Fear of the second apron forced the Clippers’ hand, and the Sixers took advantage.
Paul George played his first game against the Los Angeles Clippers as a member of the Sixers on Wednesday night. Earlier that day, we gained more insight into what led George and the Clippers to part ways this past offseason.
ESPN’s Ohm Youngmisuk published a detailed breakdown of how negotiations played out between George and the Clippers and what ultimately led George to leave. He confirmed that the Clippers “were willing” to re-sign George, but they “drew a line at a fourth year with concerns over age, money and flexibility.” That allowed the Sixers to swoop in and sign George to a full four-year, $211.6 million max contract.
George said this summer on his podcast that he “never wanted to leave L.A.,” but he thought the Clippers’ first offer was “kind of disrespectful.” Once they signed Kawhi Leonard to a three-year, $149.5 million extension in January, he said that he would have been willing to sign the same deal, but he added that Clippers “didn’t want to do that.” The Clippers eventually relented, but by that point, George wanted either a no-trade clause or a fourth year on his deal. The Clippers again declined, which enabled the Sixers to sign him.
Why were the Clippers so reluctant to hand George the full four-year max deal that the Sixers showed zero hesitation about offering him? The teams’ respective supporting casts and the second apron appear to have been the primary factors, which speaks to the team-building challenges created by the NBA’s new collective bargaining agreement.
Why the Clippers balked
Had the Clippers signed George to the same deal that they gave Leonard, those two alone would have combined to make roughly $98.4 million this year. Add in the $33.7 million that James Harden is making, and the Clippers would have owed nearly $132.1 million to their Big 3 alone. This year’s salary cap is roughly $140.6 million.
The $188.9 million second apron appeared to be the Clippers’ bigger concern. They already had Norman Powell ($19.2 million), Ivica Zubac ($11.7 million), P.J. Tucker ($11.5 million) and the untouchable Terance Mann ($11.4 million) on their books heading into the offseason. Add those four to the $132.1 million that Leonard, George and Harden are earning this year, and the Clippers would have gone sailing over the second apron once they filled out the rest of their roster.
Had they gone over the second apron, the Clippers would have lost access to their mid-level exception in free agency, which means they would have only had veteran-minimum contracts to offer to external free agents. They wouldn’t be allowed to take back more salary than they sent out in a trade, nor could they have aggregated contracts for a bigger salary. And if they finished the 2024-25 season over the second apron, they wouldn’t be allowed to trade their 2032 first-round pick. If they stayed above the second apron for two or more years, that pick would automatically move to the bottom of the first round.
“Once your pick becomes frozen, [and] if you’re in the second apron for multiple years, you’re really f—ed,” Clippers team president Lawrence Frank told Youngmisuk. “You’re in a situation where you never have cap space and you never have your mid-level exception and you’re just strictly dealing with minimums and trades. Our goal is we want to be a sustainable contender.”
According to Youngmisuk, “the Clippers felt that if they had kept all three stars, the CBA would’ve put a stranglehold on their ability to add players who could do some of the necessary lifting around the trio, especially as Leonard and George aged.” Once George left, they dipped far enough below the first apron that they gained access to the non-taxpayer mid-level exception, which they used to sign Derrick Jones Jr., and the bi-annual exception, which they used on Nicolas Batum. Staying under the first apron also enabled them to sign-and-trade Russell Westbrook for Kris Dunn. (Teams above the apron can’t acquire players via sign-and-trade.)
“The truth is, with Paul not coming back, we were able to upgrade our team,” Clippers governor Steve Ballmer told Youngmisuk. “We don’t [sign] Derrick Jones Jr. if Paul comes back. We don’t [sign] Kris Dunn, [or have] our new defensive identity. Might not have [signed] Kevin Porter Jr., Nico [Batum]. … You could say, well, they’re not Paul George. No, they’re not Paul George.”
In a vacuum, any team would much rather have George than Jones, Dunn, Porter and Batum. However, building around the oft-injured Leonard makes depth more of a priority for the Clippers than it may be for other teams. Once it became clear that George was leaving, the Clippers pivoted to a two-stars-and-depth model rather than trying to create a new Big 3 on the fly.
