The Ringer NBA Show - Is Embiid Tired Of The Process? | The Answer

Episode Date: May 13, 2022

Chris and Seerat start the pod by analyzing Joel Embiid's postgame press conference after the 76er's 2nd Round exit of the playoffs and go through his trajectory of injuries and public comments in the last couple of weeks. They then discuss Joel's playoff history, his connection with the Philadelphia fanbase, and speculate on his NBA future. Hosts: Chris Ryan and Seerat Sohi Producer: Chris Sutton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is Chris Vernon, and me and my buddy Kevin O'Connor, aka Kevin O Everything, host an NBA podcast called The Mismatch. They call it The Mismatch because I'm awesome and Kevin is a gigantic nerd. No, no, that's not why at all, Chris. They call it the Mismatch because I have a brain and you're a loudmouth bozo. Good grief. Anyway, listen to our amazing NBA podcast, The Mismatch. Or don't.

We really don't care. We're probably going to win a million awards either way. Chris, we do care. So don't say that. Please subscribe and listen to the mismatch only on Spotify. Did you really call me a bozo? Hello, and welcome to the Ringer MBA show. My name is Chris Ryan. I'm joined by Sirius O'Hohie. It's the answer. We do this every Friday. We try to ask one big question that we try to answer over the course of a podcast. Sometimes we ask lots of questions. Sometimes there's not even a question mark involved. And this week we're going to ask what to do with Joelle and Bede. Not like, like, should we, to the Sixers, trade him or anything? But like, he's, he's a fascinating superstar who has been playing on a really volatile organization for most of his career. And yet, the results are almost always the same. So I thought Siritt and I could talk about

Joel Unbeats' trajectory, his career and where he goes from here. Siritt, how you doing? I think the most important question today really is, how are you doing? I feel okay. There's always, like, a sadness when the team you're cheering for their season ends. But then in the case of the Sixers, I think there's like a little bit of relief. You know, this was not like a really inspiring basketball team. Other than like the first five games of Hardin in the second half of the season, there was not a lot of like high-fiving going on among me and my Sixers friends on group chat or in real life. So like to have them go down sucks that they've lost two straight elimination games in Philadelphia sucks.

That Embed seems to be a broken man again at the end of a season sucks. but it is what it is. Like Miami is just a better team. I mean, yeah, Doc Daka actually came to that realization. Yeah, I could have helped him with that. You know what I mean? I could, if he'd asked around, I think people would have told him. You sound like somebody who, you know, has been holding on to a dysfunctional relationship

for a really long time and is now going through the initial pain of it being over, but also realizing, wait, wait a second, this wasn't all that great to begin with. And now I might actually have some headspace for something else. And I have my Saturdays free. So that's nice. So did you get a chance to see a bunch of what, like, I mean, we could talk about the game itself, which was last night, Sixers lost 99-90. It wasn't even that close.

I think there was a lot of like shake Milton juicing up at the end of the fourth quarter there that got it like within 10, but it was not a single-digit game. Did you get a chance more so to see some of the comments that Sixers made after the game? Yeah. So I was flying during the game. The first thing I did once I had, once I was off airplane mode was Google Joelle and Bid post-game press conference without knowing the results of the game at all. And man, did he not disappoint at all? So I got to reverse engineer this where I saw everybody's comments before I actually watched the game.

I kind of caught some stuff last night and I watched it this morning. And well, based on the comments, the game kind of went exactly how I thought it would. And just the fact that, like, the biggest shocker, but also like, oh, we're, we're in it right now was, like, the timestamp on the interview. Like, it was long. It was like 20 minutes. And it was very, it's very insightful, but it was also just like, I'm getting deja vu at this point. You know, I'm getting deja vu. This isn't just when they get knocked out of the playoffs.

I feel like, you know, in every season, there have been, like, a few iconic Joelle M. Bede press conferences. Sure. And this one was probably, the most hopeless one was probably actually after game five, which I think we should talk about was probably, let's start with that. Let's start with the game five post game press conference and just that general, the whole narrative around Embed at that time. You're talking about one game ago. One game ago.

Yeah, right. So, yeah, the post game comments that he had after game five in Miami, you know, in retrospect, and I think even yesterday, I talked a little bit about this with Tyler and Kyle, but in retrospect, I just think this was poor series management of an injured player. Like, you know, he comes back in Philadelphia coming off the orbital fracture and the torn thumb ligament. He's had a concussion. He's been basically sitting literally in the dark in his house because he can't look at his phone and he can't see lights because the concussion was so bad.

