TheBallsDeeper wrote:mjkvol wrote:TheBallsDeeper wrote:Most fans want to see a championship and expect that to be the team's main focus. I wish I could be like you and celebrate early playoffs exits, bragging that there are worst teams in the NBA, but it's just not me.
There's dense, there's beyond hope of reasoning, and then there's you. I'll say it slowly so maybe you might be able to keep up:
1. I'm not "celebrating" anything, nor is anyone else here.
2. No one is "satisfied" with where we are much less "bragging" about it.
3. It's amazing that you need this explained to you, but here goes - having a top ten team in the league with two all-stars and a soon to be all-star on the roster is a lot stronger position to possibly build a championship team from than selling everyone off and counting on ping pong balls going your way so you can ... wait for it ... possibly draft all star players with the hopes of someday building into a playoff team, then a perennial playoff team, then ..... wait, that's where we are now!
As I've mentioned several times - the Sixers are not going to be able to build a championship team paying the ghost of James Harden $60m per year. That's what this was all about, You've said that you agree with that, but it's great that the sixers are a top 10-12 team. Good for you if you want that, but not all of us enjoyed seeing the Heat beat the Sixers.
You make a good point a bout Harden. He's definitely NOT the guy to pay 50 million dollars to (or however much it is). Either way though...Currently...Going into next season...Harden is going to be here for a minimum of one full season with us. Meaning that in the short term, we are much better with him then we are without him. I don't think anyone on here is sanely suggesting that we max him out after seeing what we've seen out of him since the trade went down.
Now I wasn't exactly over the moon when we did trade for him. I wanted the Haliburton deal. I wanted to get younger and keep building. I thought for sure that Morey would see Haliburton as the next steal as far a trades go. He didn't I guess. So, we're currently stuck with Harden for all of next season. After next season I don't think he comes back unless it's on a much lower price. I think he knows that, I think his agents know that, the team knows that, the entire world knows that...And...This entire forum knows that as well. So you can stop worrying about us maxing him out and being tied to him. It wont happen EVER.
So...In the meantime (while we still have him here), we have to figure out how to improve this roster in the short term. Do we continue with what we have? Retool in a few areas? Maybe get a little bit younger on the wings? That would be my initial plan. Personally I thought Embiid being injured changed the entire outcome of our playoff run. You can argue of course and say we still would have lost to Miami, but I am not going to agree with that, and the truth is, we'll never know how it would have turned out. I personally think that if Embiid is healthy, we have a chance to beat any team in this league in a seven game series. So with that said, I'm all for using the MLE to sign a decent wing player, and then trading Danny Green's expiring contract for another player that can help us. I think we'll see Paul Reed take a nice step forward next season as well, and it's not out of the question that one more young gun rises into the rotation for us. It could happen.
Either way, the sky isn't falling on this team. We're still very much in contention for next season barring major injuries to our star players. I think all 76ciology is saying is that we're a lot closer to winning it all then we are from tearing it all down. Tearing it down and rebuilding makes absolutely no sense what so ever AS LONG as Embiid is under contract here. Superstar players don't exactly grow on trees. You don't just find them any and everywhere. Teams suck for years in this league, Sacramento has been a lottery team since 2006! They still haven't drafted their franchise savior. There is absolutely no reason what so ever for us to just rebuild. Some of us actually sat through the ten win season we had. I take it you didn't? NO...We wont be doing that again any time soon. This team has a good 3-4 year run in it and if we draft right, and some of our young guys develop it could be even longer. The biggest obstacle with this team has been being healthy at the right time. Embiid has been hurt the last two seasons, Ben Simmons was out against the Celtics in the bubble. That's been the last three years of our playoffs. It's injuries holding us back.