Posts for nba

Ben Simmons didn’t play last night, so he didn’t shoot a jump shot.

But he was still asked about the shot today, for the 500th time, during practice over in Camden.

Difference this time is that he gave a rather thoughtful response instead of just brushing the question off and calling it dumb:

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No Ben Simmons, so no jump shot storyline last night in the Sixers’ 20-point win against the Detroit Pistons.

Al Horford did not play either, so we got a starting lineup that looked like this:

1. Josh Richardson
2. Matisse Thybulle
3. Furkan Korkmaz
4. Tobias Harris
5. Joel Embiid

That gave us a bit of an extended look at Richardson in a ball handling role, Harris bumped down to power forward, and Korkmaz in a starting role, playing alongside more talented guys.

Since the game didn’t feature one specific takeaway or theme, outside of the 15 blocks the Sixers posted, I decided to do it differently this morning, and we’ll go player by player with some notes on each guy:

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Dilly Dilly.

The Sixers and Budweiser collaborated to create branded beer cans for all of y’all to enjoy this year.

Philly is one of just nine teams to feature their branding on the cans. The design includes a 76ers court outline with the script “The City of Brotherly Love” and “Philadelphia 76ers.” There are also designations for each year the Sixers won the NBA championship.

Later in the season, there will be a special 24 ounce release of these cans that will be served during games, as well as anywhere 24 ounce Bud cans are sold.

Some more images, after the jump:

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LeBron James is back on U.S. soil, which means he’s free to speak his mind.

That’s different from China, where you’re not allowed to do that.

So naturally, LeBron was asked about the Daryl Morey tweet that set off a public relations shitstorm of epic proportions, the pro Hong Kong message that even affected a Philly exhibition game and saw two fans kicked out of the Wells Fargo Center. James was in China with the Lakers while most of the nonsense was unfolding, and he was asked about that crapola before last night’s Lakers/Warriors preseason game.

Here are two of the quotes he gave, via ESPN:

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During his decade-plus tenure as general manager of the Houston Rockets, Daryl Morey has cultivated a reputation for being one of the smartest minds in basketball. Morey pioneered the use of analytics in the NBA, and his disciples have since spread the gospel of advanced metrics to every corner of the league.

Morey also has demonstrated a penchant for pulling off franchise-altering trades in an effort to keep the Rockets in contention in the crowded Western Conference. After the Golden State Warriors dispatched Houston in six games in the Western Conference semifinals, Morey signaled his willingness to overhaul his roster radically. Out went Chris Paul and in came Russell Westbrook. It was a daring gambit, and perhaps a desperate one, given the draft pick ransom the Rockets had to pay the Thunder in order to commence the deal: two first-round picks (2024 and 2026), plus the Thunder reserving the right to swap picks in 2021 and 2025.

However, it seemed for a time that Morey’s career with the Rockets might not survive long enough to enjoy the fruits of his all-in bet on the 2019-20 season. Morey’s tenuous job status has had nothing to do with questionable basketball decisions or mismanagement of the organization.

Like so many modern tragedies, it all started with a tweet. On Friday evening, Morey fired off a seemingly innocuous message on Twitter expressing his solidarity with democratic protesters in Hong Kong who are engaged in a protracted clash with mainland China over perceived intrusions on the former’s limited democratic rights:

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Crazy how this Daryl Morey tweet turned into a full-bore NBA disaster. We’ve had fans kicked out of Philly and Washington preseason games, protests outside of arenas, and the uber-rare occasion of liberals and conservatives joining together to rip the league for kowtowing to China. I mean, we had Laura Ingraham and Will Bunch on the same side, for Christ’s sake.

All because a general manager expressed support for the democratic movement in Hong Kong.

Now the NBA is putting the kibosh on communications until the preseason China trip is finished, per ESPN:

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Tuesday night, a pair of Sixers fans were kicked out of the Wells Fargo Center during the preseason matchup against China’s Guangzhou Loong Lions. Sam Wachs and his wife sat about five rows behind the visitors’ bench, holding signs that said “Free Hong Kong,” and found themselves getting the boot during the game’s second quarter.

In a statement, both the Sixers and the WFC (run by Comcast-Spectacor), explained that the couple were issued warnings for their “disruptive behavior” before tossing them from the arena.

Guangzhou continued their U.S. tour with a trip to Washington last night, where the fallout from the NBA’s China debacle continued.

These guys had their sign taken:

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