Mike Gansey’s first free-agency swing as the Sixers’ top basketball executive came with a clear theme: fit over familiarity, and two moves that have already paid off.
By the time June 24, 2026 rolled around, Gansey had just navigated his first draft as president of basketball operations and was already staring down the next roster puzzle. Quentin Grimes and Kelly Oubre Jr. were the big questions. The Sixers could have tried to keep both, let both walk, or split the difference and use the $15 million non-taxpayer’s mid-level exception to patch the holes.
Gansey sounded optimistic at the time.
“Obviously I wasn’t here with Quentin, but I’ve heard a lot of great things and we’ve been in contact with his representation as well as Kelly’s,” Gansey said. “So, they’re two guys we’ll hopefully bring back. But you never know with free agency.”
A week later, the direction was obvious. Grimes was headed toward a four-year, $60 million deal with the Los Angeles Lakers, while Oubre was finalizing a two-year, $16.5 million contract with the Indiana Pacers. The Sixers were moving on - and Gansey was already lining up Dean Wade.
Wade, one of the league’s most useful defensive role players, ended up on a four-year deal worth as much as $38.7 million, with $30 million guaranteed. It was a reunion built on trust. Wade said Gansey was one of the key people behind his rise from second-round afterthought to dependable NBA rotation piece, and that relationship mattered when the chance came to follow Gansey to Philadelphia.
“Mike called me, called my agency a bunch of times. Just being comfortable with Mike and having that relationship was good,” Wade told PhillyVoice last week, ahead of his return to Cleveland on Friday.
“... Coming from Cleveland, I didn’t want to go anywhere that wasn’t competing.
Philly gave a great opportunity, and gave me a contract as well - that also always helps. But just having that comfortability of having Mike...
Really, it was a good fit. I feel like I made the right decision.”
That decision has fit the Sixers perfectly. Wade has become the team’s most important reserve on the NBA’s best record, even if he rarely gets a play called for him. He’s been asked to defend point guards and centers, help on the glass, and even log a 10-assist game, which doubled his previous career high.
“He’s great. He’s great, man.
He’s been great, though,” Tyrese Maxey said. “He’s in the position where some nights he’ll start, some nights he won’t start, some nights he’ll play five, some nights he’ll guard Jalen Brunson, he’ll guard [Karl-Anthony Towns].
He’s - I love Dean Wade.”
With Wade in place and roughly $6 million left in the mid-level exception, the Sixers still had one major need to solve: shooting. Their three-point volume and efficiency had been a problem the year before, and Grimes and Oubre were no longer realistic options. The answer turned out to be Anfernee Simons, a player with a stronger résumé than the market suggested.
Jameer Nelson, now the Sixers’ executive vice president of basketball operations, reached out to Simons. So did Nick Nurse.
Nelson even called Simons’ parents to sell the vision, while Simons also liked the idea of joining a roster that now included Brown, his former Celtics teammate. The pitch worked: Philadelphia could offer him real minutes off the bench and a chance to matter on a team with actual ambitions.
He’s done exactly that, taking nearly all of Nurse’s bench guard minutes even after the Sixers drafted Labaron Philon Jr. in the first round.
James’ arrival only made Simons more important. With his history of thriving alongside elite shooters, James raised the value of every clean perimeter threat on the roster. Wade, meanwhile, shifted from necessity to luxury, though his versatility still makes him a seamless fit next to James.
Simons has been uneven in nine games with the Sixers, with five performances that didn’t move the needle. But in the other four, he’s gone 19-for-37 from three, and the Sixers won all four of those games down the stretch. Without those shooting bursts, those wins likely don’t happen.
Anfernee Simons 20 PTS (7-11 FG, 6-10 3P), 3 REB, 1 AST, 1 STL, 0 TO, team-high +14 vs. Pacers
He may be the key to the Sixers success pic.twitter.com/Vyy5aMUHW7
- Role Player Performances (@BenchHighlights) October 29, 2026
“He’s got it,” Nurse said. “He’s a speed shooter.
You can run him off a bunch of stuff and he doesn’t need a lot of space. And that opens up a lot of other avenues offensively once you kind of get used to him.”
Measured against what the Sixers gave up, the comparison is striking. For the price of Grimes - whose Lakers deal includes a player option in the final season - Philadelphia ended up with two players who already look like better fits.
Oubre’s start in Indiana has been rough, and his shaky three-point shooting would have been a poor match next to Brown and James. Wade gives the Sixers more off-ball value than either departed wing, while Simons brings more on-ball punch than the group they could have kept.
Nurse said the front office sold him on both targets right away.
“Really coveted guys in the free agent class,” Nurse said last week. “...
Needed the shooting, needed another guard. Needed a four-man, a versatile four that can guard and rebound, shoring up a bunch of the things that needed shoring up.
So really big. I’ve said this several times, but I’ll say it again, is you need these guys because there’s going to be enough games as the 82 click along when they become really prominent players as well with guys in and out of the lineup.”
When the front office brought the names to him, Nurse didn’t need much convincing.
“Get them,” he recalled telling the team’s brass.
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