Comes back, he plays two great games for Philly, even if the counting stats aren't that great, the impact he had in Philly in those two games and games three and four was immense. There's like some Renaissance Hardin going on. They win those two games. They're going back to Miami for game five. They will have a game six. It's guaranteed.

Embed is obviously left it all out on the floor for those two games three and four. They decide to travel. And Embed obviously decides to travel to Miami to try and I guess steal one in Miami. And he gets really beaten up. You know what I mean? like he heard his back early on.

There's comments throughout the game from the announcing team. Chris Haynes says Embed's like really low energy. He's standing away from the team. During shoot-around, not even at the game. During shoot-round. He seems pretty unresponsive. There's something going on. Haynes speculated that it had something to do with the MVP voting.

I thought that was crazy. I was like, Joel Embed probably has known who he was going to win the MVP for the last couple of weeks. He obviously commented on that after the game. I couldn't tell if that was more of a like I was asked the question so said I was disappointed about MVP or if that was at the top of his mind. He brought up Bill's comments about Jalen Green obviously. Like he was very in his feelings.

It's the new cycle that won't die. It really is. I thought that was like he wanted to not care, but then he kept talking about it. And maybe it was him in that moment realizing he cared. So to me, it's not like just because he found out a few weeks ago that he would have processed it. and would have been fine because it felt almost like he was projecting his disappointment about the season onto the MVP award, right?

Like he was talking about not being recognized. He was talking about, I don't know what more I can do. Like, you know, he kind of blamed it on the media and the narrative that gets created and everything. And but at the same time, all the things that he was saying could very much apply to how he feels about this Sixers season. And also just his general Sixers career at this point where he has put everything on the line. And it felt to me like, you know, the actual pain of the injury and playing through it and not getting anything out of it was what was bothering him more than the MVP stuff, right?

Like that's, and it's obviously connected and that he has had an MVP season. He has been, you know, like one of the most reliable stars in the league for a while. And he's gotten away from the perception that he is injury prone. But I do wonder also if he is fighting that a little bit too much now with the way. this point where it's like, okay, yeah, you've gotten past that point, but also players get injured, right? Like that happens. Yes. There's a difference between, and I thought actually the guys from from Wrights to Ricky Sanchez had a pretty awesome talk about this last night towards the beginning of their pod. There's a difference between the way Devin Booker gets injured and the way Joel

NB gets injured. You know, like Devin Booker injures his hamstring, misses a few games, comes back, and plays himself back into all NBA level shape, seemingly. know like joll and bide and people have made this comparison is is the grail night in monty python where it just seems like he's always dragging a limb into the through the postseason and it's like this kind of almost the passion of joel thing where you're like oh my god is he like is he going to make it is this going to happen like is he going to drag his leg or his back or his thumb or his eye up the court this time what did he do to his knees is he going to need to get his meniscus operated on is he just going to play through it?

It's always in the postseason, something like that with the exception of the bubble year. There's always something. Well, sometimes you see it during the regular season too, right? Like where he'll be playing through stuff during the regular season. He'll be playing too many minutes. And it's kind of like, you know, this like storyline where he's the one that wants to do it. And there might be, you know, people on the team that don't necessarily feel like that's a good idea,

but he's going to keep pushing through. And there's like this stubborn insistence that he has, that he's going to keep going. That's ultimately what makes him great and also what makes this, it makes it a very tragic story, right? Because he just wants it so bad. And it feels like he's now getting to the point of realizing it reminds me a little bit of LeBron, where he's now been in a league long enough and had just like this perpetual string of second round outs that we can get into those at some point. But just realizing that you can't control everything. like okay you can try to tough it out through all these injuries and you can try to be the MVP

and you can try to improve your game every single year and he talked about it after this game too like he's always been very astute and savvy in how he criticizes he said basically that every time he caught the ball you know there are two or three guys crowding him and he needs to get better as a passer but it was also very much couched in a commentary on the team around him and the like the players around him as well and I feel like he's always had that and he's always been very committed to finding like the next edge in his game and it feels like he is just that game five especially it felt it felt to me like you know joelle and bids no good very bad day right like it just all kind of felt like it got to him yes yeah i think that that that

that your your point about it's not necessarily the MVP as much as it's something to show for the season because after game five when he talked about the MVP award and he's i i think that the die was kind of cast I actually understand if you're going to play in game five, if you're going to wrench your back, if you're going to look lethargic, if you're going to try and try and try, if, like, you know,

that game five was also when he got hit in the face and was rolling around on the ground and was, I think he got hit in the nose because he was crying. Yeah. And it was like, oh, you know what?

