The issue is there are only two stars that might be available. Both are very pro living in LA, are old, and probably wouldn't get the 76ers over the hump.
How high is your bar for Embiid if you call his performance in some games of this series as low lows? Aside from G1 and the 4Q of G4 when Nurse decided not to give him a 2-3 min blow around the 4Q intermission Embiid has carried this team to being competitive.
We’re using FG% to determine effectiveness now? In one loss when he shot 7-19 he also went to the line 14x, had 6 assists and forced double and triple teams constantly that created open 3’s that his teammates consistently missed. He was pretty dominant for the first 3Q of that game not just “ok.”
DeRozan definitely got votes. All joking aside, Embiid plus Maxey gets you what? ~50-53 wins with better Embiid health. Tobias Harris was still a 6 WAR player. If you go get another star you are dumping him plus either Melton and/or Batum plus every player besides Reed who is playable in a playoff rotation and you will almost no cap room to rebuild minus TPE.
Well, the earlier trade has been pretty crucial, it just didn't happen at the deadline.
It's not batting average, FG% remains important. If you want to go by game score (since we're evaluating individual games), he averaged a game score of 23 in those 3 losses, whereas in his amazing regular season prior to his injury he averaged about 31. Certainly still good, just clearly below his MVP-level standard - if you want to dispute the relative meaning of "ok" for Joel Embiid, sure, it's subjective.
FG% is a lot less important when the other factors that HRB mentions are in place. If anything, it's worse than batting average given the rest of the context.
I guess you can debate the relative importance of FG% compared to batting average since it's apples and oranges anyway, but that's why I included Game Score in my post above - it takes into account plenty of other factors. It's not an advanced stat as it's basically an arbitrary counting stat summation, but advanced stats are only so meaningful on such a small sample size to begin with.
They have the same problem as the Lakers... huge part of their approach on both ends relies on guys who just may not be physically capable of sustaining the full game. Now... NYK are not the Nuggets, but on the other hand Tyrese Maxey at his best isn't all that close to AD at his best.
Embiid is not built for this. He is an amazing basketball player but as the pressure mounts he gets away from his game. I don't get why he keeps fucking around in no man's zone instead of staying at the top of the key or keeping wide at the elbow. When he is stuck in the muck, he gets trapped, can't move the ball, and can't cut. Trying to muscle Hartenstein or Robinson 20 ft from the hoop is dumb.
I would say "From your lips to G*d's ears" but I actually mean the opposite
I like Hart but if he wants to shoot volume versus Boston (if that happens), let it happen. He is great with all sorts of brick work.
He just doesn't have it, at all. And Maxey is making me awfully anxious about offering a max in July if I'm Philly. They have to do it, but he hasn't covered himself in glory as the #2.
It sucks that they had no way to acquire an elite guard who could run an offense while Embiid sits.
Maxey has scored 32 tonight against a tough Knicks defense with Embiid trying to get a record for most eyes poked out.
I think the comment is based on his overall body of work in this series. The Sixers simply can't hang when Embiid sits, and that's the real test of a #2 for me.
Yea he is not enough but tonight is not his fault. Embiid was brutal tonight.
It's more his overall game, he's borderline as a #2, but even tonight... they're losing the minutes he plays and Embiid sits by a ton, just like all series, and he's getting cooked on D whoever they put him on.
Will be interesting to see how they scheme on BOS... they gave PHI a lot of open corner 3s, confident they wouldn't hit them. Generally doing that against BOS gets you blown out (see Heat game 1)