Why the Sixers went the Big Three route
The Sixers headed into the offseason in a vastly different place than the Clippers. Joel Embiid was their only player who was under guaranteed contract for this season. Meanwhile, Tyrese Maxey had a well-below-market $13.0 million cap hold, which wound up being roughly $22 million less than what he’d eventually end up signing for.
Because the Sixers decided not to sign Maxey to an extension last offseason, they entered this summer with more than $60 million in cap space. Not only did that give them enough room to sign George to a max deal, but they were also able to add both Caleb Martin and Andre Drummond before spending the room mid-level exception to re-sign Kelly Oubre Jr. They rounded out their roster with minimum contracts from there, including Eric Gordon, Reggie Jackson, Kyle Lowry and Guerschon Yabusele.
The Sixers were able to make all of those moves because they didn’t have role players such as Powell, Zubac and Mann under contract heading into the offseason. They’re now $4.6 million above the first apron—so they can’t take back more salary in a trade than they send out—but they’re nearly $6.2 million below the second apron. That means they’re still allowed to aggregate contracts in trades as long as they stay below the second apron after the deal is complete. (Here’s hoping that KJ Martin is renting.)
Thanks to the NBA’s new national TV deals, the Sixers might not even have to sweat the second apron in 2025-26. The salary cap is projected to rise by the maximum 10 percent that it’s allowed to increase, which would put it at $154.6 million. The first apron would be $195.9 million, while the second apron would be $207.8 million. Embiid, Maxey and George will combine to earn roughly $144.8 million next season.
Even if Oubre and Drummond decline their respective player options this coming offseason and the Sixers re-sign them via Early Bird rights and non-Bird rights, respectively, they still might be able to spend the $5.7 million taxpayer MLE and stay below the second apron. They’d have to round out their roster with minimum signings from there, but that’s still far more flexibility than the Clippers would have had if they re-signed George.
Because the cap is currently projected to rise by a full 10 percent over each of the next few years, second-apron concerns might be overblown to some extent. Embiid and Maxey’s contracts will only increase by 8 percent annually, while George and Martin’s deals will only go by up 5 percent per year. In other words: All four will take up a slightly smaller percentage of the cap each season that they’re on their current contracts.
However, the Clippers couldn’t have toed the second-apron line like the Sixers may be able to had they re-signed George. They would have gone flying over it, which would have limited their ability to change up their supporting cast around George, Leonard and Harden. The Sixers still project to be limited in that regard, but not nearly to the same extent.
Aside from injuries, withering supporting casts typically lead superteams to implode. The Clippers already have traded away all of their second-round picks through 2029 along with fully unprotected first-round picks in 2026 and 2028 and first-round swaps in 2025, 2027 and 2029. They aren’t likely to get much relief from the draft. The Sixers still have far more picks either to use themselves or to dangle as trade assets.
While the Clippers have gotten off to a far better start to the season than the Sixers, it’s far too early to declare whether one team was right and the other was wrong about how it approached George this offseason. George’s contract very well may age like three-week-old milk, but that’s a risk the Sixers were willing to take with Embiid in the midst of a win-now window. The flexibility they maintained as a result of Maxey’s cap hold and smaller max contract gave them an advantage over the Clippers from a team-building perspective.
Meanwhile, the Clippers already seem to be eyeing their next big splash.
“We still believe this year we can be very competitive,” Frank told Youngmisuk. “Next year, similar to the playbook we had in 2017, we were two years out … and we feel we have some unbelievable competitive advantages that now have been amplified that are going to help us get high-end talent in their prime.”
If he proves correct in that assessment, the value of the 2028 first-round pick and 2029 first-round swap that the Clippers owe the Sixers may never be higher than it is right now.
Unless otherwise noted, all stats via NBA.com, PBPStats, Cleaning the Glass or Basketball Reference. All salary information via Salary Swish and salary-cap information via RealGM.