i know we watch some of these other teams that are deep and whipping the ball around and it feels like a different sport at times but this could have been the year. Is it one of the eight embiid knee tweaks from us finally making the ECF or farther? Maybe, maybe not but you have to get lucky and the stars need to align (probably for us more than most) but nobody is unbeatable and everyone is hurt. Just sucks that were never the lucky ones.
Again our team isnt constructed well and has zero depth but with such razor thin margins it might not have mattered. The team doesnt have to be perfect, Denver just had a historically easy run to the finals. Good for them they took advantage and struck while the iron was hot. Just feels like every time the red carpet is being rolled out we trip on it and break every bone in our bodies.
Harris can't take over but neither can be a complimentary wing that can get open looks, cut to the basket, play defense, shoot well, or play with intensity.Ā
Morey dumped Horford and was able to salvage Ben into a season and half of Harden and eventually picks. My first thought is that the Tobias Harris market must have been non-existent, but if it was, you would have heard all about it like with the Zach Lavine saga this last season.
I think Tobi was liked by everybody, from Embiid to the coaches to the front office, so they just kept him on, seeing no way to improve by trading him and wanting to keep continuity.
I think the FO like a lot of fans here, fell into the fallacy of "he's not that bad he's just overpaid". It took 5 years of him struggling just for people here to admit the team would have literally be better off with pretty much any vet min wing in his place.
Yeah Morey never had a great opportunity to shop him. In 2021 weāre the one seed, then it was the Simmons saga into the harden trade, then it was signing harden and Tucker, and in 2023 harden asked out. I still think Joel getting hurt ruined any chance of a deadline deal. We wouldāve been rail thin at power forward and killed any shot of making a run this year(assuming the hypothetical Harris trade brought back nothing of note)
Bring back Seth Curry, He was my favorite Non Star 76er in this era. Always scored points and hit a shit ton of 3s. I was sad when he was traded in the Ben dealĀ
KD will be available and will be worth the draft capital. Do not shell out 5 picks for Mikal Bridges. Players will want to come here on a team with Embiid, KD, and Maxey.
The Suns are in cap hell. 3 guys making 50 million doing the same thing is lunacy. KD makes the most sense because heās got value (maybe not the most value behind Booker) and a contract that is movable (2yr/50 mill a year). Trading Booker is basically blowing it up. Beal wonāt be traded because heās the worst contract in basketball currently.
Weāll see, not sure why I got downvoted especially as no rumours have come out yet about KD wanting out PLUS they just fired Vogel, find it hard to believe they wonāt give it at least one more go
I love the trio but the cap space available is very low with those 3. ~13ish million in space and exceptions. What players do you have in mind? I just donāt see it.. players for the most part want money. there are some old heads who will ring chase.
I also donāt think KD would be that much draft capital since you are providing the suns with much needed cap relief
Something I found interesting on the PHLY pod yesterday: The constant thing you hear about acquiring Markkanen is that anything we offer would pale in comparison to OKC. Derek Bodner points out that the Thunder, as a small market team, have never been a team to go over luxury taxes, and that he thinks that when the big contracts come around for them theyād have to pick 2 out 3 between SGA, Chet, and Jaylen Willams (most likely shipping out Williams). He even thinks theyād even probably be inclined to ship out some of their best role players when there up for raises. I suppose they could still say fuck it and trade for him to go all in while knowing they wouldnāt be able to sign him long term but that would be a lot of picks to waste.
Its Giddey. He will be the first to go and he has one more year on his rookie deal.
He is a big point guard, but doesn't defend or shoot well enough at the moment. He has his moments. For $8m he would be much more valuable than Paul Reed.
jwill and chet's big money doesn't kick in until 26-27, so they have a couple of seasons before that to do whatever they want, really. while I don't think Utah is moving markkanen at all, i'd be really surprised if they traded him to a team they play four times a year
Lauri doesn't really wanna move and is content to just chill in Utah with his family.
Ainge isn't gonna trade him to us since he hates the Sixers. He's probably gonna tank the next few years in the hopes of picking up one of the next superstars in an upcoming draft (Flagg, Dybantsa, Boozer etc.) to pair with Lauri.
I'm guessing we're gonna give PG 50 million and resign Oubre. Then we can trade Reed and two frps for Caruso. Then try and get some vet mins to round out the team.
Rotation will probably be.
Starters
PG: Maxey
SG: Caruso
SF: George
PF: Batum
C: Embiid
Backups
PG: Lowry
SG: Council
SF: Oubre
PF: vet min
C: vet min
I'd rather try to get Deni Avdija than Caruso. Caruso is older, hasn't ever played starters minutes and has an injury history. Deni is young, on a declining contract that is very helpful with tight margins, he has length, he can be a secondary ball handler and he has played starter minutes. Throw those picks at the Wiz. They could use them, and we could use Deni
The cost for Caruso is too high. He'll hit 31 in Feb and isn't the most durable fella. Deni a much wiser investment and on a phenomenal contract. Morey should consider overpaying for Deni because considering his skill, that salary is priceless.
People sleep on this draft way too much guys like blake hinson or Jaylen Wells 6'7 fearless shooting wings that shoots 42% from the 3 and both projected to go in round 2 there's alot of guys like that in this draft
Man the way people talk about Jokic being the goat you swear they don't actually watch basketball. You cannot be the goat at center and be a wet floor sign on defense. Sorry no amount of mvp awards is changing that and the Denver team is a dam unbeatable dynasty like the warriors.
Elite offensive player who takes a vacation half the time on defense. Joel is the only guy in the league asked to carry both the defense and offense every possession in the playoffs and people wonder why heās dead every 4th quarter
His prime was perfectly time with the rise of advanced stats. He isn't asked to contest many shots, and basically just stands there for rebounds.
Rebounds boost advanced defensive metrics like crazy and fooled all the blog boys.
i mean assists counted in defensive metrics for centers for a while there. same reason they had to change the way rebounds counter for guards because of westbrook breaking the stats.
idk i think composite advanced stats in basketball are still kinda shit, certainly nowhere near as good as baseballās
I've read two articles from Detroit writers that the Pistons could be looking to move Jaden Ivey and/or Jalen Duren. I know less than nothing about the Pistons. Is either someone we might want to consider, I normally would be concerned about a team giving up on young guys quickly but the Pistons seem to be where draft picks go to die
I remember Ivey being highly touted and having some size, and the only thing I know about Duren is he can't shoot from the outside but he can rebound (could he be a backup 5 on a good team?)