This is actually like, I have nothing to show for this. All this damage to my body and all these years here and I have nothing, not an MVP even, not even like the speech with the, thing in front with a trophy in front of me the speech about being a father or whatever I

would have said when I won the MVP. I have to say like the MVP thing has kind of gotten out of control where we talk about it essentially from game seven on throughout the season. I know Yokic has won it because Woad reported it a week ago but like have we done the like here's your award, Nicole

Yokic moment yet? Like I can't even tell if they've given it out. He uh, I think he like got it in in Sombor as he would. Okay. Congratulations to him. And it's just sort of like All of that for this. I know how much it means to these guys, but it's also like there's something kind of bizarre

about how this is such a hotly debated award, and then it gets like leaked by Woj 10 days before it actually gets given to a guy who's not in the country when it happens. And like, meanwhile, all the other people are like, fuck, I didn't win the MVP. Anyway, my point being is he's coming out of this thing with another year of nothing to show for it. And I thought it was pretty notable that I want to kind of go through a couple of

his postseason exits. But last night, I thought it was pretty notable that he, He must have, like you said, deja vu, he's finding himself in the same press conference at the same time of year. This was on the anniversary of the Kauai triple bounce shot. It's the same same time of year. It's the same press conference. It's the same questions about whether the guys around you are good enough and whether you have the right coach. And I thought last night was notable because everybody kind of assumes and by the time this podcast goes up even, Doc Rivers might be gone. There was something weird. Stephen A. Smith was saying about Doc Rivers on the on the SPM broadcast last night where he was just like something doesn't smell right. And I don't know whether. that was Docs at Liam Duck and he's going to get fired anyway or Docs already got the Lakers job. I don't know what the illusion was there. Giving a lot of credit to Doc Rivers for being able to win that game if he was like, you know, 100% of that. But, you know, we can keep it moving. And then they asked, you know, Joelle and Beat about like, well, do you think like there needs to be this shakeup and the coaching staff or whatever? And he's like eventually like, and this is true.

He's like, I don't know how many times we can like change coaches and change management. Eventually it's the players. And that was sort of the theme of a lot of the same. statements coming from the Sixers afterwards was we need to get more mentally and physically tough. But the Sixers played like seven guys for the last two weeks. So it's like you guys can all point fingers, but eventually you're all pointing at one another. Like I don't know who Tobias Harris is talking about when he's like, we need to be more mentally tough. It's like you play all the minutes, dude. Like I don't know what to say. PJ Tucker got like five offensive rebounds in a row on this team. There was just no no effort towards in the second half. Tyler Hero got an

offensive rebound on James Harden. It was like his first offensive rebound ever. I'm sure he was just like, I'm, I need to put this ball on my shelf. Like, this is like a first. So it's really kind of like at this point where the way that the team is constructed around Embed has failed three or four times now. You know, it's just not worked. And so you have to start asking questions about whether they're putting the right kind of guys around Embed. And whether or not Embed could be doing things a little bit differently, you know, whether

that's play style, whether that's not going for a screen. scoring title in the second half of the season and maybe playing minutes that he shouldn't be playing, playing in games that he could be taking off. And we can break it all down. But yeah, another disappointing second round exit for one of the most magnetic, charismatic and game-changing stars in the league. And it's pretty interesting. It's pretty interesting to see this this guy not be able to get over a hump, you know? Yeah. No, it's a good point. I didn't think I'd be going into this thinking about things that Joal-Beed could do better. But, But it actually reminds me of one Jimmy Butler.

Sure. Where early in his career, and actually James Hardin, too. We talk about where James Hardin is at right now. That guy played all the minutes in the world when he was in Houston, and he had an insistence on playing every game. He didn't want to rest. He wanted to try to play all 82. He was like, I'm a Hooper.

