ExplosionsInDaSky wrote:We need another scorer and we need another defensive player. I was stoked when we got KJ, Cov, and Batum from the Clippers, but outside of Batum who didn't even want to be here, those guys have given us next to nothing. The entire heartbeat of this team has been Embiid being Superman every night and Maxey hitting circus shots and thirty foot threes. It's very reminiscent of the early 90s teams where it was Barkley, Hawkins, and a bunch of bums.
I can definitely relate to the thought that none of this matters without Embiid anyway but good teams find a way to win even without their best player. We're a lottery team without Embiid and that just isn't a good look. Take the Bulls teams during the Jordan retirement...Pippen carried them to 50 win seasons. The Celtics of now can take turns sitting Porzingis, Brown, and Tatum and still win handily.
This current Sixer team is not Finals material. Those good vibes will give birth to bad mojo before too long. Tobias continues to frustrate, the Kelly Oubre shine has worn off and we see now why nobody wanted him (as predicted), the harsh truth about Embiid is that he's injury prone and outwardly selfish when it comes to personal accolades. Then there's Maxey who has been stellar. But the recipe to stopping him is so simple and unlike smaller guards like Iverson he can't figure out how to combat that. I mean put a bigger guard on him that is athletic enough to stay with him and he is limited to heroic attempts 25+ feet out. We're going to get smoked in the playoffs based off of what I've seen. At this point, I hope Jo makes it through the season. IDK, I'm down right now with the losses.
Agree with absolutely everything. I'd like to add that for all of the harsh criticism Tobias has gotten in this thread-- it's quite true that he's not an alpha and not a crunch-time guy, as we've all known for a long time-- he did score 32 points on 50% FG, he did log 10 boards, his +/- was the same as the other starters. The issue is not that he sucks on-court, it's that he's gotten paid star money to be the 3rd or 4th best starter. That's not a new problem, and it's about to end this year. But it's not super easy to find other guys who'll give the same performance for vastly less money.
At any rate, there should be no question that (as you write) this team isn't Finals material and probably can't even get out of the 2nd round, if that. We're all awaiting a magical infusion but each time we get hope, other teams improve as well (Celts, Knicks, etc). I'm left simply hoping that Morey has something great up his sleeve.