Jordan McRae tweeted last night that he was leaving Australia and on his way home.
Does that mean he’s on his way to Philadelphia to play for the Sixers? Not necessarily.
McRae’s team, Melbourne United, had their season end on February 22nd as they failed to reach the playoffs. McRae could, literally, be headed home now that his season is over.
The Sixers could attempt to sign McRae now and have him play for the remainder of the season, something the team has indicated before could be an option. But would it make sense?
The natural reaction is not to lose a year of team control for only a few months of playing time, and it’s one that makes sense. Sam Hinkie has shown a desire to get young players under a cheap contract for as many years as possible, usually with team options or non-guaranteed years in the latter half of the contract.
The Sixers, since they are under the salary cap, are free to offer McRae any contract they desire with that cap space. They are, however, limited to a maixmum of 4 years, as the only way to sign a player to a 5-year deal is if you have bird rights, which the Sixers do not with McRae.
If the Sixers sign McRae to a contract now, they will essentially lose over a half a season of control. Is that a factor in Sam Hinkie’s decision on what to do with McRae now? Absolutely. In fact, it might just prevent them from signing the scorer out of Tennessee.
But there’s another factor.
That other factor is evaluation. The one reason I could see Sam Hinkie and the Sixers giving up a year of salary control is if they feel like now is an opportunity to evaluate McRae. With the Sixers in a unique position where they don’t really care about wins and losses and have minutes available for young players, Hinkie might want to maximize McRae’s availability during this period.
This phase of the Sixers rebuild is likely to extend through the 2015-16 season, but an extra couple of months to evaluate McRae in an environment where he can play early on in his career might be more important than that extra year of control. The odds of a 58th pick in the draft sticking with a team for 4 years is, after all, low, and prioritizing that 4th year of control over even just a few months of player evaluation might be putting the cart before the horse.
The available minutes are not quite what they used to be, with Hollis Thompson and Jason Richardson having worked their way back from injury. And the roster cuts are getting tougher and tougher to make, especially if you’re under the assumption that the Sixers are desirous to give recently acquired Thomas Robinson a look, that they want to give Furkan Aldemir an offseason to get into the shape that Brett Brown wants, and that the lack of point guard depth would keep Ish Smith, or a replacement point guard, taking up a roster spot.
Sam Hinkie might very well keep McRae off the roster for the remainder of the season and maximize how long they can keep him under control. I just wouldn’t say that’s the only consideration, either.