I love basketball. Hooper, not a basketball player. And Butler was the same way. I remember I profiled him in Chicago and he seems to honestly have the same sort of impulse as Embed where there is this desire to prove something but deep down you know that it's not that great for your body but you're just hoping that there will be a reward at the end of the day like when he said to me at the time was basically just like I'm not going to stop playing these minutes and like he didn't really want to see like the correlation between health and minutes this is during the Tibbs era

where everybody was like yeah this was grinding these guys and just The first year of Fred Hoyberg, actually. The first year of Fred Hoyberg. So I think there was part of that was like a push against Hoyberg style of coaching. It was like just a lot more chill. A time Fred Hoyberg remembers fondly, I'm sure, yeah. Oh, I'm sure. He said something along the lines of like, you know, I want to be Superman, but like, you know, like there's like I get hit, I get hit with kryptonite and then I'm down, right?

And it seems like the same thing with Embed and it, but there's this block that, that I think Jimmy's now old enough. but like Mbid seems to be at this place where he might now start being able to get over the block of realizing that he's not Superman essentially, right? And I think he kind of did in that in that game five post game press conference. He was talking about how he lobbied for MVP last year and this year when he was asked about it, he answered questions about it. And from now on he's just done. Like he's not going to be doing that anymore. I think that might be a necessary point. of growth for him. But also though, to the point of the players, like, I don't know if I agree with that.

Because as much as the management has changed, the players have also changed a lot too. It's been, he's probably had one of the more volatile, like, environments around him that I can remember any superstar having. And in a sense, this is a team that no matter how crazy things get behind the scenes, and usually that behind the scene stuff is just right out on front street, it's never like that hidden. They still make it into the postseason and make it into the second round of the playoffs. It's just that they get their asses kicked in the second round of the playoffs or losing seven to Atlanta.

Like, there is like a kind of floor that they're able to achieve with a team that is built around Joelle and Bede. But there was a really crucial thing that he talked about in that Game 5 press conference that we haven't mentioned, which is he started to verse. the end of his career. Like he was talking about, I have a couple of more years and I basically just want to make the most out of this time.

Like I think he said, when I'm done playing in a few years, it wasn't when I'm 35, it wasn't, you know, like this, I'll be in this league for another 10 years or, you know, we have time to make it right. It was like a little bit of like, I made the biggest push I could over the last couple of years

for these two, this individual award. I'm runner up twice. It didn't work. I campaigned the one year. And while he didn't quote unquote campaign this year, I think that he very much went for the scoring title, as LeBron was going for too.

And I think that that was definitely part of putting together a resume for the MVP award. For him to articulate a horizon for his career, like a plateau for his career, was I think pretty jarring for Sixers fans who kind of perpetually think of him as the project of all projects. you know that he is the process that he is the never-ending journey towards a title and that he's the the kind of prince who was promised player who we're all building this thing around and he's just like I'm getting older my body keeps getting beat up I'm a father and yeah I I agree with the Ricky

Sanchez guys who were talking last night like Spike was saying like maybe he saw what dirk said about playing the last year for sure for sure and it was just like this is not a guy who's going to be playing deep into his 30s so get that out of your head this is not going to be Chris Paul. This is not going to be LeBron. This is not going to be Ray Allen. You know, like, this is a guy who's probably going to be like, I gave it my shot. I'm 35. This is a wrap. And I don't know what his early mid-30s are going to look like as a basketball player. It might not be as dominant. He might be like 29 minutes a night and you have to use him really smartly. I don't, I don't know. The playoffs are heating up and you can make every game feel like game seven

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Restrictions apply. See full terms at sportsbook. Fandul.com. Gambling problems? Call 1-800 gambler or visit fanduel.com slash RG in Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Virginia. 1-800 next step or text next step to 533442 in Arizona. 1-88-78-9-77-or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. 1-8009 with it in Indiana.

1-877-7-7-0 stop in Louisiana. 1-8-8-NY or text-Hope-MY to 467369 in New York. Tennessee Redline is 1-800-889-9-9-8-8-9-1-800-5-2-4-4700 in Wyoming or visit www.1-800-Gambler.net in West Virginia. One thing you talked to me about before the podcast that we haven't really hit on is like the the Philly fan element of all of this. And I think putting that context in would kind of help. What do you want to know? No, it's just like, you know, like when we talked about this before the podcast, like we kind of

