There’s no logjam. I’ll show you the study
I’m writing something about all 30 NBA teams over the course of 30 days, in the lead-up to the NBA season. This exercise began yesterday with the Clippers, so I wrote about how much I haterespect Paul Pierce, who announced on Monday that the 2016–17 season would be his last. Meanwhile, at 76ers media day, Nerlens Noel once again brought up the frontcourt logjam in Philadelphia. At the suggestion of John (Twitter), I’ll explore that below. I’m still taking suggestions, as planned, for the other 28 teams. Tomorrow, the Kings.
There’s a scene in the Season 2 finale of 30 Rock. Jack Donaghy has just started a new job in the Bush White House after quitting GE, and he meets his new co-worker, Cooter Burger. (Note: Not his real name. He was eating a burger on his first day in the White House, the President called him Cooter, and he just never corrected it.) Cooter introduces himself and lists his endless series of job titles, and Jack mentions that the administration has had a lot of shakeups lately. Cooter says he couldn’t disagree more.
The ceiling then begins leaking water, which Jack also mentions to Cooter. Cooter denies the existence of a leak in the ceiling.
Jack and Cooter continue talking, and Cooter tells Jack that he’ll write down his extension in case Jack needs anything. Cooter grabs a paper clip and writes his number on a Post-It. Jack wonders why they don’t have pens, and Cooter replies that they are not in a recession.
As their conversation wraps up, Jack once again mentions the fact that the ceiling is leaking and they don’t have pens, and once again Cooter denies that the existence of a leak. He’ll show you the study.
In case you’ve missed the point here: the leak in the ceiling is the 76ers’ frontcourt logjam, Jack is Nerlens Noel, and Cooter is the 76ers’ front office.
There are a few ways you can unjam a log:
— You can forcefully unjam the log. (Make a preseason trade.)
— You can wait for the log to unjam itself. (Play out the season and see which of the big men separate themselves, who fits with whom, etc.)
— You can pretend the log isn’t jammed at all. (What the Sixers are doing.)
It’s a bold and daring strategy, and we’ll see if it pays off.
I’d personally suggest going with option two here, which, to be fair, is still possible for the Sixers to pursue even if they go with option three first. They can deny the existence of a logjam, then wake up to the fact that it exists after letting Noel, Joel Embiid, Jahlil Okafor, and their other 47 big men play together for a while.
Some pieces of their skill sets make for perfect matches (Okafor could badly use Noel’s rim-protection abilities behind him; Embiid’s shooting helps spread the floor for Okafor’s post-ups and/or Noel’s rim-runs, etc.) while others seem like they could never work together (neither Okafor or Noel is an offensive threat farther than, say, 10–12 feet from the rim), but Brett Brown hasn’t been given a chance to play around with all three of these guys on his active roster yet. It seems like he should at least get some time to see how things work before they make a move.
Just, ya know, don’t try to tell us the ceiling isn’t leaking when we can see the water pouring through.
