Ben Simmons was on The Late Late Show with James Corden last night alongside Mayim Bialik, who played “Blossom” on that 90s sitcom and now stars on The Big Bang Theory.

I haven’t seen much of Corden’s show, but in watching the replay, it looks like he brings out the guests first and does some goofy skit before the traditional interviews at the desk.

Last night Simmons and Bialik played some game where you put on a blindfold and “nuzzle” a random item, and the gist is that you have to identify the item based on pressing your face up against it.

She went first:

“Is it a nylon grocery bag?” 

Ben went second, after the jump:

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Zhaire Smith broke his foot; I think y’all are quite familiar with that bit of news.

But we got an update today on fellow rookies Landry Shamet and Shake Milton, who were also injured this summer (go figure) –

AUG. 13, 2018 – Rookie guard Shake Milton (spondylolysis, stress fracture, in his back) has been asymptomatic for several weeks and was recently cleared to resume limited basketball activities. An update on his status will be provided in approximately four weeks.

Rookie guard Landry Shamet (sprained right ankle) is now asymptomatic and has resumed light basketball activities. He is progressing and will continue rehabilitation under the supervision of the 76ers Athlete Care staff. An update on his status will be made available when appropriate.

Good news for both guys.

Shamet hurt his ankle in summer league action. Milton suffered the back injury in pre-draft workouts. He signed a two-way contract with the Sixers last month.

Smith had successfully surgery to repair his Jones fracture last Thursday.

This has been your rookie injury update.

What’s Joel Embiid doing this offseason?

Well he recently played in the NBA Africa game. He’s been working out with Drew Hanlen a bit. You know – staying in shape, getting in the gym, enjoying a healthy and full offseason for the first time ever.

He’s also playing pick up soccer with Cameroonian kids and throwing down bicycle kicks while wearing a Paul Pogba jersey:

Joel Embiid playing with the kids in Cameroon 👌🏾 pic.twitter.com/r7CUnENpqF

— ESPN FC (@ESPNFC) August 13, 2018

Swing and a miss, but I did like the left-footed finish in the third clip there.

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We already knew about the Christmas Day and opening night trips to Boston, plus the MLK Day matchup against the Rockets.

The rest of the Sixers schedule dropped this afternoon, and here are some items of significance:

• it’s not as front-loaded as it was last year, with tough games against Golden State (2x), at Houston, at OKC, at New Orleans, and at the Lakers taking place after the new year
• 9 of the last 13 games are on the road
• there’s a crazy, five-game road trip that includes the Christmas night game vs. Boston, plus Utah, Portland, the Clippers, and Phoenix
• 9 back-to-backs this season, two of which are in April – that’s an upgrade from last season when the London game sort of squished the back-end schedule and didn’t allow for as much rest

More on this from Shams:

Notable tidbits on 2018-19 NBA schedule: No four-games-in-five nights again; back-to-backs are at historic lows (average of 13.3 per team this season, it was 19.3 in '14-15 and 14.4 last season) — and elimination of eight games in 12 nights for first time.

— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) August 10, 2018

• There’s a funky back-to-back featuring a 3:30 p.m. game in Cleveland on a Sunday, followed by a Monday night game in San Antonio
• LeBron comes to town on February 19th, so posers should get their brand new Laker jerseys ready
• all four games against Boston are on national television (obviously the league and the networks wanna get the rivalry up and running again)
• 27 national TV games is a ton, almost double the 14 we got last year (also means you’re gonna get a chunk of east coast games starting at 7:30 or 8:00 instead of 7:00 p.m.)
• some very early Eastern Conference tests – at Boston, at Milwaukee, at Toronto all in October

The Sixers put together a month-by-month breakdown:

• OCTOBER: 8 games (4 home, 4 road)
• NOVEMBER: 16 games (9 home, 7 road)
• DECEMBER: 13 games (6 home, 7 road)
• JANUARY: 15 games (7 home, 8 road)
• FEBRUARY: 10 games (6 home, 4 road)
• MARCH: 14 games (7 home, 7 road)
• APRIL: 6 games (2 home, 4 road)

Full schedule after the jump:

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I saw this earlier today and wasn’t totally surprised, but I found the numbers to be outrageous.

The NBA hit 30 million Instagram followers this morning, which is almost triple the number of the NFL and more than six times MLB and the NHL:

Chart: The @NBA on @Instagram: From 0 to 30 million followers in less than 6 years, lapping other major American sports leagues. pic.twitter.com/MkJsgJS8OP

— Ben Golliver (@BenGolliver) August 9, 2018

Here are a couple of other foreign and domestic leagues and how they stack up on Insta:

• UEFA Champions League – 25.4 million
• English Premier League – 18.5 million
• WWE – 15 million
• UFC – 9.9 million
• La Liga – 9.1 million
• PGA Tour – 1.3 million
• MLS – 967,000
• NASCAR – 853,000

The NBA easily trounces them, and it makes sense because it probably has the most global reach out of the “four major American sports” and the youngest cross-section of fans.

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The first part of the NBA schedule was released a short time ago, and the Sixers will play a handful of marquee games on national television.

They’ll open the season on the road in Boston, an 8:00 p.m. game on TNT. They’ll come back to Philly to play the Bulls in the home opener, two days later, also on TNT.

Christmas Day it’ll be the Celtics again, with the Sixers going up to Boston for a 5:30 p.m. start on ABC. They will also host the Rockets in a prime-time game on MLK Day.

Here’s the full slate from the NBA press release:

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I missed this on Tuesday afternoon, but I know how much y’all love Skip Bayless, so I had to get this scorching hot take on the site:

"Philly is coming out of the East; Philly will be a better overall basketball team than Boston. … Maybe the @sixers have two better players than anybody on this Celtics roster." — @RealSkipBayless pic.twitter.com/CR4oOzOYxZ

— UNDISPUTED (@undisputed) August 7, 2018

Maybe Skip is just correcting course after missing on so many Eagles and Cowboys takes last year, but…

…I think he actually makes a decent point when he talks about adding Kyrie Irving and Gordon Hayward to that Celtics team.

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