made the comparison to Iverson and how there's this sort of relationship that develops between Philadelphia fans and players like Joelle Embed who put everything on the line and really embrace like how hard Philly fans are going to be on you. expectations and like the fact that it's never really like it's always the sick and never really the carrot that definitely like you know it was the case with iverson and he handled it and he i think he loved it and i think embit is somebody who would who embraced it i think jimmy butler is somebody who would have embraced it and bends him into somebody who didn't and that's all it's it's all just kind of mental makeup stuff right but one thing that when you mentioned that to me

that it reminded me of was reading andriago dollas book he talked about playing in philadelphia and kind of like the emotional highs and lows of it where you get there and you're like, holy shit, this fan base is so passionate. They love me. They love us. Like, why would I want to play anywhere else? Like, they're just like these smart fans that are just like always going to hold

a team accountable and they're so passionate and stuff. And then he talks about how hard it was later on his career when he was playing through injuries. And he hadn't lived up to the potential of being like a non-year. number one type of guy. Like, Andre Adala early career was very miscast. Like, we know Andre now is like kind of like one of the best glue guys ever. And like at that time, he was like a 17 point score trying to like be an option. And that's just not who he's supposed to be. And there's a lot of frustration. He's playing through these injuries and like, you know, getting booed and criticized.

It seems idiotic. But there was like a lot of like he is the AI, AI, AI. He is going to be the next AI. He's going to be the star that really like lift this franchise up. Yeah. It was a different time. We couldn't imagine the possibilities of a team like Golden State and players like Draymond Green. Like it was a very different time in basketball, right? But he talked about the frustration of going through all of that for a team. And it almost seemed like he went through it more and like really put the like try to, you know, play through all these injuries and stuff because of the culture. And then to have that turn on him was very difficult.

Well, we see like cynical Iguodala who's very smart about these things now. and I think it probably comes from a lot of that. I remember that period as this like real limbo for the franchise post Iverson. And I have a lot of affection for some of those teams. And one of the most fun things I ever did at Grantland was really early on. Like I think I would always already had Denver at this point. But like that 2012 Sixers team that was Drew Holiday led that took the Celtics pretty deep in the second round. It was a Doug Collins team.

But it was like they were. they were playing against a Rondo Pierce KG Celtics team, if I remember correctly. That was a team that beat the Bulls when rose towards a season. And so I mean, like I remember those teams more fondly than maybe a lot of Sixers fans of now do. Because it was the idea was that you tear that team of like a second round exit team apart to get high draft picks, to get Ben Simmons and Joel Embed to have Cornerstone franchise players that take you to the finals. To hopefully make it past a second. round. You know, Iguodala was like a pretty cerebral player. In retrospect, he was probably more Ben Simmons than he was Joelle Embed. Right. Like the thing about Embed beyond like him embracing the idea of the Sixers and what the Sixers were trying to do and this like promise on in the future that this sort of this idea of the process was was he just made a very deep emotional connection with the fan base. And I think he is like in a lot of ways the manifestation of a lot of Sixers obsessions.

In the same way, like, maybe Zbo was for Memphis. Like, this is not a unique experience. I think it often happens outside of, like, the major markets where a team and a player will develop, like, an incredible connection. And that player seems to be, like, the avatar for the way that the fan base behaves, you know, or for better or for worse. I was very interested by Joe L.M.B. talking about playing in this most recent game five because he felt like if he didn't play,

he would get roasted for being soft. And I was like, I don't really think that would have happened. Maybe some guy would have called in the WIP and been like, this guy gets all this money and he's not willing to play with a hurt thumb. I really don't, I don't think we're there anymore. I just think that if he had been like, I gave everything I had in Philly to get us back in this series. I need a couple of days off.

The eye is bothering me. The thumb is killing me. I just need to stay in Philly and get rest while these guys go to Miami. If they win, great. If they lose, it's okay. We're going to win game six in Philly. And then we'll have like a one game playoff with Miami. Like, if he had said that,

that or if he had been like, I can't play anymore, nobody would have been like, Joelle killed us this year. I really don't think so. I really think that's a straw man. So it's like a weird thing where it's like, does Embede have like online brain where he's like, there are guys mad at me on Twitter? And it's like, are there? Like really? Like, is there a more beloved NBA player? I think if you look at how people reacted after his game five, though, it would give him some credence. So like there was a lot of, you know, talking head stuff going on about the performance that Joelle Embate had and how he was a no show. It's like, dude, he was injured and talking.

And like, you know, like, even like we went through it all, like the Chris Haynes report and like all this speculation about the MVP. At a certain point, you can't care about that. You have to care about your own body more. Yeah. I mean, just to complete your psychoanalysis question, I do think that there is like now almost like the bond between him and Philadelphia is like too strong. Do you know what I mean?

