2018-19 Sixers Season

[frylock]

It's funny, I never thought too long or hard about it until I typed out that post. The more I think about it, if Brett tried to cut Simmons' minutes, I bet ownership comes down on him. I also still assume Brett and Brand both report to ownership as opposed to the typical ownership-->GM--->coach structure, because that works so well (sarcasm -- and not a shot at Brown, just another weird way of ownership doing things, if this is indeed correct). Josh Harris is a portfolio guy, I think he will do whatever to appease Simmons to insure he resigns here with an eye on marketability/profit. Whether or not Simmons is in the best interest for the franchise on the court (debatable -- though I don't think he ever puts in the time to develop a consistent jump shot threat), he is a face with accolades and part of "The Process" and perhaps protecting that is more important than truly increasing chances for long-term success and the GM/coach sees it.

If all of that is true, I actually feel bad for Brown. Makes me wonder how things would be if he had the roster "his" way (and his comments I previously mentioned about Simmons make me believe he is frustrated and the rumors about wanting to deal him are probably true) -- Embiid on the perimeter is not ideal, but needed in many situations when they have Ben playing the point for spacing (as you all know).

Lots of conjecture I suppose, but it makes sense to me that's what is going on. Plus the pieces you mentioned as well.

[bigegypt0417]

Lottery is tonight...let's hope for an upset and we get the fist pick.

[Squire]

I was thinking about that. I mean its interesting drama. Sacramento is dead last in the lottery right now. If Sacramento is not the first envelope opened then either (1) The Sixers get the #1 overall (awesome); or (2) The Celtics get the #2 or#3 pick (awful). If Sacramento isn't in the first envelope that's going to be a very very stressful 10 minutes.

[bigegypt0417]

I'm worried about the same thing!

[bigegypt0417]

Another sunny side for next season is hopefully they have a healthy zhaire smith to add to the rotation.

[jimbomill]

Another sunny side for next season is hopefully they have a healthy zhaire smith to add to the rotation

I'd rather also still have Shamet and the pick in lieu of Harris, who isn't a max contract difference maker to me.

[Lawman]

Agreed.

[phillychuck]

It's not our money for Harris--if we don't max him, someone like Brooklyn will, and we lose the ability to use that money if he signs elsewhere. So even though I agree he's probably not a max-level player, we should just max him anyway b/c it doesn't affect our cap space, and, as I said, it's not my money!

[bigegypt0417]

That's a really good point!

Losing Harris now would leave a hole we can't fill.

[el-pietro]

I think it is top 4 this time? So it is:
Pick 1. Sixers 1%
Pick 2. Celtics 1.1%
Pick 3. Celtics 1.2%
Pick 4. Celtics 1.3%
Pick 14. Celtics. 95.2%

1% Chance!

For the record, I find the lottery fascinating, but pointless and counter intuitive. I don't see how it does anything to prevent tanking and if anything it just makes it so that more teams want to lose towards the latter parts of the season.

The point of a draft is to help the bad teams get better. Using a lottery to even out the odds just means that the very worst teams take even longer to get better on average as they will miss out on the best players a significant portion of the time. Flattening the odds might mean that complete tanking has less value so you don't get teams like the Sixers during the Hinkie years, but it means that falling into the middle of the lottery is more valuable. Look at New Orleans for example. New Orleans had a weird year but should have been pushing for the playoffs even with their poor start and the trade stuff with AD but instead have a 26% chance at a top 4 pick and a 6% chance at the number 1.

[zambonir]

The theory is, the Sixers will not be able to outbid the Lakers or Knicks for any free agent on any four-year deal, and might not even be able to keep Butler if not for the fact that they can give him five (Butler is even making noise already that he doesn't care about that, which is certainly leverage).

And the same probably goes for Harris, even if he seems like less of a no-brainer max deal player, someone out there will probably give him four.

And they have no trade assets (barring sign-and-trade I guess. Or Simmons).

