Free Agency Snore Fest for the 76ers

Sorry decisions force Sixers to stand pat

The greatest free agency bonanza in NBA history is about to take place as a dozen or so stars all hit the open market at the same time.

The countdown to midnight is on as teams like Chicago, New Jersey, Miami, New York, Washington and Cleveland make moves in the courting free agents like LeBron James, Chris Bosh, Amare Stoudemire, Dirk Nowitzki and Joe Johnson.

In the meantime the 76ers will be sitting on the sidelines.

Money is king in the race for King James and his court and the Sixers already spent all their green.

And, thanks to the NBA’s terrible system of guaranteed contracts, trade rules and salary caps, general manager Ed Stefanski can’t get the Sixers into mix. Teams stuck with underperforming monster deals can’t even compete.

Sixers’ management knew the NBA’s salary structure but choose to try and keep an average team on the court for the past few seasons instead of stockpiling expiring contracts and losing games.

Heck, they lost games anyway might as well have freed up money while doing it. But, bad decisions to sign role players like Andre Iguodala and Elton Brand to star-player deals have put the Sixers in this corner.

Players can pretend they care about winning but the fact that terrible teams like the Nets, Knicks and even the perpetually putrid Clippers can be players for landing guys like James and Bosh who claim they want a ring shows that in reality what they want more is money.

Can’t blame the guys for wanting to get paid but let’s stop pretending that “winning” (as Bosh said) is more important than the Benjamins.

Plenty of Sixers are raking in the Benjamins and not the wins: Broken-down Brand should make about $16 million next season; never-gonna-star Iggy more than $12 million; newly-acquired Andres Nocioni nearly $7 million and shooting specialist Jason Kapono more than $6 million.

Those deals along with bad middling deals to Lou Williams (more than $5 million) and Willie Green (about $4 million) have left the 76ers with no wiggle room.

The NBA salary cap should likely be around $56 million for the 2010-2011 season, reported NPR.

Burdened by absurd contracts, the 76ers have about $63.4 million of salary on the books already for next season, according to HoopsHype. At least there is one positive -- that number shouldn’t put the Sixers over the $68 million luxury tax threshold.

The Sixers have plenty of company on the free agency race bench. Teams like the Lakers, Celtics and Spurs are in similar predicaments with aging stars under big deals, but unlike the Sixers they have rings on their fingers.

Of course the NBA system isn’t at fault here -- Sixers management is. Two off seasons ago when they forked over max deals to bring in a diminishing guy like Brand and keep around a guy who has never made an All-Star team like Iggy. They set themselves up to sit out King James race.

So enjoy watching plenty of teams get better around the NBA in the next week or two -- just don’t expect the Sixers to be one of them.

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