Sixers Offseason Recap and Season Preview
Tweeting This Out from My Burner
Well, the NBA season kicks off today with my beloved Philadelphia 76ers taking on the Boston Celtics. With Brad Stevens coaching for his job, one has to wonder if an opening night loss will seal his fate. But we’ll leave that for another article. This article serves to (temporarily subside the existential dread that is slowly crushing me more and more every day) take a look back at the Sixers offseason and the season ahead of them.
After a disappointing 4–1 series loss against the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals, where youthfulness and a lack of ball-handling skills cost the Sixers two games, the team had a relatively quiet offse — wait, what’s that? Bryan Colangelo was caught doing what? And he blamed it on who? It took the Sixers how long to fire him?
Yes, as everybody may remember (or may not remember since today’s news cycle is approximately 3 minutes), Bryan Colangelo was fir — excuse me, *resigned* after an investigation by The Ringer’s Ben Detrick found that Colangelo, or someone close to Colangelo, was running burner Twitter accounts leaking private team information, and speaking critically of players and coaches. I take the news, which came down just a few days after my birthday, as a belated present from the basketball gods.
But that left the Sixers facing a difficult problem: entering one of the most consequential offseasons of The Process with no General Manager to lead them through it. The Sixers’ solution? They essentially named Brett Brown the interim General Manager, leaving him in charge of the draft and free agency. The team gave no timeline for their GM search and named no potential candidates until very late in the offseason. Granted, this GM search appeared to be more in-depth than the search that landed them Bryan Colangelo.
Speaking of nepotism and getting a job you were clearly unfit for, in the midst of all the Colangelo fog, it was announced that Jerry Colangelo would not return to the team as a special adviser in 2019. What a loss. Good riddance to both of the Colangelo’s and a big fuck you to the league for forcing Colangelo onto the team.
Anyway, Brett Brown was in charge heading into the draft, and with the 10th pick, took Mikal Bridges and the whole world rejoiced. The Philly kid stays in Philly! All is right with the world!
Then about a half hour later, the pundits emerged from the woodwork and the Sixers became villains again once they traded Bridges for Zaire Smith and a 2021 Miami first rounder. Oh, the humanity! People stopped talking about it like an hour later and we were on to free agency, where the Sixers felt they had a real shot at landing the big fish of the summer: Lebron James.
With free agency quickly approaching, it still appeared that ownership had not even interviewed anyone for the position. So, it would be Brett Brown once again taking the lead in free agency. Everybody’s attention was on trying to land Lebron. The Sixers had a meeting with Rich Paul but it never seemed that serious, except for the fact that Sixers fans had about 4 heart attacks in a 3 day period. With every passing day, it seemed more and more likely that Lebron was going to the Lakers, and on July 1st, The King announced his decision.
Brown then shifted his focus and turned to other priorities. He resigned JJ Redick to a 1-year/$12 million deal, traded for Wilson Chandler and Mike Muscala (whose father was just recently busted with a burner account), and brought over Jonah Bolden from Australia. Then came the quiet days of the offseason, but not before the yearly tradition of the Sixers first-round pick breaking their foot. In early August, Zhaire Smith had surgery to repair a Jones fracture in his left foot, the same injury that had sidelined Ben Simmons for his entire first year. Smith is expected to return around Christmas.
The quiet days continued into the end of August and early September until the Sixers announced they were interviewing both internal and external GM candidates. They wanted a collaborative structure and didn’t want to give anyone final say or allow them to fire the current team in place and bring in their own guys, which pretty much sets up the boundaries so that the team can only land on an internal guy. And that’s exactly what happened.
On September 18, less than one month before the season starts, the team announced that Elton Brand will be the team’s new General Manager. Out of left fucking field. Two years ago, Brand was *playing* for the Sixers. Then he became the General Manager of the now Delaware Blue Coats (formerly the 87ers). It was always leading to this. Process Player becomes Process GM. I’m glad we had normal-collars Colangelo as the buffer period between Hinkie and Brand, and I’m excited to see what Brand will do.
