Report: Sixers could target RFA Jabari Parker

By Josh Liddick, Sports Talk Philly editor 

The free agency period has still yet to be opened, but teams are already lining up for a bounty of to-be free agents.

One name that is now being leaked out as a player that is drawing multitudes of interest to teams is Bucks forward Jabari Parker. According to Gery Woelfel of the Racine (Wis.) Journal Times, the Sixers are among one of the teams that are drawing interest for Parker.

Of course, any team that would wish to acquire the services of Parker would have to submit an offer sheet that the Milwaukee Bucks would then have to match in order to retain him. This is the rules of signing a restricted free agent as opposed to an unrestricted one.

The biggest concern surrounding Parker isn't as much his game, but his health, which has hindered him badly during his four-year career. He has already missed time on the floor with two knee surgeries on the same knee. While his 2017-18 season only consisted of 31 games (sound familiar?), Parker was a huge plus for the Bucks in the first round of the playoffs, where they eventually fell to the Celtics in seven games.

Parker averaged 10.0 points, 6.1 rebounds, 1.4 assists, 1.0 steal, and shot 45.2 percent from the field in 23.9 minutes per game in the Bucks' seven games in the playoffs.

The Sixers are still very much alive in the race for LeBron James, especially if they can pull a trigger on a trade for Kawhi Leonard in the coming days, but if they should miss out on those two superstars, the Sixers will have to look elsewhere to improve their team before the start of the 2018-19 season.

At this point, with everything already known about Jabari Parker during his career, I'd be very weary on signing a guy like Parker to a large contract with his medical history the way that it is. The Sixers have had way too many issues with injuries over the years, and this just wouldn't help matters much. It remains to be seen if the risk of bringing in injury-prone Jabari Parker is really worth the little-known reward.

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