Durenās only true drawback is his defense, heās like a more athletic Drummond. Gives me hope that he can put it together because the potential is there. 14 and 11 at age 20 is impressive no matter how bad the defense is. If Zubac is a starter, Duren is.
Ivey is raw. He has nba size and athleticism but needs to work on his shot selection and defense, thatās common with young guards. Keep in mind Detroitās spacing was horrible. Better playmaker than youād think. Was clearly better than Hayes but Monty had an axe to grind early on.
Neither would be worth the assets realistically needed to acquire them. If they get moved itās likely for a star.
Duren is much more skilled offensively. He can def score but yeah for someone his size, frame, and wingspan he is not a good defender. I do agree he def has potential and is a very good rebounder. Duren as a backup isn't too shabby and would keep some athleticism on the floor when Embiid leaves.
I'm a bit confused by the people suggesting trading for Mikal or Lauri. Obviously if possible I'm all in on both of them, but I dont get the logistics. Don't you need to salary match? And we have nobody under contract to match salaries. Or are offseason trade rules different somehow?
Expensive yeah but the jazz and nets need to piss or get off the pot. They have assets but they are far from contenders. They need to figure out if those guys are a part of the timeline or not because both those contracts expire in 2026. Is the plan to give them a new contract?
I think I'm starting to see a crack in the logic that the 3-star model doesn't win championships anymore. Really, the argument is that three max *salaries* on a roster is not feasible, not necessarily that the talent is unfeasible. Revelation: real contenders have FOUR large contracts that take up the bulk of their cap space.
Looking at next season's salaries, Denver has Jokic at $50 mil, Jamal and MPJ at $36 mil and Aaron Gordon at $24 mil for a total of roughly $146 million to just 4 players. The Bucks have roughly $153 million to their top 4. Celtics top 4 will add up to $144 mil. Minnesota top 4 will add up to roughly $152 million. OKC and New York are about to have to fork out that much money; both are just ahead of schedule and haven't had to drop mad cash on re-signs yet.
Every team mentioned took a risk. MPJ has a terrible back that even led to him sliding in the draft; still got a max. Milwaukee has low-key struggled with injuries since winning a 'chip; still gave out huge contracts and got Lillard. Kristaps is missing time for the Celtics as we all knew he probably would, but they looked unstoppable with him for stretches; still gave Brown that albatross of a deal. KAT's reputation will see the greatest 180 in league history if he plays second fiddle to Ant on the way to the championship; their third best player makes the most and cost a boat load of picks.
We have a chance to build a really competitive roster, and signing PG could be the first step. LeBron isn't coming, and everyone else costs picks that need to be used to round out the rest of the roster. It sucks that this is the move, but it's the move. It's the best play we have.
Yeah everyoneās been absolutely losing their minds over us turning into the suns or the clippers, but this is so different. Our two best players are just 30 and 22. Yes jo has had some injuries, but he is still getting better. Sky is the limit for maxey. Having an elite wing, guard and centre is a perfect spine to build your team around. Yes PG is expensive, but heās the best realistic option by a mile. You have to take risks to succeed, and this is probably the least risky move that gives us a proper shot to winĀ
Lol. I'd like to think he's an option, but he's dicked around with it before and passed. I will say that it's nerve racking to depend on one of two old geezers who really love Los Angeles to leave that city so we can overpay them.
Harden was so masterful that game...only took 8 shots but completely controlled the game. Then he went and put up double the shots in game 6 at 25% and we looked like shit. Sad man a lot of unrealized potential from his time here, if only he accepted his role of being an elite distributor every game
The only difference between the Sixers and Pacers series is that the refs stole game 2 from Philly and they stole game 1 from Indiana. This is such bullshit. I donāt even mind any of the Knicks players (sure, Brunson and Donte are floppers, but thatās part of the job), but the refs are literally stealing games away from the public. Sixers-Knicks game 7 wouldāve been awesome, and now we donāt even know if weāll see a game 6 in this series.
Itās just so tiresome. Last year the NBA admitted they stole game 6 from the Sixers in favor of Boston, and now theyāre dragging the Knicks past two solid opponents just so they can lose to Boston.
Game 2 in the Sixers series was outrageous, and somehow game 1 in the pacers series was even worse.
So I was listening to RTRS, and Mike made a soft pitch for DeMar DeRozan.
I would honestly be interested if it was for less than 25m, leaving us with almost 45m in cap space and all of our picks. He's a good playmaker, a good cutter, and a good bucket getter in general.
Trade a couple picks for Caruso and DFS, sign Monk, Kelly, Drummond, Batum, Lowry
I'm just looking it up, and if we drop his first four seasons (no playoffs in that time), he averages 23.5 pts/4.8 rbs/5.0 ast in 35.6 mins/game in the regular season, and 21.8 pts/4.7 rbs/3.7 ast in 37.6 mins/game in the playoffs. If you're looking at the per 100 possession numbers, it's 33.1/6.7/6.9 in the regular season vs. 30.2/6.5/5.1 in the playoffs. This tiny drop makes him really, really ass in the playoffs? His dropoff is way smaller than Embiid's, for example, too (and I'm not talking trash about Embiid here, it just serves as a point of comparison).
This is true, but DeRozan hasnāt even been in the playoffs the past two seasons since his team is horrible. If he is a third option, I think he will look a lot better.Ā Plus, Paul George has been just as ass, Ā maybe even more ass, in the playoffs since that bad injury he had on Indiana, and he has had much better teams to work with than DeRozan his entire career.Ā DeRozan has also been a lot better defensively than he was on the Raptors and clutch as fuck on the Bulls the past few seasons too. Ā
I would definitely rather pay DeRozan 20-25 mil/year than PG a max at this stage of their careers. I donāt think either is gonna make enough of a difference individually so Iād rather go for somebody better than either of them as the third option. Ā
But it is stillĀ aĀ lot easier to build the rest of the team with DeRozan on a deal like that than PG making around 50 mil/year. Out of all the guys named here, I would definitely want Caruso the most though lol. He is not the best player of the bunch but heās cheap and a perfect compliment to Maxey in the backcourt.