Like there is like this feeling of responsibility that he has to the franchise and the city. to do certain things. And then there is on that flip side, like I think when these seasons end, I'm sure every end of a season is emotionally devastating, but like it does seem like it breaks him to some extent. And I don't know whether the fan base or like the sporting atmosphere of Philadelphia contributes to that or maybe the amount of scrutiny

the Sixers have been under over the last few years contributes to that. I'm sure it all does. But there's something about like the end of seasons. Like when you go back to their first appearance with Embed in the playoffs, it was like the 17-18 season, and I believe they came in third in the Eastern Conference. Yeah, they went 52 and 30. This is that, like, after they had finished 14th in the conference,

they had a 28 and 54 season. And the next season is their kind of like thunder breakout season where they go 52 and 30, and they beat the Heat 4-1 in the first round. And in the second round, they lose to the Celtics 4-1. And after that series, Mbibb was like, the process is never going to end. This is a process to get to the playoffs.

We did it. This is a process to get to the conference finals. We didn't. Next year, that's our goal. It was like, I feel good. We feel good. We did it okay. And as we know, over the next couple of seasons, there was just a tremendous amount of

churn on this team. They went 51-31 the next year. That's the triple bounce year. That's the Jimmy Butler year. That was the team that started out. And I think I had maybe it was like my platonic ideal for a Sixers team. That was the Fed. team that was like Embeded Fultz, Sarich, Simmons, Covington, JJ was on that team.

It was this young, fun, mostly homegrown team that they then traded Covington and Sarge for Jimmy Butler. And that team was obviously the Jimmy Butler team was clearly amazing. You know what it was just like? It was like that was the right combination of players. Ben Simmons, Jimmy Butler, Joelle, Embedd was a title contending team if they had stuck with it. And then the Butler thing implodes.

There was a lot of stuff about that last night because Butler walked off the floor saying Tobias Harris over me. I think Tobias caught a stray because he was the only person that's still there. Because that was very much like an Al Horford over me and a Brett Brown over me and a Ben Simmons over me. Yeah. There was a ton of over him stuff. And I think that that was like a real bad like in between Calangelo and Mori period of

who's really calling the shots here. Is it Brett? Is it Elton Brand? Is it Josh Harris? is it who? So you get into the next season, which is the bubble year, right? And that's 43 and 30.

They finish the season. They get swept by the Celtics, 4-0. There was a moment in that season where it looked like Shake Milton was going to come in and save everything, too. I've wiped that from my memory. And, you know, the quotes are starting to get a little bit more struggle quotes.

He's like, I've got to do more, whatever the stats are, I've got to do more. I've got one job to do Carious. I'm going to need my teammates to help me. The next season, obviously, is 2021. That was the one we just experienced when they lost to the Hawks in seven at home, Ben Simmons, the shot, et cetera. And then we go into this sort of bizarre purgatory year that we just had where the Sixers hold on to Ben Simmons until the All-Star break so that they can get the player that they've targeted, which is James Harden, rather than C.J.

McCollum, rather than Tyrese Halliburton, rather than whoever else was on the table for them to trade Ben Simmons for. And now that trade basically looks like a write-down for both teams. You know, like, where it's just like Hardin is being asked about whether he'll take less money to stay in Philadelphia. And Ben Simmons has had back surgery. So didn't really work out for anybody. We'll see how it goes next season.

But that's a lot of turnover. That's two coaches. That's three, four GMs he's played for. That's a ton of supporting cast members from. Horford, Jimmy Butler, Josh Richardson, JJ Reddick, like all these guys coming in and out. And then the crazy thing is, is the result is always the same. The result is always the second round exit. And the question I want to ask you is one of the themes we've been discussing on this pod and on multiple ringer NBA pods is this idea of heliocentric basketball, this idea of

a player as the planet that the offense revolves around. And last night we saw Luca go nuts and the Mavericks looked incredible and we'll see what what happens with game six with that game seven with that rather but do you consider joel a heliocentric player not exactly like he is he is definitely a solar system but i think there are difficulties to playing that style when you are a post player like he's not the primary ball handler so first of all you got to get the ball to him it's like a good place to start right just just entry passes yeah would be good lost art in the NBA Lost art for the Sixers, definitely. And, well, if the guy's getting,

