Will Kelly Oubre Jr. be too expensive for a return to the Sixers?

Signed last September to a one-year deal, Kelly Oubre Jr. was arguably the best minimum contract signing in the NBA last offseason. Trying to break his reputation as an empty-calories stat compiler on bad teams, Oubre said towards the beginning of the season that he was not just hungry to show what he could do, he was starving.

The results were excellent. Although his averages of 15.4 points, 5.0 rebounds and 1.5 assists weren’t much different than his career numbers, Oubre displayed growth in a lot of areas. Offensively, he reined in his shot selection, thrived as an off-ball cutter, and flashed some better court vision as the season progressed. On the other end, he entered with a label as a defensive liability and left the year with Sixers fans saying in the postseason, “He may be struggling offensively, but we need Oubre on the court as the primary defender on All-NBA guard Jalen Brunson.” Through it all, Kelly became a fan favorite with his dawg mentality, thunderous dunks, random flexes, and ability to never take a bad photo.

Following the first-round series against New York, Oubre discussed what he feels he still needs to work on:

“Obviously my three-point shot. Playing off two feet. There’s a lot of things I’ve learned throughout this [Knicks] series. And just my overall game. I’ve always said the same clichéd answer. I just need to get better overall. But at the end of the day, just honing in on my offensive game. Also, just keeping my body right and keeping my body ready to lock up on defense because I want to guard the best players. I want to guard the best players and I want to go at them if they decide to guard me. … A lot of people rest on defense and I don’t do that. I like to get it the hard way.”

Now, there were certainly still some bizarre moments along the way. Oubre suffered a fractured rib in November while purportedly being struck by a car while riding his bike. It led to a strange period where some people questioned his story due to police not being able to track down the vehicle in question, and also a discussion on the privacy of Ring camera footage. Later in April, Oubre was involved in a car accident when he reportedly ran a red light with his Lamborghini and struck another vehicle. My main takeaway from all this is that Kelly should use a car service to go to and fro.

There was also the expletive-ridden tirade Oubre unleashed on the officials after the Clippers game at the end of March. It was objectively funny, and also, Kelly was right about the missed call, but it also seemingly led to refs swallowing their whistles for weeks on Oubre’s drives out of solidarity with the officiating fraternity. A more mature response from Kelly in the moment, who later apologized in the locker room, could have yielded better results for the team in the long run.

Still, Oubre proved his value as a two-way wing, something teams can never have enough of in this league. Reports are that he is one of the unrestricted free agents the Sixers are interested in bringing back. The question remains whether Kelly played so well that he priced himself out of coming back to Philadelphia. After the season, he discussed what he values in free agency, which definitely leaves the door open for him to remain a Sixer:

“I just want to be loved for me. I don’t know about the business side of it. I mean, I do, but I can’t tell you what I know because I represent myself right now. At the end of the day, I want to go to somewhere where they respect and they love me. It’s been nothing but love here, of course. So at the end of the day, I feel as if there’s unfinished business and a lot of things to be done — and a lot of work to get better and to get us back here past this point and this threshold that Sixers fans have been wanting to get past for so long. I feel as if I kind of failed because we didn’t get past that. I’ve got to just reflect, talk to my family, and sit down and work on the next steps here.”

It also seems like head coach Nick Nurse’s presence would be a draw for Oubre to return:

“Oh yeah. He’s the best coach I’ve played for, straight up. It’s just his savviness. And he’s a rock star for real, so I can get with that. And he also coaches me tough. He understands what he expects of me, and he expects me to go out there and do it. But I just have to exceed expectations like I’ve always tried to do.”

Given their other offseason aspirations with what to do with their available cap space, the Sixers may be hoping to slot Oubre in using the $8.0 million room mid-level exception. Our Bryan Toporek laid out last month how Philadelphia could sign Kelly to a 1+1 deal (i.e. two-year deal with the second year being a player option), then have Early Bird Rights to sign him to a larger extension next summer. However, it’s possible Oubre wouldn’t want to delay his payday by a year, and could take a larger contract this offseason than the Sixers are willing to dish out. Of course, the Sixers could potentially strike out on the big names, and use all that cap space to sign Oubre to a bigger deal in addition to some balloon contracts for other role players.

The Sixers should absolutely look to bring Oubre back. He showed during the regular season that he can toggle between a complementary role and scale up his usage when needed. Kelly also showed he has the chops to hang in a pressure-packed, playoff environment. From a minimum contract to arguably the third-most important player on a team battling in the postseason, it was quite a ride for Oubre Jr. last year. We’ll see if the next leg of his journey keeps him in Philadelphia.