricted free agent next summer.

Throughout the summer, the indications were that Grimes desired a contract that would pay roughly $30 million annually.

There's been quite a bit of posturing over the last several months, perhaps blurring the reality of the situation. What stands out from ESPN's reporting is the following:

"Days later, Grimes was offered a one-year, $8.8 million deal that gave him $100,000 more than his qualifying offer in order to waive an inherent no-trade clause. Those frameworks were declined, [Grimes' agent] said, and negotiations never advanced," Charania wrote.

"On Wednesday, [Grimes' agent] said Grimes' side offered the 76ers a one-year framework at $17 million while waiving the no-trade clause and a two-year deal at $34 million with a player option. Both were rejected by the 76ers, [Grimes' agent] said."

That paints an obvious picture. 

The Sixers seemingly valued the ability to retain Grimes on a cost-effective contract at the expense of maximizing flexibility in team-building.

Why?

Even if Grimes were to waive his no-trade clause at some point this season, any team that trades for him will not retain his Bird rights. It'll be more difficult to re-sign him unless that team has significant cap space in the summer, lowering his trade value.

A balloon contract of any type, such as the ones reportedly proposed above, would've ostensibly resulted in the waiver of Grimes' no-trade clause as a condition of agreement. That would make him a more valuable trade chip instantly, should the Sixers decide to move him during this season.

As evidenced by the $100,000 incentive reportedly offered, the Sixers clearly thought about that, as well.

In the end, there was one benefit to Philadelphia in this outcome. The qualifying offer gives the Sixers a path to clearing themselves of the luxury tax by the trade deadline.

That would be a forgivable outcome given the uncertainty surrounding the team. However, it is not for two reasons. First, there's a history of avoiding the luxury tax even when the team was a clear-cut contender. Second, saving money may come at the expense of maximizing the team's assets.

That's a sin.

The Sixers have quite a bit of guard depth regardless of the Grimes outcome. Keeping him long-term was not and, I suppose, still isn't out of the realm of possibility. But this was the worst-case scenario from a team-building perspective.

But they aren't the only ones with a bad outcome here.

Grimes is taking a risk. He's not just betting on replicating or surpassing his production from last season, but he's rolling the dice on injury luck.

Perhaps it's a gamble that pays off, and maybe he's laughing at Philadelphia all the way to the bank next summer. But it's a necessary gamble partially because it remains very unclear what he and his representation spending the whole summer doing.

The Sixers were not wrong to avoid over-paying Grimes. But they had every advantage in retaining his services at market price.

What was the market price?

It remains unclear just how much his agent, David Bauman, tried to conjure up a competitive market. Doing so would give team Grimes leverage against the Sixers.

That this ended with the qualifying offer indicates that Grimes never had an aggressive market for his services. Instead, reports portray this as a situation in which Grimes and Bauman waited all summer just to approach the Sixers in the days leading up to training camp.

What were you doing the whole summer?

The qualifying offer is the fart noise that caps an unimpressive outcome for both sides.

Everyone loses.