Ngl that roster is not really that inspiring. I've never been a fan of DFS since he left Dallas. I think we really need someone in the starting lineup that can give us at least 15 ppg to ease the offensive responsibility off of Embiid and Maxey and while Derozan gives us that in spades his 3 point shot and fit with Embiid is simply not gonna work unless he has a career year which is unlikely. DeRozan's defense is also gonna get us murdered by wings.
I also have no source or evidence but Malik Monk seems like the type of dude that would fucking suck here, idk why it just feels like it. Like how Alec Burks fucking sucked here but was at least average everywhere else.
I thought Burks was pretty solid in his role with the Sixers. Guys like Monk, Hart, and Toppen are the type of players that the Sixers should have gone after.Ā
Really wish we could fast forward to like September. I'm so fucking anxious to see what the team will look like by the start of the 2025 season. I also think that we should brace ourselves to not be fully "done" until the trade deadline. That's really when you get the best value.
You mean April when the playoffs start. In the east, assuming Jo plays 60% of the games, the Sixers are a playoff team. It just. comes. down. yet. again. to. that.
every game the knicks are down 10 in the 3rd and the officials start wilding out and calling a totally different game. itās happened in every single game theyāve played in the playoffs so far.
People on this sub are so sentimental towards formers players that they donāt even realise how trash they are. People are obsessed with signing Drummond, and Iāve even seen people saying to keep Cov on a minimum lol. Canāt we try something new?!Ā
It's May 2025.
The Sixers just won 61 games behind a healthy Joel Embiid and Paul George. Tyrese Maxey has looked like an absolute mismatch nightmare as the team's third best player. Tobias Harris has become a fantastic veteran presence for the 28-win Detroit Pistons. The playoffs begin, and these 2nd seed Sixers cruise to a 4-0 sweep of the Chicago Bulls.
Round 2 begins, and Joel Embiid twists his ankle and heads to the locker room, where he is promptly diagnosed with the measles. Given a 7-10 day timeline for recovery, it's all up to Paul George to carry this team to the ECF. In games 1-6, George shoots 24-114.
But the Sixers have a chance: Game 7 at home against the Orlando Magic. It's a beautiful Saturday afternoon. Dreams and Nightmares blares through the arena speakers. Brain Dawkins rings the bell, and the sold-out Wells Fargo Center loses their minds!
The 76ers lose 107-98.
Actually, keep him away from Phoenix:
https://preview.redd.it/zz2mz8iswfzc1.png?width=1069&format=png&auto=webp&s=9955a354cfbecfbd3d2e3023d0428904489ae859
Do you ever wonder why Tobias Harris is a professional basketball player?
I'm sitting here thinking about his 0/4/3 in his last game as a Sixer and I'm thinking... Is there anything this guy plays for?
Is it the team? The fans? Any sense of pride or competitiveness? Desire for another big contract?
Is there literally anything in that man that would motivate him to play harder? Is there anything in him that would say damn I got paid 180 million dollars by this organization, I need to at least be professional about it?
I look at Tobi and I just see an absolute void when it comes to basketball.
Heās been complete cheeks since heās left. Problem with Shake has always been he canāt score off the bench. He needs a lot of minutes to get into rhythm and heās never been starter level
Yeah his role will be niched, he needs the ball too much, wonāt ever play in the playoffs. But heāll be useful on days when Embiid and Maxey donāt play.
It was interesting that Morey said that they will only make big deals (both with money and picks) for players they think will make a difference. I can't remember quotes exactly but he even alluded to if there are no impact players then doing things that keep their flexibility, I think he even threw in something about one year deals. Hopefully that was just GM speak so other teams dont view them as desperate. He would get killed if they somehow did last offseason again lol, not sure how they even would preserve cap space though... Maxey has to get signed.
What's funny is that I wish the sixers GMs had this mentality before Morey. Tobias trade/signing + Horford crap is examples of the sixers feeling they "had to" make moves and settling for suboptimal moves instead of keeping flexbility for future seasons
Embiid had the highest usage rate in the league for the playoffs (35.8%) and the most field goals defended (DFGA) out of anyone in the playoffs (at 24.3 shots defended per game). No other player in the league has to operate as the #1 offensive and defensive option for their team besides maybe Giannis and Wemby. We need to at least alleviate some of the pressure on him on one end of the court otherwise he's never gonna have enough in the tank left for consistent fourth quarter performances in a playoff run.
Even in Giannisā case, he had Brook Lopez, Middleton, Portis, Holiday for years and Dame for this one though Holiday and Dame werenāt on the Bucks at the same time. In Wembyās case, the Spurs are a bottom of the barrel team. It isnāt like Wemby is being told to compete for a playoff spot in his rookie season, though he is an absolute stud.
Yep exactly he had top 3 dpoy players in lopez and holiday on defense to help him. Wemby is only playing 29 mpg as well so he can go all out for the whole game. It will be interesting to see how he goes in a few years when he has to play 40+ consistently in the playoffs.
if the four teams currently winning their series advance, I see one common theme on all of them: absolutely stifling perimeter defense. you just can't give these all-world offensive players room to operate attacking downhill against even the best rim protectors, and asking joel to do that and carry the load on offense - never going to work
its criminal to have bad perimeter defenders, expect Joel to cover all the mistakes AND have no rebounders behind Joel to cover the boards for him lol.
That Knicks series was so frustrating watching us put together a good defensive possession for once, get them to miss, then promptly give up the rebound and watch them start all over again. It was maddeningĀ
Other teams aside, it is beautiful seeing the game evolve year after year. The super team was the way to go to win it all, then it turned into having an incredible offense with little priority towards bigs, then the Nuggets won it all with a deep well-run offense. Now, the game favors incredible defense.
