The Philadelphia 76ers filled their 15th and final roster spot on Saturday by converting Ricky Council IV from a two-way deal to a four-year, $7.4 million contract. He received an additional $864,000 this season, but his salary is non-guaranteed in 2024-25 and 2025-26, and the Sixers have a team option on him in 2026-27, according to Michael Scotto of HoopsHype.

Thanks to Buddy Hield’s contract incentives this season, the Sixers had to wait until the end of the regular season before converting Council if they intended on giving him that much more than a rest-of-season contract. That’s what they signed Jeff Dowtin Jr. to in early April—a two-year minimum-salary deal with a second-year team option—and he’s earning less than $130,000 this year.

The Sixers set their Council signing in motion by strategically timing their 10-day signings after the trade deadline, which speaks well to their front office’s ability to work the margins. That could become critical if the Sixers—armed with as much as $65 million in salary-cap space this summer—hit a home run this offseason and find themselves building around three max players moving forward.

Hypothetically, if the Sixers were to sign a star free agent such as Paul George or LeBron James to a max contract, they could have nearly $16.8 million in remaining cap space. That would require not winning a playoff series (thus making Paul Reed’s salary for 2024-25 nonguaranteed), waiving Reed and Council, declining the team option on Dowtin, trading their 2024 first-round pick and renouncing their rights to all of their free agents other than Tyrese Maxey.

In that scenario, they’d have their nearly $16.8 million in cap space and an $8.0 million room mid-level exception, but they’d only be able to hand out minimum-salary contracts in free agency beyond that. They could use some variation of Bird rights to re-sign any free agents whom they’d don’t renounce, but it will likely be challenging for them to build out depth if they go with a three-max build.

That’s where Dowtin and Council could come in handy. Both have proved capable of filling rotation minutes in recent weeks, although it’s dangerous to extrapolate too much from the NBA in March, when some teams’ motivation begins to wane for varying reasons. Still, the Sixers could do far worse than having those two at the end of their bench next season.

Depending on how the offseason plays out, they might not have that luxury. The Sixers might have to scramble like the Phoenix Suns did in the opening hours of free agency this past summer to sign a bevy of players to minimum-salary contracts. If they don’t load up on veterans, they could instead take after the Denver Nuggets and lean more on unproven/young players off the bench. (Frankly, that might be the right strategy to emulate.)

Council has played only 281 minutes for the Sixers this season, but he’s averaging 21.8 points on 48.2% shooting, 5.6 rebounds, 2.0 assists, 1.4 three-pointers and 1.0 steals per 36 minutes in that limited span. His 19-point, 10-rebound effort against the Washington Wizards in mid-February temporarily helped the Sixers pull out of their Joel Embiid-less skid, and he helped them close out the San Antonio Spurs in double overtime in early April.

Those efforts have become commonplace in the G League, where Council is averaging 23.1 points on 46.7% shooting, 5.4 rebounds and 2.5 assists in 32.0 minutes per game across 11 appearances with the Delaware Blue Coats. He finished with 31 points, nine rebounds four assists, three steals and three made triples in the Blue Coats’ second-round playoff loss to the Maine Celtics. In that same game, Dowtin had a game-high 41 points, eight assists, seven rebounds, four steals, four threes and two blocks.

Dowtin spent last season with Sixers head coach Nick Nurse on the Toronto Raptors and the G League’s Raptors 905. He averaged 16.9 points on 50.2% shooting and 6.1 assists per game across 19 appearances with Raptors 905 last year, and he had 19.1 points on 49.1% shooting and 5.3 assists across 20 outings with the Blue Coats this season. He hasn’t made quite as much of a game-swinging impact on the Sixers as Council, although he did recently help them blow a game back open after the Detroit Pistons trimmed the deficit to one point midway through the third quarter.

Since the Sixers have control over whether both players are under contract next season, they didn’t cut into their offseason flexibility with either signing. They can waive either one without incurring a dead cap hit. Then again, they’ll likely need to round out their roster with minimum-salary signings either way. Why not take a chance on the soon-to-be 27-year-old Dowtin and 22-year-old Council instead of older veterans who likely wouldn’t factor into the Sixers’ long-term plans?

Both signings were zero-risk, medium-upside moves. If Council or Dowtin pan out beyond this season, they’ll likely outproduce the value of their respective contracts. With Joel Embiid already on a max deal and Maxey likely soon to join him, the Sixers need to find bargains elsewhere.

Council and Dowtin will give them a chance to do just that.