The NBA’s new 2027-28 salary-cap projection bodes well for the Sixers

This offseason, new Sixers president of basketball operations Mike Gansey turned lemons into fresh-squeezed lemonade. Not only did the Sixers flip Paul George for Jaylen Brown and sign LeBron James to a minimum contract, but they also rounded out their depth by splitting the non-taxpayer mid-level exception between Anfernee Simons and Dean Wade and spending part of their bi-annual exception on Ariel Hukporti.

As long as they have all three of Brown, Tyrese Maxey and Joel Embiid on max contracts, the Sixers can’t be big offseason spenders. But the NBA’s latest salary-cap projection for the 2027-28 season could give them some unexpected financial wiggle room.

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On Saturday, Fred Katz and John Hollinger of The Athletic reported that the latest cap projection jumped from the initial $174 million up to $176 million. The luxury-tax line is now projected to be $213 million instead of $211 million, and both the first and second aprons would increase by roughly $2 million as well.

That comes out to a roughly 6.7 percent increase, which still doesn’t fully cover the 8 percent annual raises in Embiid, Brown and Maxey contracts. But it’s better than the previous projection (5.5 percent), which could have put the Sixers into a tight financial bind next offseason.

If the $176 million projection holds—or even goes up further—the Sixers could start dreaming bigger about their free-agent plans in 2027.

Which MLE will the Sixers have?

Between Embiid, Brown, Maxey and VJ Edgecombe alone, the Sixers already have $180.1 million tied up in 2027-28. Add in Wade ($9.45 million) and Labaron Philon Jr. ($3.8 million), and they’re at roughly $193.3 million in guaranteed salary.

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Simons has a $6.3 million player option for the 2027-28 season and LeBron has a $4.1 million player option. Both figure to decline those options, barring something catastrophic.

The Sixers also have relatively inexpensive team options on Justin Edwards ($2.6 million) and Adem Bona ($2.5 million). Edwards’ salary is almost identical to the projected minimum salary for 2027-28, while Bona’s is more than $100,000 below that. The Sixers therefore…

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Publish date : 2026-09-15 15:44:00

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