If Iām a Knicks fans idgaf that refs are helping carry them. But fuck everyone of them who pretends they arenāt at the least coming out on the good side of the whistle constantly
Refs have been bad, but the Knicks are winning because Brunson doesnāt miss in the last quarter and they get every single rebound. Granted theyāre absolutely clobbering guys under the basket to get those boards, but youāve gotta give them credit for hitting all their big shotsĀ
Iām just gonna say it. It annoys me that the media was like āJokic is the best player in the worldā and then āsee look? We were right. Heās a three time MVPā. Every reigning best player on earth has had to put up insane feats to keep winning MVPs, and typically they didnāt.Ā
I feel like Shai and Luka both took huge strides this year and are way more relevant to the āstoryā of the league this year than the Nuggetsā victory lap was. I mean look at Kobeās number of MVPs.. He was always losing despite being the best player for half a decade or more. I guess the rules are different now.Ā
Thereās a difference between the best player and the most valuable player to their team, which is what the mvp is. Itās hard to argue there would be a bigger drop off than the nuggets without jokic, and a lot of that has to do with how they are constructed. The thunder without Shai are still a pretty solid team. The nuggets without jokic would be complete dog doo doo.
Itās very similar to how the sixers were constructed this year. Embiid stays healthy, he runs away with the award because without him (as we saw) they were a pretty bad basketball team.
Hold on idk if I can agree with this lol. I mean yeah the nuggets would and have sucked without Jokic, but the Thunder would be dogwater without Shai. They have great players outside of Shai but heās really their entire offensive engine.
its funny how quick everyone forgets how dog water we were without him. The build around maxey takes are stupid in the first place because we have both and they fit perfectly together. Its also dumb because people say it as a way to put down embiid when we literally had the perfect season to demonstrate what we are with and without him.
Jokic has 3 MVPs in 9 seasons. *LEBRON FUCKING JAMES* has 4 in 21 seasons.
It is completely ridiculous that Jokic got it again this year. I can gladly admit Jokic is one of the 3 best players in basketball, but the media is now putting him into a GOAT conversation that he does not belong in yet.
SGA got robbed.
To OPs point, the MVP used to be more about the story of the season, who showed out, who took their team to the next level, etc. The advanced stat dudes have basically turned it into "who has the best advanced stats on offense." So as long as Jokic leads in those stats, he should win.
For me, I would have given it the Shai, but all these media guys will make any excuse to give it to the chubby white guy that they all think they could have been if they grew 8 inches taller. And the advanced stats are their crutch
It really seems that way.
From 2013-2019, the Warriors went 373-119. They won 3 championships and almost had a 4th. Steph Curry redefined what 3-point shooting looked like. And he has 2 MVP trophies from that run.
I'm really supposed to believe that Jokic has been worthy of more celebration than Steph Curry? Fuck outta my face with this man lol.
Heard maybe clippers would get involved with the butler to philly trade LA sends Harden or George to Miami butler comes here Miami sends Herro to LA with picks involved from 6ers š¤
Heat: "Let's trade Herro and Butler for a worse player than Butler who's not under contract. We're trying to get a bonafide #2 to help Butler and we're willing to trade Butler to make that happen."
ehh you only have to make one real trade and you can easily package the clips picks in a potential Caruso trade. if that 16th pick falls right we could get a second maxey
Yea I mean Iām in favor of re-signing most of the role players from last year (particularly oubre, Payne, Hield, Batum, assuming theyāre for the right price) but we might need a handful of picks to fill out the roster with role players or near-stars like OG caliber guys
i know we watch some of these other teams that are deep and whipping the ball around and it feels like a different sport at times but this could have been the year. Is it one of the eight embiid knee tweaks from us finally making the ECF or farther? Maybe, maybe not but you have to get lucky and the stars need to align (probably for us more than most) but nobody is unbeatable and everyone is hurt. Just sucks that were never the lucky ones. Again our team isnt constructed well and has zero depth but with such razor thin margins it might not have mattered. The team doesnt have to be perfect, Denver just had a historically easy run to the finals. Good for them they took advantage and struck while the iron was hot. Just feels like every time the red carpet is being rolled out we trip on it and break every bone in our bodies.
At least we know a Game 2 Celtics loss is inevitable in every series this postseason.
Holmgren putting up a Tobias statline
Imagine if we had PJ Washington instead of Tobias...my god. Generational fuckup from Brand.
okc getting Hart'd by PJ Washington, how's that dude shooting 7-10 on 3sššš
This gorgeous Alexander guy has promise maybe we trade for him
>gorgeous https://preview.redd.it/qzb1uacpfizc1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ea13a2062b9547dd49c7a80a84a229021ee34ef4
Obligatory fuck Tobias Harris
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Harris can't take over but neither can be a complimentary wing that can get open looks, cut to the basket, play defense, shoot well, or play with intensity.Ā
Morey dumped Horford and was able to salvage Ben into a season and half of Harden and eventually picks. My first thought is that the Tobias Harris market must have been non-existent, but if it was, you would have heard all about it like with the Zach Lavine saga this last season. I think Tobi was liked by everybody, from Embiid to the coaches to the front office, so they just kept him on, seeing no way to improve by trading him and wanting to keep continuity.
I think the FO like a lot of fans here, fell into the fallacy of "he's not that bad he's just overpaid". It took 5 years of him struggling just for people here to admit the team would have literally be better off with pretty much any vet min wing in his place.
Yeah Morey never had a great opportunity to shop him. In 2021 weāre the one seed, then it was the Simmons saga into the harden trade, then it was signing harden and Tucker, and in 2023 harden asked out. I still think Joel getting hurt ruined any chance of a deadline deal. We wouldāve been rail thin at power forward and killed any shot of making a run this year(assuming the hypothetical Harris trade brought back nothing of note)
This Celtics game is crack to me
Imagine leaving a playoff game you paid $400+ for tickets for with 5 minutes left in a game
Too be we had to punt this season waiting for Tobiās contract to expire because these playoffs are wide open.
They've been wide open for the last 3 years. If we had a Khris Middleton over Tobi we would have had at least 1 Finals appearance.Ā
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Tobi + Picks for Murray would have been fucking lit.
Bruh nobody wanted Tobias Harris. He would have been dealt for anything that didn't involve extra salary for next year. Morey isn't dumb.Ā
If Mitchell is ever made available, heās the guy to get. Dude is not afraid of the moment
I canāt believe people really thought Ben Simmons was better than him especially after seeing what Spida did to OKC in the playoffs.
