2021 nba offseason draft free agency etc

haha. they’re paying him $92 million!

LeBron James says he's now vaccinated. As for urging others to get vaccinated, he says "That's not my job."

"We're talkin' about individuals' bodies. We're not talkin' about something that's political, or racism, or police brutality ..." pic.twitter.com/p7wv4mkf5o

— The Recount (@therecount) September 28, 2021

just so so good

Embiid on Ben, partial: "Our teams have always been built around his needs. So it's just kind of surprising to see. Even going back to, the reason we signed Al, we got rid of Jimmy, which I still think was a mistake, just to make sure he needed the ball in his hands."

— Kyle Neubeck (@KyleNeubeck) September 30, 2021

love it

Might as well go all in on throwing him under the bus

If I'm not going to get fans booing him out of town, this will do.

never recall hearing anything about jimmy being let go because of ben, joel making stuff up cause hes mad

yeah i'm a little bit confused by the "joel embiid, what a straight shooter" commentary i'm seeing everywhere

i mean i can understand why sportswriters might feel compelled to egg him on lol it is tremendous content

yeah even from normal educated fans though, it's like he's now this warrior who just cares about winning or something.

There are definitely conflicting stories, but Jimmy revealed he had tension from Simmons in the 2019 playoffs because Brown started running the offense more through Jimmy.

yeah even from normal educated fans though, it's like he's now this warrior who just cares about winning or something.

― call all destroyer, Thursday, September 30, 2021 9:29 PM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

“I don’t get on the scale. It’s not good for my mental health.”

- Joel Embiid. 😂

(via @LaurenMRosen) pic.twitter.com/3Q2jCx0qaX

— Hoop Central (@TheHoopCentral) September 30, 2021

xp the way i remember that going down is not that they "got rid of jimmy" which is embiid's quote, it's more that jimmy decided to leave because he had some issues with the sixers but more importantly he could go to miami and be the guy

lol i saw that quote and tons of people being like "joel gets me!!!"

deep down were all overweight professional athletes

fat is potential in disguise as they say

Joel is sort of the perfect athlete for Philly.

i feel like my understanding was that jimmy left the sixers for the same reason he left chicago & minny which is bcuz they wouldn’t give him the full max. if that was because of simmons idk, it seems to me like they had the same reservations as those other teams about giving jimmy that kind of money. and so jimmy went and found a team who would give him that level of commitment. coincidentally or not each of those three teams have spent the years after jimmy in various states of turmoil

it seems pretty unlikely to me that embiid would just say that unless there were some substantive truth to it. what would his reason be otherwise?

hes a big mad baby idk

reminder that his twitter name is still joel “troel” embiid

i believe joel too

it's not mutually exclusive, reluctance to give jimmy the max surely tied to what needs they felt they had on the roster. thinking you've got a blue chip lead ball handler already on your team leaves you pretty reluctant to max out another. can easily imagine some front office folk saying as much casually to joel

like it doesn't mean simmons was making demands, the responsibility lies just as much with the team for betting big that he would have become a better offensive player by now. but he didn't so those decisions don't look good

yeah if philly was thinking that way then theyre dumb having more than one guy who can dribble is considered a good thing

i mean obvs they are dumb as demonstrated through the process and beyond so i guess i could see them being all we have our dribbling guy already

for sure, it is a key skill in the national basketball league

pretty funny that by the end of the season jimmy went to miami ben was spending a bunch of time hanging around the baseline not really doing anything

also funny that simmons was clear about the roster construction issue which is that he doesnt fit well with embiid which is true and has been obvious all along and embiid responded with bitchy gossip

wouldve been better for everyone if simmons made the trade demand two years ago, but i guess thats not how these things work

Things that participants have stated that I believe are true:

1. Joel was a big fan of Jimmy on and off the court in the short time together and wanted him to stay. They have remained friends.

2. Late in the 2019 season and the playoffs, Brown started running the offense more through Jimmy. Coincidently, the Sixers started playing better.

3. Jimmy has stated that Simmons wasn't too happy about #2. He also stated that he wouldn't have been happy if he were Simmons.

