The Sixers are reportedly trying to get their 2017 second round pick (#36 overall) Jonah Bolden cleared to play in the Vegas Summer League.
Source: Philadelphia, via the NBA, submitted a request for the Letter of Clearance to allow Maccabi Tel Aviv forward Jonah Bolden to join the 76ers for Summer League in Las Vegas.
— David Pick (@IAmDPick) July 4, 2018
The Letter of Clearance is needed due to Bolden’s contract with Maccabi Tel Aviv. This does not mean that Bolden will be on the Sixers’ opening day roster. Since he’s under contract with a foreign club, the Sixers would need to pay a $400,000 buyout in order to place him on the 15-man regular season roster.
Bolden is an interesting prospect to be sure. The Ringer did a 2017 draft class re-draft immediately after last year’s Summer League was complete and writer Jonathan Tjarks ranked Bolden #13:
Bigs who can switch screens, shoot 3s, block shots, and make plays with the ball should not have fallen to the second round… if Bolden can play the 5, he opens up a lot of interesting lineup possibilities.
Bolden’s Per 36 numbers were rather impressive in his inaugural season in Israel:

His numbers were good enough for:
- 4th in defensive rebounds
- 7th in steals
- 8th in blocks
- 10th in games started
- 12th in total rebounds
- 13th in 2Pt%
Not sure how much Jonah Bolden will contribute right away, if at all, but a THIRD 6-10 young guy who can do everything is a really good thing for the #sixers pic.twitter.com/5W7yuJMjUB
— Andrew Porter (@And_Porter) June 28, 2018
I’ll be excited to see Bolden play in Vegas, where his length, athleticism, and range will be on full display. There is a school of thought that the Sixers could also be looking to feature Bolden as a way to raise his value in a potential trade for a star like Bradley Beal, CJ McCollum, or Kawhi Leonard. Personally, I’d like to see the Sixers hang onto him and let him take the Ersan Ilyasova minutes from a year ago. If Bolden is bought out by the Sixers, it could spell trouble for Richaun Holmes, whose $1.6 million salary is non-guaranteed.
4 Comments
Are Cuz and the morning crew going to summer league?
Word out here is that the Cuz is definitely coming, but there’s currently a bidding war between the Aria and the Wynn to get Cuz to stay at their property, they love the cuz, guy is a baller. The girls at The Rhino are all putting in for shifts when Cuz is here too, they love his 12 incher and 8 figure bank account
Stop making fun of my Antny! He’s a godd boy boy and you’re probably all titsoons.
I would love to see him possibly make the sixers this year but I’m still trying to figure out y they never tried to get Thomas he is a free agent that can shoot the three and get to the rim at any given time yes we need defence to but with his quickness I feel he would be great with Joel ben jj and Dario just think about that starting five with fultz coming off the bench with bolden amir and Smith and furkan or shamet just saying that’s a nasty starting five and nasty bench shooters and d on both ends I would love to see a way they try and get Isiah or at least poke at it and see if he would be worth bringing in that’s all forget giving all of that up for Leonard when u know he isn’t going to stay I would rather have it set for like four years and maybe next year try and get Klay from the warriors next year I mean I think with Thomas right night that’s another 10 wins at least from last year and someone that knows Boston and how they play I feel it would give the sixers a great advantage over them and we need more fire power and d from the bench just saying they should at least see if he is worth it if they could get him with the cap we have left that’s all