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Sixers Media Day: Paul George’s Hot Takes, Arm Sleeve Maxey, and Another Season of Joel Embiid Load Management
By Kyle Pagan
Published:
It’s Sixers Media Day. I think my excitement for the season falls in between listening to 24 straight hours of the Podcast P show and watching Hip Hop put on a halftime dunk display where he has to jump through flaming hoops and over shark-infested waters. Lets do this:
Paul George isn’t expected to be ready before training camp, which shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone at this point:
“Where Paul, doe?”
PG also doesn’t think this year can be worse than last season:
Oh buddy…it can though. Strap in. Paul George is always good for a comment or two in the preseason that looks terrible by the end of the year. Luckily for this year he gave us two:
I hope he makes me eat my words. No Sixers fan should be actively rooting against PG. It’s just no actual Sixers fan should believe a 35 year old George is going to live up to his contract.
If there’s one person to be excited about, it’s Tyrese Maxey. I loved this quote about setting the standard. The Sixers desperately need a leader in that locker room when PG and Joel Embiid are sitting out and it looks like he’s going to be that. Thank god for Maxey and VJ Edgecombe because this squad would have zero juice heading into the season without those two:
Arm Sleeve Maxey loading….
I hope you liked that slight break from load management talk. Back to our regularly scheduled programming:
Last year was a load management season too, and he only played 19 games due in part to him suiting up for Team USA and not letting his leg heal, and also partly because the Sixers sucked so much they just shut him down. Lets see how it plays out this year. I know it’s tough, but if the Sixers want to win back some of the fans they have to be honest and open with us about Embiid’s injury timelines. This constant will he or won’t he play is mind numbing and turns off fans from watching games and buying tickets. All we ask is some insight after a decade of “re-evaluated in two weeks” –
Embiid also talked about his feature story this summer that offered a lot of insight into his personal thoughts on everything:
NBA Analyst Kyle Lowry gets it:
VJ Edgecombe is impressing already:
Nick Nurse revenge tour incoming?
They’re hitting more in scrimmages than the Eagles do in training camp. “No fouls” scrimmages are awesome:
Daryl Morey says this is the best leadership group he’s seen in his career…which isn’t saying much if we’re being honest. Morey teams have never really been known for overcoming adversity:
Nick Nurse offers some insight into how they’ll use Edgecombe now that he’ll be counted on earlier than expected with Jared McCain’s injury:
One thing that you can hold your hat on is the body language and words from Morey and Nurse:
Those two guys know both of their jobs are on the line and they know where the team sits in this city with the fanbase currently. So if you admit to having that kind of “fuck it mentality” I like that. Makes guys play, coach, and GM looser. It’s like when Nick Sirianni was scared to hand play-calling over to Shane Steichen because he didn’t want to look like a failure and Jonathan Gannon told him they’d be fired anyway if they finished 3-14. This could be the end of the road for a lot of guys if the season blows up in their face again. Might as well go down swinging.
And one thing before we go because it wouldn’t be the Sixers if there wasn’t some sort of story. In non-basketball news, but still on media day, Jeffrey Epstein’s estate released some documents and Josh Harris is named in them “awaiting a reply to Bill Gate’s party” –
Kyle writes blog posts and does Man on the Street-style videos all around Philadelphia. He graduated from Temple University (a basketball school) in 2015. contact: k.pagan@sportradar.com