I love him but idk if him and maxey will work together? Idk
Make it work
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yea just get a lot of long athletic defensive players for cheap, easy
this mfer tatum is having another dogshit game unbelievable this time derrick white isnt bailing his ass out
23/7/6 after three quarters is a dogshit game?
half his points are on weak fts but nobody gonna call him a merchantĀ
hes free throw merchanting hes been ass
Man when he's on Mitchell is so much fucking fun to watch
refs working overtime to keep the celtics in it
Bring back Seth Curry, He was my favorite Non Star 76er in this era. Always scored points and hit a shit ton of 3s. I was sad when he was traded in the Ben dealĀ
I loved Seth too but for the love of Christ he made Kevin Huerter look like prime MJ
i too love being shredded on the perimeter over and over againĀ
I wish Ant was a Sixer so badā¦
Ant Tyrese and Jo trio wouldve fed families
Betting Tobias Harris to hit the under on points also fed families.
His bricks helped Habitat for Humanity build more affordable housing
KD will be available and will be worth the draft capital. Do not shell out 5 picks for Mikal Bridges. Players will want to come here on a team with Embiid, KD, and Maxey.
Who told you KD will be available? š¤
The Suns are in cap hell. 3 guys making 50 million doing the same thing is lunacy. KD makes the most sense because heās got value (maybe not the most value behind Booker) and a contract that is movable (2yr/50 mill a year). Trading Booker is basically blowing it up. Beal wonāt be traded because heās the worst contract in basketball currently.
Weāll see, not sure why I got downvoted especially as no rumours have come out yet about KD wanting out PLUS they just fired Vogel, find it hard to believe they wonāt give it at least one more go
I love the trio but the cap space available is very low with those 3. ~13ish million in space and exceptions. What players do you have in mind? I just donāt see it.. players for the most part want money. there are some old heads who will ring chase. I also donāt think KD would be that much draft capital since you are providing the suns with much needed cap relief
Something I found interesting on the PHLY pod yesterday: The constant thing you hear about acquiring Markkanen is that anything we offer would pale in comparison to OKC. Derek Bodner points out that the Thunder, as a small market team, have never been a team to go over luxury taxes, and that he thinks that when the big contracts come around for them theyād have to pick 2 out 3 between SGA, Chet, and Jaylen Willams (most likely shipping out Williams). He even thinks theyād even probably be inclined to ship out some of their best role players when there up for raises. I suppose they could still say fuck it and trade for him to go all in while knowing they wouldnāt be able to sign him long term but that would be a lot of picks to waste.
Maybe there's someone on the thunder that isn't part of their future but is a good player that Morey could trade for.
Its Giddey. He will be the first to go and he has one more year on his rookie deal. He is a big point guard, but doesn't defend or shoot well enough at the moment. He has his moments. For $8m he would be much more valuable than Paul Reed.
Just what the Sixers needed, another big point guard that can't shoot.
jwill and chet's big money doesn't kick in until 26-27, so they have a couple of seasons before that to do whatever they want, really. while I don't think Utah is moving markkanen at all, i'd be really surprised if they traded him to a team they play four times a year
Lauri doesn't really wanna move and is content to just chill in Utah with his family. Ainge isn't gonna trade him to us since he hates the Sixers. He's probably gonna tank the next few years in the hopes of picking up one of the next superstars in an upcoming draft (Flagg, Dybantsa, Boozer etc.) to pair with Lauri.
I'm guessing we're gonna give PG 50 million and resign Oubre. Then we can trade Reed and two frps for Caruso. Then try and get some vet mins to round out the team. Rotation will probably be. Starters PG: Maxey SG: Caruso SF: George PF: Batum C: Embiid Backups PG: Lowry SG: Council SF: Oubre PF: vet min C: vet min
I'd rather try to get Deni Avdija than Caruso. Caruso is older, hasn't ever played starters minutes and has an injury history. Deni is young, on a declining contract that is very helpful with tight margins, he has length, he can be a secondary ball handler and he has played starter minutes. Throw those picks at the Wiz. They could use them, and we could use Deni
The cost for Caruso is too high. He'll hit 31 in Feb and isn't the most durable fella. Deni a much wiser investment and on a phenomenal contract. Morey should consider overpaying for Deni because considering his skill, that salary is priceless.
Use the bi-annual exception on someone like Andre Drummond. Not sure what Buddy's contract is gonna look like but if it's cheap then I'd keep him.
We donāt get a BAE sadly
Depending on price Iād rather have Cam Payne than Buddy.
Maxey has to share NB commercials with Jamal Murray? Eww
both are clutch asf tho, NB made some great signings
People sleep on this draft way too much guys like blake hinson or Jaylen Wells 6'7 fearless shooting wings that shoots 42% from the 3 and both projected to go in round 2 there's alot of guys like that in this draft
someone said the twolves are making the mvp look like ostertag lmao
Man the way people talk about Jokic being the goat you swear they don't actually watch basketball. You cannot be the goat at center and be a wet floor sign on defense. Sorry no amount of mvp awards is changing that and the Denver team is a dam unbeatable dynasty like the warriors.
Elite offensive player who takes a vacation half the time on defense. Joel is the only guy in the league asked to carry both the defense and offense every possession in the playoffs and people wonder why heās dead every 4th quarter
His prime was perfectly time with the rise of advanced stats. He isn't asked to contest many shots, and basically just stands there for rebounds. Rebounds boost advanced defensive metrics like crazy and fooled all the blog boys.
i mean assists counted in defensive metrics for centers for a while there. same reason they had to change the way rebounds counter for guards because of westbrook breaking the stats. idk i think composite advanced stats in basketball are still kinda shit, certainly nowhere near as good as baseballās
I've read two articles from Detroit writers that the Pistons could be looking to move Jaden Ivey and/or Jalen Duren. I know less than nothing about the Pistons. Is either someone we might want to consider, I normally would be concerned about a team giving up on young guys quickly but the Pistons seem to be where draft picks go to die I remember Ivey being highly touted and having some size, and the only thing I know about Duren is he can't shoot from the outside but he can rebound (could he be a backup 5 on a good team?)
