Hello, here’s a bucket of cold water to pour over your pelvic region:

Just when you thought things were beginning to turn around as a Sixers fan, a slew of reports and conjecture was shatted into our timelines this morning. As it stands now, the Sixers and Celtics seem to have a loose agreement for some assortmant of picks to go to the Celtics in exchange for their number one pick. But the Celtics, it would seem, are willing to move back to three only because they like Josh Jackson and feel they could get him there.

Problem: Fucking Magic.

The Lakers could overthink this and not take the obvious hometown star despite the fact that them drafting Lonzo Ball seemed like a foregone conclusion for pretty much the past year. They like Josh Jackson and may have promised him and thus feel the need to invoke the ol’ Larry Hughes corollary, affectionately named for Larry Brown, who drafted Hughes over Paul Pierce because he pinky swore.

So if the Lakers take Jackson at two, or let everyone think they could take Jackson at two, this trade could not get done at all or at least be seriously delayed. Literally Magic could just toy with two of the Lakers’ oldest rivals for the hell of it. Worse, there’s really no way to know their intention until after they make their pick, which could lead to a HORRIFIC draft night scenario where the Celtics take Fultz first, the Lakers presumably(?) take Ball, the Sixers take Jackson, and then we all freeze like fucking fainting goats, mouths agape, waiting for the trade alert to come across the screen or a Woj bomb to blow up our timelines. That worries me greatly. At any moment, Danny Ainge, the NBA’s ultimate cock-tease, could have a change of heart. Say nothing of the fact that Magic could draft Jackson and screw everything.

If you’re thinking, hey, this wouldn’t be so bad, because in either of those scenarios the Sixers would wind up with Fultz or Ball, which is better than what most of us expected, let me point you in the direction of this comparison of them:

Granted, it’s only one guy’s evaluation, but Fultz checks almost all of the boxes. And he could be ours… if Magic doesn’t fuck us.