Saric Wants to Join Sixers Next Season

By Sean Kennedy (@PhillyFastBreak)

Sixers fans received some good news recently about the team’s 2014 first-round draft pick. No, not Joel Embiid. He still has stem cells from his hip working hard to fix his frustratingly-slow-to-heal navicular bone. Instead, the Sixers’ other first-round pick, Dario Saric, might be coming over to the States sooner than some among us had feared.

In an interview with a Croatian website, Saric discussed his NBA future. Here’s a portion of his quote as translated by Sportando:

“Next summer I will, probably, finally go where I want, to the biggest basketball league in the world, NBA,” Saric said. “It is imperative to do more next year with Efes and then it’s time for America. This year we tried something, but as Efes asked me to stay and said that they remain as an important player, I was forced to stay on it.”

Saric confirms that he, his current club Anadolu Efes, and the Sixers tried to work out a buyout agreement earlier this summer. Obviously that didn’t work out, but he’ll have a much easier time next year, as his contract allows him to opt out of the deal himself, whereas previously Efes also had to agree to it. This latest quote and ones we’ve heard previously all point to the NBA being a life-long dream of his and he’d like to realize that dream as soon as possible.

A fly in the ointment does still remain, though. As laid out very well earlier this summer by Derek Bodner, due to the fact that he would still be limited by the rookie salary scale if he comes to the Sixers next year, Saric would be leaving more than $10M on the table by not waiting until the 2017-18 season. Now, he’s already made millions of dollars internationally, and he’ll still be making millions of dollars per year even on the rookie salary scale, but it would be a tough decision to miss out on that amount of future earnings. Sixers fans will have to hope Saric’s enthusiasm for playing at the highest level provides enough incentive to make the financial concerns irrelevant.

Nevertheless, Saric’s latest comments can only be viewed as good news for Sixers fans. Along with continued growth from Nerlens Noel, Jahlil Okafor, and others, Saric could join a potential crop of 4 first-round picks to finally field a truly competitive roster in 2016.