Following an unusual offseason saga that saw restricted free agent Quentin Grimes return to the Philadelphia 76ers by signing the one-year, $8.7 million qualifying offer, the 25-year-old guard is now switching his representation to Creative Artists Agency (CAA).
CAA is a huge agency, with plenty of NBA stars in their portfolio, including Devin Booker, Karl-Anthony Towns, and Donovan Mitchell, just to name a few. On the Sixers, Paul George and Kelly Oubre Jr. share that representation. His previous agent was David Bauman, who currently has no other clients signed to a guaranteed NBA contract.
Advertisement
Grimes’ restricted free agent negotations were odd, as it seemed like there was plenty of room for the two sides to come together. His camp reportedly started with an initial ask of $30 million annually, and then came down to around $20-25 million. Such figures seemed unrealistic with no other teams on the market having the required cap space to offer such a deal.
The non-taxpayer mid-level exception figure was $14.1 million coming into the season. Something around or just above $15 million per year seemed reasonable from an outside perspective. The Sixers would offer Grimes more than any other team realistically could, while locking in a young talent on a reasonable contract. However, it seemed coming out of it that the two sides were never even close to such an arrangement. The only other inkling we heard was Grimes might accept some sort of one-year balloon deal, which would potentially help the Sixers from a salary-matching perspective in a trade. Instead, he signed the qualifying offer, which gives Quentin a no-trade clause.
Grimes is off to a strong start to the 2025-26 season, averaging 17.2 points, 4.1 rebounds and 4.4 assists across 10 games, while shooting 39.7 percent from three-point range. While he will now be an unrestricted free agent next summer, it’s still possible for him to return to Philadelphia. We’ll see how things transpire next July following this change in representation.