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Tom Penn, once close to becoming the Sixers’ GM, just via satellite’d into SportsCenter to talk lottery, because that’s what league people do when they can’t get a front office job.  One of the questions asked was a pretty fair one: If the Sixers get picks 1/6/11 tonight, added to Embiid, Noel, and whomever they bring back, what are the chances they make the playoffs next year in the weak East? Tom Penn hung his head and held up a zero with his hands. His reasons were stupid.

  • Penn said the only hit they had in Hinkie’s tenure was Michael Carter-Williams, who they traded away for a pick “they are highly unlikely to get.” They will get it. It doesn’t go away. They just might not get it this year. It’s okay though, Tom, I know it’s confusing. It’s GM stuff.
  • He also said Embiid was injured all year, like that was something no one knew. If you’ll remember last year, some people (not Penn though, to be fair) said they’d still take Embiid first overall even with his injury.
  • Penn said Dario Saric is “somewhere in Europe playing with no end in sight.” We’ll let John Gonzalez take this one:

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  • He said Nerlens had an “okay” year. Sure. I guess Nerlens wouldn’t have made his All-Rookie roster if he got a vote either.
  • Penn closed it out saying the playoffs are “further away than ever in Philadelphia. It’s been one of the most curious cases of this ‘super tanking’ that they have been doing and continue to do.” So, if he was hired, I guess he’d have taken a different strategy. Or, to put it less gracefully:

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[h/t Eliot Shorr-Parks for transcript]