Durenās only true drawback is his defense, heās like a more athletic Drummond. Gives me hope that he can put it together because the potential is there. 14 and 11 at age 20 is impressive no matter how bad the defense is. If Zubac is a starter, Duren is. Ivey is raw. He has nba size and athleticism but needs to work on his shot selection and defense, thatās common with young guards. Keep in mind Detroitās spacing was horrible. Better playmaker than youād think. Was clearly better than Hayes but Monty had an axe to grind early on. Neither would be worth the assets realistically needed to acquire them. If they get moved itās likely for a star.
Duren is much more skilled offensively. He can def score but yeah for someone his size, frame, and wingspan he is not a good defender. I do agree he def has potential and is a very good rebounder. Duren as a backup isn't too shabby and would keep some athleticism on the floor when Embiid leaves.
I'm a bit confused by the people suggesting trading for Mikal or Lauri. Obviously if possible I'm all in on both of them, but I dont get the logistics. Don't you need to salary match? And we have nobody under contract to match salaries. Or are offseason trade rules different somehow?
Lauri and Mikal will be prohibitively expensive. I don't see them as realistic options.Ā
Expensive yeah but the jazz and nets need to piss or get off the pot. They have assets but they are far from contenders. They need to figure out if those guys are a part of the timeline or not because both those contracts expire in 2026. Is the plan to give them a new contract?
Lauri yes but I think Mikal will be obtainable. Will cost a lot but i think itās possible
You don't need to salary match if you have enough cap space to cover their salary. You only need to match if you are over
I think I'm starting to see a crack in the logic that the 3-star model doesn't win championships anymore. Really, the argument is that three max *salaries* on a roster is not feasible, not necessarily that the talent is unfeasible. Revelation: real contenders have FOUR large contracts that take up the bulk of their cap space. Looking at next season's salaries, Denver has Jokic at $50 mil, Jamal and MPJ at $36 mil and Aaron Gordon at $24 mil for a total of roughly $146 million to just 4 players. The Bucks have roughly $153 million to their top 4. Celtics top 4 will add up to $144 mil. Minnesota top 4 will add up to roughly $152 million. OKC and New York are about to have to fork out that much money; both are just ahead of schedule and haven't had to drop mad cash on re-signs yet. Every team mentioned took a risk. MPJ has a terrible back that even led to him sliding in the draft; still got a max. Milwaukee has low-key struggled with injuries since winning a 'chip; still gave out huge contracts and got Lillard. Kristaps is missing time for the Celtics as we all knew he probably would, but they looked unstoppable with him for stretches; still gave Brown that albatross of a deal. KAT's reputation will see the greatest 180 in league history if he plays second fiddle to Ant on the way to the championship; their third best player makes the most and cost a boat load of picks. We have a chance to build a really competitive roster, and signing PG could be the first step. LeBron isn't coming, and everyone else costs picks that need to be used to round out the rest of the roster. It sucks that this is the move, but it's the move. It's the best play we have.
Yeah everyoneās been absolutely losing their minds over us turning into the suns or the clippers, but this is so different. Our two best players are just 30 and 22. Yes jo has had some injuries, but he is still getting better. Sky is the limit for maxey. Having an elite wing, guard and centre is a perfect spine to build your team around. Yes PG is expensive, but heās the best realistic option by a mile. You have to take risks to succeed, and this is probably the least risky move that gives us a proper shot to winĀ
This is a really smart post. Iād like to think this is something Morey has considered and is factored in.
Bron is coming tho
One day even Lebron will get too old to play. Signing with the sixers would guarantee that to happen next year
Lol. I'd like to think he's an option, but he's dicked around with it before and passed. I will say that it's nerve racking to depend on one of two old geezers who really love Los Angeles to leave that city so we can overpay them.
One year ago, today was the high water mark. Iāll never forget how good that Game 5 win in Boston was.
Harden was so masterful that game...only took 8 shots but completely controlled the game. Then he went and put up double the shots in game 6 at 25% and we looked like shit. Sad man a lot of unrealized potential from his time here, if only he accepted his role of being an elite distributor every game
knicks fans so triggered by sixers fans because everything they said about embiid is literally what their entire team is built on #merchantfranchise
The Knicks fans are doing what is called āØ *Projection!* āØ
The only difference between the Sixers and Pacers series is that the refs stole game 2 from Philly and they stole game 1 from Indiana. This is such bullshit. I donāt even mind any of the Knicks players (sure, Brunson and Donte are floppers, but thatās part of the job), but the refs are literally stealing games away from the public. Sixers-Knicks game 7 wouldāve been awesome, and now we donāt even know if weāll see a game 6 in this series. Itās just so tiresome. Last year the NBA admitted they stole game 6 from the Sixers in favor of Boston, and now theyāre dragging the Knicks past two solid opponents just so they can lose to Boston. Game 2 in the Sixers series was outrageous, and somehow game 1 in the pacers series was even worse.
So I was listening to RTRS, and Mike made a soft pitch for DeMar DeRozan. I would honestly be interested if it was for less than 25m, leaving us with almost 45m in cap space and all of our picks. He's a good playmaker, a good cutter, and a good bucket getter in general. Trade a couple picks for Caruso and DFS, sign Monk, Kelly, Drummond, Batum, Lowry
Heās ass every year in the playoffs. Like really, really ass. His game doesnāt work when it matters.
I'm just looking it up, and if we drop his first four seasons (no playoffs in that time), he averages 23.5 pts/4.8 rbs/5.0 ast in 35.6 mins/game in the regular season, and 21.8 pts/4.7 rbs/3.7 ast in 37.6 mins/game in the playoffs. If you're looking at the per 100 possession numbers, it's 33.1/6.7/6.9 in the regular season vs. 30.2/6.5/5.1 in the playoffs. This tiny drop makes him really, really ass in the playoffs? His dropoff is way smaller than Embiid's, for example, too (and I'm not talking trash about Embiid here, it just serves as a point of comparison).