4. Sixers discussed a max contract with Jimmy, but were hesitant based on whether they could "control" him, his fit with Brown, and his fit with Simmons. Jimmy says Jimmy doesn't need to be controlled. Jimmy's going to take his talents to South Beach. Sixers maxed Harris and brought in Horford (oops).

I think Joel is probably over-simplifying some pretty complex reasons why the Sixers didn't bring back Jimmy, but some of those complex reasons were absolutely rooted in whether to piss off one of their two young stars by bringing in a guy who would take the ball out of his hand to some extent.

that was exactly the moment they should have signed jimmy traded simmons and fired brown, but obvs thats asking a lot

good chance they wouldve won a chip if they had tho

good summary pbkr. hindsight is 20/20 but lagoon xp otm

it's not coincidental that this is the result of the process. the strategy of amass high picks and consistently take best player available is bound to lead to poor fits and head cases. you live with the fiascos that were fultz and jahlil okafor as the cost of doing business for hitting on embiid. but they cut their losses pretty quick on those. the poor fit with simmons and joel not so much. tbf though simmons is a pretty unique player

yeah the process was exactly what you would do if you were tanking and also didnt understand basketball or people, its pretty funny that it became this whole thing when it was just a low quality tank job, another huge misunderstanding by hinkie was thinking that draft picks and players were comparable assets and he could just trade his way out of drafting four centers when really picks tend to me much more tradable than players which is something everyone else knows, ironically the one bad fit they could have very profitably traded their way out of simmons-embiid they didnt

hindsight is 20/20 but lagoon xp otm

― Lavator Shemmelpennick, Friday, October 1, 2021 12:00 PM (six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

fwiw i did advocate for doing all those things at the time

get this man an nba team stat

i know right im the new haralabob

Agree that lagoon has been otm re: Simmons for a while, but you could understand the organization not cutting bait.

I also feel like Simmons isn't catching enough fire here for being an incredible weirdo whose game has actually regressed.

Maybe the Sixers should have hired Kendall Jenner as GM - she knew when to trade Simmons.

Agree that lagoon has been otm re: Simmons for a while, but you could understand the organization not cutting bait.

― Hannibal Lecture (PBKR), Friday, October 1, 2021 12:15 PM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

totally, the nba is not fantasy basketball

Hinkie drafted chalk every time, which is not what good GMs do

another huge misunderstanding by hinkie was thinking that draft picks and players were comparable _assets_ and he could just trade his way out of drafting four centers when really picks tend to me much more tradable than players which is something everyone else knows, ironically the one bad fit they could have very profitably traded their way out of simmons-embiid they didnt

yeah he was behind the curve of realizing that the league was moving away from centers

that okafor draft was brutal i mean hezonja, cauley stein, mudiay, stanley johnson, frank kaminsky & justise winslow were picks 5-10 but hinkie picked okafor over porzingis & tho porzingis career has been um troubled the lack of foresight/understanding there on what skills would be/are valued in big men on the court and on the trade market…. really poor & not giving much confidence that the guy actually understood what he was doing when the job moved beyond “understanding the value of tanking” and into “evaluating basketball talent”

yeah that draft is wild 5-10 busted then below that theres a bunch of serviceable to great players

that draft does look pretty dire now. just a perfect storm of teams taking flyers on relative unknowns (hezonja, mudiay), an obsession with that kentucky team (lyles & cauley-stein to go along with towns, booker), the people's champ tall white guy (kaminsky), and then your classic busts, injury division (winslow) and non (stanley johnson). i guess throw the sixers taking okafor in there under "stubborn team sees good stats center and refuses to adjust thinking to match needs/era"

pretty funny that booker was the last wildcat taken, btw i was just watching one of those offseason open run youtubes and lyles just couldnt do anything even with everyone playing defense at half speed just pitiful

last of those 4 lotto picks. couple more in the second round, andrew harrison and dakari johnson

harrison bros were supposed to be a big deal, oh well

Morey has had this dumb analytics thing where he tries to reclaim guys who washed out with other teams if they were high draft picks. Because hey, high draft picks are correlated with being good. But really what you should try to do is draft the guys who don’t wash out.