Posts for @sixers

Monday night, Marc Stein reported that Sixers and Devils at-will employees making more than $50,000 were informed that they would be subject to “temporary salary reductions of up to 20 percent”, a policy that would start on April 15th and continue through June. Stein went on to say that members of the coaching staff and front office were also asked to participate, but cannot be forced to do so.

This caused a huge stir on social media and it’s all over the radio this morning, confirmed by the Sixers in a statement that reads like this:

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Not even a global pandemic can put a stop to Angelo Cataldi’s fake outrage routine.

I thought Angelo might change up his approach during a health crisis, but today he decided to tweet this out:

Now that we know that two Sixer players tested positive for the coronavirus, is it asking too much to know which players? What’s more important, privacy or public health? Does Joel Embiid — who was closest to virus victim Christian Wood — have it? We need to know.

— Angelo Cataldi (@AngeloCataldi) March 23, 2020

Alright, I’ll bite.

There’s actually a reasonable question buried in there, a question about privacy vs. public health. But first, some background information:

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The Sixers didn’t lose three of four games on the west coast road trip because of offensive struggles.

Brett Brown’s team put up point totals of 130, 107, 125, and 114 en route to just one California win, shooting 43.5% from three point range, which made them the NBA’s second-best team from beyond the arc during that stretch. They mustered a #2 overall 122.2 offensive rating while playing small, spreading the floor, moving the basketball, and lighting it up from distance.

The problem is that they simultaneously posted a league-worst 123.6 defensive rating during that stretch, leading to a negative net rating overall. The absences of Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons absolutely crushed them on the defensive side of the ball.

Embiid is listed as questionable for tonight’s game against Detroit, and if he doesn’t go, you’re probably looking at more of the same small ball, with Mike Scott playing faux-center behind Al Horford while Norvel Pelle and Kyle O’Quinn remain on the bench.

Surely those two might help on the interior, right? Perhaps, though Brett Brown had to this to say on Tuesday about giving his backup bigs more playing time:

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Ask Yaron Weitzman and he’ll probably tell you that his book is coming out at an unfortunate time.

It’s called Tanking to the Top, “The Philadelphia 76ers and the most audacious process in the history of professional sports.” The problem is that the Sixers aren’t anywhere near the top right now, and are embroiled in one of the more frustrating and exhausting seasons any local team has given us in recent years, so Weitzman of course was bombarded with people asking him about the title, to which he replied:

As I've said before, "Tanking To Three Straight Second Round Playoff Losses" doesn't exactly have quite the same ring https://t.co/CKUplDVn90

— Yaron Weitzman (@YaronWeitzman) February 28, 2020

The topic of Sam Hinkie and the Process will likely be relevant as long as Ben Simmons, Joel Embiid, and Brett Brown remain with the Sixers. We constantly re-litigate the Process in this city, and with the team not playing very well right now, this is as good a time as any to dive into Yaron’s book, which is available for pre-order and will officially be released on March 17th. We got an advanced copy to look over.

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Stop the presses.

The Sixers won a road game, and they did it without Joel Embiid, Ben Simmons, and Josh Richardson. The road losing streak comes to an end at nine games.

It was fun to watch, wasn’t it? We saw a lot of the same small ball and five-out possessions we saw in Los Angeles, only this time the Sixers didn’t have to deal with Anthony Davis and LeBron James on the defensive end. They held up much better against a smaller Kings team that wasn’t able to capitalize on the Philly’s lack of interior presence.

The result was a more open game, where the Sixers were able to turn the Kings over, hammer them on the offensive glass, and ultimately muster 17 more field goals, winning the total attempts battle by a whopping 96-79 margin. They used that volume advantage to fire up 37 three pointers, hitting 17 in the process, and using their effective perimeter shooting to kill off myriad Sacramento runs.

And this guy played his best game in a long time:

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