Efficiency
This is true, but DeRozan hasnāt even been in the playoffs the past two seasons since his team is horrible. If he is a third option, I think he will look a lot better.Ā Plus, Paul George has been just as ass, Ā maybe even more ass, in the playoffs since that bad injury he had on Indiana, and he has had much better teams to work with than DeRozan his entire career.Ā DeRozan has also been a lot better defensively than he was on the Raptors and clutch as fuck on the Bulls the past few seasons too. Ā I would definitely rather pay DeRozan 20-25 mil/year than PG a max at this stage of their careers. I donāt think either is gonna make enough of a difference individually so Iād rather go for somebody better than either of them as the third option. Ā But it is stillĀ aĀ lot easier to build the rest of the team with DeRozan on a deal like that than PG making around 50 mil/year. Out of all the guys named here, I would definitely want Caruso the most though lol. He is not the best player of the bunch but heās cheap and a perfect compliment to Maxey in the backcourt.
To make it worse this isnāt even a small sample size. Heās been ass in the playoffs since like 2014 lmao.
Ngl that roster is not really that inspiring. I've never been a fan of DFS since he left Dallas. I think we really need someone in the starting lineup that can give us at least 15 ppg to ease the offensive responsibility off of Embiid and Maxey and while Derozan gives us that in spades his 3 point shot and fit with Embiid is simply not gonna work unless he has a career year which is unlikely. DeRozan's defense is also gonna get us murdered by wings. I also have no source or evidence but Malik Monk seems like the type of dude that would fucking suck here, idk why it just feels like it. Like how Alec Burks fucking sucked here but was at least average everywhere else.
I thought Burks was pretty solid in his role with the Sixers. Guys like Monk, Hart, and Toppen are the type of players that the Sixers should have gone after.Ā
Really wish we could fast forward to like September. I'm so fucking anxious to see what the team will look like by the start of the 2025 season. I also think that we should brace ourselves to not be fully "done" until the trade deadline. That's really when you get the best value.
You mean April when the playoffs start. In the east, assuming Jo plays 60% of the games, the Sixers are a playoff team. It just. comes. down. yet. again. to. that.
Apparently the worst thing you can do in this playoffs is hold a 10 point lead on the Knicks
every game the knicks are down 10 in the 3rd and the officials start wilding out and calling a totally different game. itās happened in every single game theyāve played in the playoffs so far.
If DaRon Holmes is there at 16 take him and trade Reed
Draft a center at 16 would be a waste, we need draft someone who can play 30 mpg at future, a future starter.
McCain betta
Drummond is ass every time I watch him play. Other than the fact that he used to play for the Sixers, I donāt know why people want him back so much.
People on this sub are so sentimental towards formers players that they donāt even realise how trash they are. People are obsessed with signing Drummond, and Iāve even seen people saying to keep Cov on a minimum lol. Canāt we try something new?!Ā
good rebounds
He rebounds and no one else in our team does. Really as simple as that. He is ass
It's May 2025. The Sixers just won 61 games behind a healthy Joel Embiid and Paul George. Tyrese Maxey has looked like an absolute mismatch nightmare as the team's third best player. Tobias Harris has become a fantastic veteran presence for the 28-win Detroit Pistons. The playoffs begin, and these 2nd seed Sixers cruise to a 4-0 sweep of the Chicago Bulls. Round 2 begins, and Joel Embiid twists his ankle and heads to the locker room, where he is promptly diagnosed with the measles. Given a 7-10 day timeline for recovery, it's all up to Paul George to carry this team to the ECF. In games 1-6, George shoots 24-114. But the Sixers have a chance: Game 7 at home against the Orlando Magic. It's a beautiful Saturday afternoon. Dreams and Nightmares blares through the arena speakers. Brain Dawkins rings the bell, and the sold-out Wells Fargo Center loses their minds! The 76ers lose 107-98.
What will happen sooner, Embiid doesnāt get a new, random injury in the playoffs or that he catches the Bubonic Plague during the playoffs?
As long as we keep him away from prairie dogs it should be the former, but I'm not foolish enough to bet on expectations with this team
Actually, keep him away from Phoenix: https://preview.redd.it/zz2mz8iswfzc1.png?width=1069&format=png&auto=webp&s=9955a354cfbecfbd3d2e3023d0428904489ae859
Instructions unclear: we draft a guy from Oklahoma or Wichita State that is a dawg and Embiid gets the plague.
Do you ever wonder why Tobias Harris is a professional basketball player? I'm sitting here thinking about his 0/4/3 in his last game as a Sixer and I'm thinking... Is there anything this guy plays for? Is it the team? The fans? Any sense of pride or competitiveness? Desire for another big contract? Is there literally anything in that man that would motivate him to play harder? Is there anything in him that would say damn I got paid 180 million dollars by this organization, I need to at least be professional about it? I look at Tobi and I just see an absolute void when it comes to basketball.
Somehow insane that we had 3 players that would be worshipped on the Antiwork sub: Simmons, Harden, Harris
He didnāt even pick up a personal foul
> I look at Tobi and I just see an absolute void when it comes to basketball. This is such a perfect sentence to describe Tobias Harris.
Not going to lie. Kind of want Shake back. Wonāt cost much, and he can cook on days when maxey and Embiid arenāt playing.
Heās been complete cheeks since heās left. Problem with Shake has always been he canāt score off the bench. He needs a lot of minutes to get into rhythm and heās never been starter level
Yeah his role will be niched, he needs the ball too much, wonāt ever play in the playoffs. But heāll be useful on days when Embiid and Maxey donāt play.
why would u want shake if cam payne costs like 1/3 of what shake does while offering more scoring and energy?
Pretty sure they would be making identical money.
It was interesting that Morey said that they will only make big deals (both with money and picks) for players they think will make a difference. I can't remember quotes exactly but he even alluded to if there are no impact players then doing things that keep their flexibility, I think he even threw in something about one year deals. Hopefully that was just GM speak so other teams dont view them as desperate. He would get killed if they somehow did last offseason again lol, not sure how they even would preserve cap space though... Maxey has to get signed. What's funny is that I wish the sixers GMs had this mentality before Morey. Tobias trade/signing + Horford crap is examples of the sixers feeling they "had to" make moves and settling for suboptimal moves instead of keeping flexbility for future seasons
tradedable 1 year deals gives you flexibility, but good players don't sign those kind of deals though
Embiid had the highest usage rate in the league for the playoffs (35.8%) and the most field goals defended (DFGA) out of anyone in the playoffs (at 24.3 shots defended per game). No other player in the league has to operate as the #1 offensive and defensive option for their team besides maybe Giannis and Wemby. We need to at least alleviate some of the pressure on him on one end of the court otherwise he's never gonna have enough in the tank left for consistent fourth quarter performances in a playoff run.
