Sixers Add Much-Needed Toughness By Signing P.J. Tucker, Danuel House Jr. In Free Agency

The Philadelphia 76ers got to work quickly once NBA free agency began at 6 p.m. ET Thursday. They came to terms with forward P.J. Tucker on a fully guaranteed three-year, $33.2 million deal, per Shams Charania of The Athletic, and agreed to a two-year, $8.5 million contract with Danuel House Jr., according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.

The Sixers will be signing Tucker via the $10.5 million non-taxpayer mid-level exception and will be signing House via the $4.1 million bi-annual exception. Using either of those exceptions means they’ll be hard-capped for the entire 2022-23 league year, so they cannot exceed the $157.0 million luxury-tax apron at any point between now and June 30, 2023.

The Sixers also agreed to a two-year deal with free-agent guard Trevelin Queen that includes $300,000 in guaranteed salary for 2022-23, according to Derek Bodner of The DaiDAI
ly Six Newsletter. Once they finalize the contracts for Tucker, House and Queen, the Sixers will be roughly $37.8 million below the apron.

James Harden has yet to come to terms with the Sixers on his new contract, although the two sides are meeting over the weekend to hash out the details, according to Wojnarowski. If Harden wants a starting salary above $37.8 million—the most he can earn next season after declining his $47.4 million player option is $46.5 million—the Sixers will have to shed salary some other way to clear enough room under the apron.

As the final pieces fall into place on the Sixers’ offseason plans, it’s readily apparent that they listened to star center Joel Embiid after their Eastern Conference Semifinals loss to the Miami Heat. Embiid bemoaned the Sixers’ lack of toughness in that series and specifically pointed to Tucker as the archetype of player that they needed to add.

“You look at someone like P.J. Tucker, great player, but it’s not about him knocking down shots. It’s about what he does. Whether it’s on the defensive or rebounding the ball. You look at defensively, he plays with so much energy, believes that you can get from point A to point B, and he believes that no one can beat him and he’s tough, like he’s just physical and he’s tough. And they have a few of those guys, whether it’s Bam [Adebayo] and all those guys.

“Since I’ve been here, I’d be lying if I said that we’ve had, you know, those type of guys. Nothing against what we have. It’s just the truth. We’ve never had P.J. Tucker. That’s really what I’m trying to say. So as the physicality [increases], especially once you get to the playoffs or the later rounds, you need that. You need those guys that are really tough.”

Tucker started in 70 of his 71 regular-season appearances with the Heat and all 18 games in their run to the Eastern Conference Finals. He averaged only 7.9 points on 49.5 percent shooting and 5.7 rebounds per game, but he knocked down 45.1 percent of his three-point attempts and played rugged, physical defense.

Tucker spent three seasons alongside Harden and under Sixers team president Daryl Morey with the Houston Rockets in the late 2010s. Although the Sixers won’t be starting him at center—Embiid has that job locked up for the foreseeable future—they could also experiment with playing him as a small-ball 5 whenever Embiid needs a breather, especially in the playoffs.

Like Tucker, House also spent a few years playing next to Harden in Houston. During the 2018-19 season, then-Rockets defensive coordinator Jeff Bzdelik told Kelly Iko of The Athletic that his defensive versatility was key to Houston’s schemes.

“First of all, he’s very physical,” said Bzdelik. “He has great energy, a great desire to learn. He’s coachable, he picks things up real fast. He just has a very aggressive mentality about him and takes pride in his ability to guard. Without question, because he can guard multiple positions because of his size, tenacity and aggressiveness.”

House bounced between Houston, the New York Knicks and the Utah Jazz this past season, although he made a strong impression during his 25-game stint in Utah. He knocked down 41.5 percent of his 3.3 three-point attempts per game in only 19.6 minutes, and he immediately asserted himself as one of Utah’s best (only?) perimeter defenders.

Harden, Embiid, Tyrese Maxey and Tobias Harris all figure to have starting jobs locked down for the Sixers next year, barring trades involving any of them. Tucker and House will likely compete with Matisse Thybulle for the fifth and final starting spot. The two who don’t win the starting job will join new addition De’Anthony Melton off the bench, which is suddenly teeming with far more playoff-caliber rotation players than the Sixers sported last season.

During his end-of-season press conference, Morey acknowledged that the Sixers needed to add more two-way players this offseason.

“The players who are sort of extreme one-way-type players, it’s challenging in the playoffs,” he told reporters while speaking about Thybulle in particular. “It’s challenging for the coaches; it’s challenging for the players. I think for Matisse, his mission, which he knows, is how can he improve in ways that makes him someone that can make more of an impact in the playoffs. I think he will in the future.”

The Sixers didn’t need to add another high-volume scorer such as Bradley Beal or Zach LaVine this offseason. (Nor did they have the resources to after trading such a huge haul to the Brooklyn Nets for Harden at the February trade deadline.) In Embiid, Harden, Maxey and Harris, they already have four players who are a threat to go off for 20-point points on any given night.

Instead, the Sixers needed to add two-way role players who won’t get targeted on defense in the playoffs and won’t cramp their floor spacing on offense. In Tucker and House, they appear to have acquired exactly that.

There’s no guarantee that these moves will result in a championship, but FanDuel Sportsbook now has the Sixers at +1200 to win next year’s title. That trails only the Milwaukee Bucks, Boston Celtics and Phoenix Suns (all tied at +600), the Los Angeles Clippers and Golden State Warriors (tied at +650) and the Heat (+900).

Once Harden and the Sixers agree to the framework of his new deal, Morey can put a tidy bow on his offseason overhaul…unless he has more moves up his sleeve.

Unless otherwise noted, all stats via NBA.com, PBPStats, Cleaning the Glass or Basketball Reference. All salary information via Spotrac or RealGM. All odds via FanDuel Sportsbook.