Here’s how VJ Edgecombe’s rookie contract will affect the Sixers’ salary sheet

With NBA free agency rapidly approaching and the first round of the 2025 draft in the books, it's time for every calc nerd's favorite activity: cap sheet math!

Get excited!

(Loud boos ensue, tomatoes fly in from the crowd and pelt me in the face.)

Start with newest Sixer, VJ Edgecombe.

Rookie deals are scaled by draft slot. According to RealGM, here's what the base salary of that rookie deal looks like for the third overall pick:

First year: $9,257,400

Second year: $9,719,900

Third year: $10,183,200

Fourth year option (percentage increased over third-year salary): 26.4 percent

Qualifying offer (percentage increase over fourth-year salary): 41.2 percent

Here's where the math starts.

First-round selections can sign for up to 120 percent of their scale and as little as 80 percent of it. It is extremely rare that teams do not reward their first-round selection with that 120 percent.

So, for the purposes of the 2025-26 season, Edgecombe would theoretically receive a bump to $11,108,880.

Why do you care? Why does this matter?

Their current roster - which includes a slew of player and team options and partial or non-guarantees that create variables in these calculations - would push the Sixers to within $7.5 million of the first apron in 2025-26 after including Edgecombe's salary.

The non-taxpayer mid-level exception is projected to be $14,105,000 next season.

If you use that exception, your payroll cannot exceed the projected $195,945,200 first apron for the entire season.

Let's say Guerschon Yabusele enjoys a robust free-agent market, one that bids his price up to the entire value of that non-taxpayer mid-level exception. Edgecombe's introduction, regardless of the draft slot bump, eats up Philadelphia's space to offer that full non-taxpayer mid-level exception.

But couldn't the Sixers meet him in the middle and offer more than the value of the taxpayer mid-level exception out of the non-taxpayer mid-level?

As things stand, the Sixers could offer Yabusele - or any other free agent - the value of the taxpayer mid-level, which is $5,685,000. Even though their payroll would not be able to exceed $207,824,100 (or, the second apron) for all of next season, it would represent some additional room to operate. But offering Yabusele more than the taxpayer mid-level and less than the bigger mid-level would result in hard-capping at that aforementioned first apron.

So that is not a way to circumvent the restrictions.

Given their needs - which include fielding a complete roster - it is nearly impossible to imagine Philadelphia wanting to hard-cap themselves at the first apron.

In other words, as the roster currently stands, the math says the Sixers probably knew that their path to keeping Yabusele in Philadelphia was complicated at best heading into Wednesday's draft.

Perhaps his market won't be as fruitful as the example forecasts. Perhaps Yabusele is willing to take less to stay in the city that gave him a second chance at NBA life and build a more permanent home in a place he's found stability.

I wouldn't bank on it. 

There is some degree of maneuverability here, though. If any or all of Andre Drummond, Eric Gordon and Kelly Oubre Jr. opt into their contracts, the Sixers could trade them in an effort to back into non-taxpayer mid-level space. They could also decline the team option on Lonnie Walker IV's contract.

But that doesn't get rid of another inhibiting factor: Quentin Grimes' contract.

There has been absolutely zero indication that they'd let Grimes get away as a restricted free agent whose Bird rights they own. While the aprons don't inhibit the Sixers from offering Grimes as much as they possibly can, his salary will impact which mid-level exception they have access to (if any at all).

When there are that many roadblocks to keeping a player aboard the ship, it logically seems improbable that it'll happen.

Philadelphia's decisions in Thursday's second round of the draft may forecast what they see happening with one of the lone bright spots from last season.