The last bit of news from the Sixers’ offseason also has to do with Twitter. Mike Muscala’s father had made racist comments about Jimmy Butler, and the team preemptively got out in front of the story and issued apologies. And thus began the Elton Brand Era. Time to find a new slant.
What I’m Watching For
Markelle Fultz
Fultz is the biggest question mark heading into this Sixers season. Will he have any semblance of a jump shot? Will it be enough to help space the floor and really give Simmons and Embiid room to work?
It appears that his work this summer with shot specialist Drew Hanlen has paid dividends. That is, of course, according to Hanlen himself. But Hanlen would not be hyping up Fultz this much and drawing this much attention to it if the jumper was not markedly improved. At least that’s what I’m telling myself to keep me away from the ledge. This Players Tribune video with Fultz and Isaiah Thomas also features some Fultz jumpers and they look pretty good.
A confident Fultz with a functional jumper makes this Sixers team that much more scary. Fultz can create space and let Embiid and Simmons work within the paint. Redick, Covington, and Saric provided some spacing, but the hope is for Fultz to be a superior 3-point shooter, and provide the floor spacing needed to let Simmons and Embiid flourish. But if Simmons comes back with a jumper….
Simmons Jumper
Simmons notoriously did not shoot a 3 pointer in his rookie season, and got ridiculed from all angles for it. 78% of Ben Simmons’ jumpers came from within 10 feet, while 20.7% were pull ups. He shot 64.3% on those shots within 10 feet, but only 33% on the pull ups. Let me be very clear here: Ben Simmons does not need to improve his jumper in order to dominate the league.
But… if he does….it’s absolutely over for the rest of the league. Defenders will no longer have the choice to sag off Simmons and give post help to Embiid while letting Simmons sit at the 3-point line. Simmons is also so explosive off the dribble he’ll be able to blow by defenders that get to close to him. Alternatively, if opponents sag off Simmons, his explosiveness allows him to pick up enough speed to catch a defender flat-footed and also blow by them. Basically damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
Embiid’s Conditioning/Handles
The two aspects that Embiid needs to improve on this year is his conditioning and his handles. Towards the end of the season and into the playoffs, it felt that Embiid would run out of gas towards the end of the game. In the his final 16 games after the All-Star Break, in the fourth quarter, Embiid shot 39.4% from the floor and 68.4% from the line. Much lower than his season percentages of 48.3% and 76.9%. Conditioning should come with a healthy offseason behind him.
Embiid’s handle is his biggest weakness and cost the Sixers valuables points in the playoffs. He averaged 3.7 turnovers/game last season with a paltry .84 AST/TO. His turnover ratio last season was a ridiculous 13.8, which puts in the sam realm of players like Kelly Olynyk and Kent Bazemore. In other words, not good, so hopefully we can see some improvement from Embiid in those handles and turnover departments.
Embiid’s Dominance on Social Media
After a relatively quiet offseason on social media, outside of park videos of Embiid dunking on fools, and some thoughts on the Colangelo collar saga, we’ll see how quickly it takes Embiid to return to mid-season form on Twitter and Instagram. After some highlights last year, it will be interesting to see if Embiid tones down his social media now that the team has actual expectations, or if that only makes him talk more shit.
We all hope it’s the latter.
Simmons’ Next Spring Fling
Simmons made waves and drove pundits insane when he decided to…[*gulp*]… date a celebrity. The nerve! Simmons and Tinashe dated from November to May. After they split, it took Simmons no time to start dating Kendall Jenner, which ended relatively quickly. Now it appears that Simmons has moved on to model Ashley Moore. It doesn’t really matter who he’s dating, it’s just fun to watch old white dudes lose their mind over a young kid living his best life.
After an Eastern Conference Finals run last season, the Sixers have their sights set on the Finals. They have the pieces in place to make that dream a reality; anything less feels like a waste. A full season from a (hopefully) 100% Fultz, another year of Embiid/Simmons, and the additions of Wilson Chandler and Zhiare Smith should add all the improvements the Sixers need to make the next step.
Thanks for letting me rant for 1600 words. See you in Hell.