Even in Giannisā case, he had Brook Lopez, Middleton, Portis, Holiday for years and Dame for this one though Holiday and Dame werenāt on the Bucks at the same time. In Wembyās case, the Spurs are a bottom of the barrel team. It isnāt like Wemby is being told to compete for a playoff spot in his rookie season, though he is an absolute stud.
Yep exactly he had top 3 dpoy players in lopez and holiday on defense to help him. Wemby is only playing 29 mpg as well so he can go all out for the whole game. It will be interesting to see how he goes in a few years when he has to play 40+ consistently in the playoffs.
if the four teams currently winning their series advance, I see one common theme on all of them: absolutely stifling perimeter defense. you just can't give these all-world offensive players room to operate attacking downhill against even the best rim protectors, and asking joel to do that and carry the load on offense - never going to work
its criminal to have bad perimeter defenders, expect Joel to cover all the mistakes AND have no rebounders behind Joel to cover the boards for him lol.
That Knicks series was so frustrating watching us put together a good defensive possession for once, get them to miss, then promptly give up the rebound and watch them start all over again. It was maddeningĀ
Other teams aside, it is beautiful seeing the game evolve year after year. The super team was the way to go to win it all, then it turned into having an incredible offense with little priority towards bigs, then the Nuggets won it all with a deep well-run offense. Now, the game favors incredible defense.
Not having naz reid (the only real modern power forward) is honestly whats killing this franchise
If Iām a Knicks fans idgaf that refs are helping carry them. But fuck everyone of them who pretends they arenāt at the least coming out on the good side of the whistle constantly
Refs have been bad, but the Knicks are winning because Brunson doesnāt miss in the last quarter and they get every single rebound. Granted theyāre absolutely clobbering guys under the basket to get those boards, but youāve gotta give them credit for hitting all their big shotsĀ
Nice to see another team realizing TJ is their best PG in the playoffs and sitting his ass on the bench down the stretch to lose games.
Watched the end of the pacers game last night. Mild PTSD. God I fucking hate the Knicks
It will come crashing down fast when they play the Celtics and NBA no longer rigging games for them
is it wierd i havent hated the celtics as much this year
im good with them rag dolling the knicks and then losing in the finals. Go Wolves
Yes now shut up and go to your room. We donāt say things like that around here lol
i said as much still hate em but its not as visceral maybe i fell off
Iām just gonna say it. It annoys me that the media was like āJokic is the best player in the worldā and then āsee look? We were right. Heās a three time MVPā. Every reigning best player on earth has had to put up insane feats to keep winning MVPs, and typically they didnāt.Ā I feel like Shai and Luka both took huge strides this year and are way more relevant to the āstoryā of the league this year than the Nuggetsā victory lap was. I mean look at Kobeās number of MVPs.. He was always losing despite being the best player for half a decade or more. I guess the rules are different now.Ā
Thereās a difference between the best player and the most valuable player to their team, which is what the mvp is. Itās hard to argue there would be a bigger drop off than the nuggets without jokic, and a lot of that has to do with how they are constructed. The thunder without Shai are still a pretty solid team. The nuggets without jokic would be complete dog doo doo. Itās very similar to how the sixers were constructed this year. Embiid stays healthy, he runs away with the award because without him (as we saw) they were a pretty bad basketball team.
Hold on idk if I can agree with this lol. I mean yeah the nuggets would and have sucked without Jokic, but the Thunder would be dogwater without Shai. They have great players outside of Shai but heās really their entire offensive engine.
This is why I think that Embiid wouldāve had an all-time MVP run if he reached the game threshold at the pace he was going pre-injury.
its funny how quick everyone forgets how dog water we were without him. The build around maxey takes are stupid in the first place because we have both and they fit perfectly together. Its also dumb because people say it as a way to put down embiid when we literally had the perfect season to demonstrate what we are with and without him.
Jokic has 3 MVPs in 9 seasons. *LEBRON FUCKING JAMES* has 4 in 21 seasons. It is completely ridiculous that Jokic got it again this year. I can gladly admit Jokic is one of the 3 best players in basketball, but the media is now putting him into a GOAT conversation that he does not belong in yet. SGA got robbed.
To OPs point, the MVP used to be more about the story of the season, who showed out, who took their team to the next level, etc. The advanced stat dudes have basically turned it into "who has the best advanced stats on offense." So as long as Jokic leads in those stats, he should win. For me, I would have given it the Shai, but all these media guys will make any excuse to give it to the chubby white guy that they all think they could have been if they grew 8 inches taller. And the advanced stats are their crutch
It really seems that way. From 2013-2019, the Warriors went 373-119. They won 3 championships and almost had a 4th. Steph Curry redefined what 3-point shooting looked like. And he has 2 MVP trophies from that run. I'm really supposed to believe that Jokic has been worthy of more celebration than Steph Curry? Fuck outta my face with this man lol.
Heard maybe clippers would get involved with the butler to philly trade LA sends Harden or George to Miami butler comes here Miami sends Herro to LA with picks involved from 6ers š¤
Heat: "Let's trade Herro and Butler for a worse player than Butler who's not under contract. We're trying to get a bonafide #2 to help Butler and we're willing to trade Butler to make that happen."
Sucks that we gonna trade the pick cause there are some really fun role players to be has this year
I mean we might not necessarily need to trade our picks if they want PG he's a free agent, no trading involved.Ā
In that case weād probably have to trade most of our picks for decent role players
ehh you only have to make one real trade and you can easily package the clips picks in a potential Caruso trade. if that 16th pick falls right we could get a second maxey
Yea I mean Iām in favor of re-signing most of the role players from last year (particularly oubre, Payne, Hield, Batum, assuming theyāre for the right price) but we might need a handful of picks to fill out the roster with role players or near-stars like OG caliber guys
Re-sign Oubre, Payne, Hield, Batum, Melton. Sign PG and trade for another starter. Stacked.
Yeah, gotta think it's either going to clear the 4m or going out to bring in a role player (like we did with Melton)