So you can't measure Butler and Harris against the $, you can only measure them against the cheaper and likely lesser options available to the Sixers in free agency instead. But, they also might lose Reddick.

So, there's probably a case to be made for ditching Harris in favor of some combination of Reddick, a better-paid back-up center and a cheap 5th starter, but it's not clear-cut, and you might lose Harris before you know who you can actually get.

[bkeich]

The lottery was created to stop teams from tanking to get to set/better positions in the draft. I think it does work in concept, there really is very little reward for being worse, but they have kinda messed up the odds by making almost tiers, which means there is now a reason to get worse to get to the next tier of percentages.

You may be too young to remember why the draft has "odds". In the 2nd year of the draft the reward was Shaq, and the team that was the closest to making the playoffs won it (Orlando) and teamed him with Penny Hardaway to quickly go from the lottery to the finals.

[Lawman]

Talk of NY radio is that the Knks are going to go hard after Durant and Kyrie Irving. If both of them come to NY, or even Durant alone, makes the division that much more difficult.

[bkeich]

I cant help but wonder a little if Brown didnt make a tactical error in game 7. Basically he sent his 5 guys out there and said "you guys are playing the whole game" as all 5 had 40+ minutes in the game. This was VERY unusual for all of these guys and I honestly cant help but wonder if they didnt run out of steam trying to come back so much.

It is very tempting to just go with your best guys down the stretch (see 1964 Phillies, dont watch too hard it might give you a stroke) but to ride guys like this when they arent really used to playing those types of minutes in a game might cause problems. Of course the converse is just as easy to say, they are young why can't they do this for a game 7 once a year, both arguments are real.

When you look at our +/- for the night our starters won the game, but our bench got crushed even in the few minutes that they were out there. Hard to make a call which was the better path to take.

Embiid is a guy that will probably never be a huge minute guy, I think he just isnt physically able, he is a huge, huge guy and he just can't put 38+ minute a game strain on his body, just a fact. He is at an age where it might get a little better and he might get a little smarter about using his energy more wisely, but he is what he is, and he is an incredible physical specimen, just not a marathon kinda guy.

[Purduke]

Hard for me to buy into the "too big to play" thinking. I'm sure we can both name dozens of BIG, big men from Wilt to Shaq who didn't suffer from minutes limitations because of their size. There is too much talk circulating about the need for Joel to get in better shape nutritionally from media quarters that routinely overhype everything great about rising NBA sensations for me to accept that right now. Heck, in their Championship year Moses played a minimum of 37+ minutes in 12 of the 13 games that year - only exception was 31 when he got early fouls. And unlike most big centers Joel already plays half of the offensive sets at the top of the key vs bodying down low for heavens sake -- when did Wilt, Nate, Moses, Shaq ad nauseam get the advantage of that?

Joel is young. Ben is young. Even younger than their ages perhaps. My #1 cited reason for liking the Butler deal at the time was that he has the eye of the tiger in his personality and game and someone needs to get into their grills and make them realize that they are frittering away their first chances at being winners. And that isn't going to be Brett or Elton or the owner. But they need to figure out who that is going to be.

[el-pietro]

Isn't that the point of the draft? Why shouldn't a bad team be suddenly allowed to be good? Surely its better than 3 and 4 years of tanking from a single club.

I understand why they introduced the lottery, I just don't agree that it solves the purpose they say they want it to solve. For the same reason I don't think banning the shift will speed up baseball games.

[el-pietro]

He tried to rest Joel in game 7, every time he took him out of the game the Raptors put together runs.

If he had a playable back up center he would have played him.

John Schuhmann on Twitter

[zambonir]

It seemed to me like there should have been more Scott in Game 7 but more back-up centers, not so much.

They are saying if Joel plays 60 games and more like 32 minutes, there will be a plum job for a center.

[zambonir]

Well, the Sixers' shot ended early but the Knicks lost out to the Pelicans.

[Squire]

That's a great lottery outcome for the Sixers.