One way to look at the choice the Sixers made in signing Joel Embiid to a five-year, $148 million contract extension is to look at what they might’ve done with the money if they’d ended up letting him walk. Granted, that wasn’t a guaranteed consequence if they’d forced him to play out this season before agreeing to a new deal. If Embiid ended up playing 70 games and winning MVP, they still would have been able to match any offer he received in restricted free agency next summer. But they would have been risking him deciding to play out the 2018-19 season on a qualifying offer and then hitting unrestricted free agency and signing somewhere else.
A few more thoughts on the Joel Embiid extension
