Kelly Oubre Jr. will be more than a mere single-season bargain for the Sixers.
Oubre has agreed to return to the team in free agency on a two-year, $16.3 million deal with a player option in Year 2, a source confirmed early Monday morning to NBC Sports Philadelphia. ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski first reported the news.
Late last offseason, Oubre joined the Sixers on a one-year, minimum-salary deal. He far exceeded the usual production for a player on such a contract, posting 15.4 points, 5.0 rebounds and 1.5 assists per game during the regular season and starting in the playoffs.
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The 28-year-old wing also made meaningful progress as a defender and playmaker in his first season under Sixers head coach Nick Nurse.
Oubre said in March that he'd honed in on “timing, not fouling as much, and just trying to be in the right spots” defensively.
“A lot of times I’m a good on-ball defender, but helping and being off the best players on the other team is where I lapse at,” he said. “So I’m trying to be focused and be there for my guys no matter what. If somebody gets beat, I’m there to help. We have to make extra efforts. It’s just effort and energy, that’s all defense is. I’m just trying to be really focused on that.”
Following the Sixers' first-round postseason defeat to the Knicks, Oubre called Nurse “the best coach I’ve played for, straight up.”
He sounded motivated to help the Sixers go deeper in the playoffs down the line.
“At the end of the day, I want to go to somewhere where they respect and they love me,” Oubre said. “It’s been nothing but love here, of course. … 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.”
Sixers president of basketball operations Daryl Morey called Oubre “such a breath of fresh air” at his end-of-season press conference.
“Kelly ... played so hard, won over the city — which isn’t easy,” Morey said. “He gave us really key minutes in the regular season and the playoffs, so he’s definitely someone that we have interest in.”