if the guy's getting doubled and tripled and fronted by a team as aggressive as the Miami heat, then that's also just going to cause issues. And he's also become more of a perimeter-oriented player over the last few years. I mean, he's definitely still crushing it in the paint and everything, but he has added a lot of guard moves to his game. And I wonder if that's a reaction to all of that. And then you also hear him talking about how he needs to become a better passer. so I think there's potential for that to continue to move,

but it is just a different proposition. But that's why you bring in James Hardin, right? Like, that's why you have a guy like him. And, you know, up until this Maverick series, I thought the Suns were pretty much like the best example of, like, how to do heliocentrism right. You have two solar systems, like, so that neither of them essentially get too tired. Yeah. Hardin and B'd both extremely tired, though.

So that didn't exactly work out. And I don't know that that's an X's and O's problem, as much it's just a larger sort of like you know for Hardin like whatever well like this doesn't need to be the podcast for that right I guess it's like the heliocentric thing is like there is like usage rate heliocentrism and then there is like the emotional core and focus of the team heliocentrism even if it's not always with the ball in his hand and you know I note with interest that the teams remaining in the NBA playoffs are not exactly like big man based with the exception of Janus, who is essentially

Shaq as a guard, you know, so... And he can handle the ball at the top of the key and drive and kick, which is kind of, I think, what we visualize with Heliocentrism. Right, which Embed cannot do. He gets mobbed and he kind of gets it out. And sometimes he makes some really smart, cool passes out of the post and out of his doubles,

but it's not Yokic. You know what I mean? And that's not a knock against Embed and why he shouldn't win MVP, but that is just like the reality is the... Style. Yeah. We're watching in Yokic a general.

generational passer who happens to be built like a nightclub bouncer like it's amazing right i think for mbd it'd be like smarter for him to look at somebody like towns how he passes a ball and his passing is still not exactly perfect but he's still probably one of the better big man passers it just speaks to the difficulty of doing it from that position like even if you maximize it then you look at what a team like memphis did to to uh to minnesota where i don't think joel and bide would be bullied by desmond bain and dylan brooks quite the same way but at the same time like passing the post you're just like I think it's a geometric problem a lot of the times right like it's just first of all your your back is to half the people that you want to be able to see and you can swarm and

you can just position players smartly to be able to cover two guys at the same time unless you have like the smartest passer in the world and in nikola yokish and surround him with like the best cutters ever then yeah i mean it's going to be pretty difficult there wasn't a ton of like playbook stuff like Miami played a three two zone and it just like broke the sixers brains and essentially once Danny green went out, I do want to mention something about that. But once Danny Green went out, again, this was another Danny Green left and like the Sixers kind of like lost the plot. Like I think that that was one more shooter gone. That was more more brain on the court gone. That was one more, you know, perimeter defender even if he's not what he used to be gone.

And that really seemed to upend like what the Sixers were trying to do. And Milton and Maxie for like their ability to get hot in various ways are not exactly like orchestrators or playmakers in the traditional sense of like a guy you can get in the lane and then kick. Like Maxi can go by guys and then go straight to the rim or he can shoot a three. But there's not like a ton of offense coming out of Maxi.

You know what I mean? Yeah. You know, okay, now that I think about the game that he had and just Embed in general throughout this series, I think that there's a lack of trust on this team that is not like, we talk about, lack of trust, like you don't pass the ball enough. I think there's a lack of trust in that

Joel Embed feels like he has to go to Miami in order for them to win that game. Even though, like, Philly did have pretty great game without him, right? And, like, I think in another situation, you might look at it. Like, I just did a feature on the Grizzlies. And they've been excellent without Jha this entire season, and then they just, it played the strangest and weirdest and whatever. game against the Warriors and just blew them out by a 39 point game that was that was worse than

39 points it was like a 60 they were up by 50 points yeah it was it was crazy it was crazy um and that team has a lot of trust in each other whether or not you know like sometimes the x's and o's don't exactly match up with that team where i look i look at how jaw plays sometimes and he has tunnel vision or like the shooters aren't aren't always reliable and they have guys that are in foul trouble all the time but they have a deeper trust in each other as human beings. And I look at the way that Tyrese Maxy played yesterday. I'm like, you don't trust James Hardin. Like, you don't trust him to put up enough right now.

You're going to try to do too much. And then that sort of like makes the situation worse. You know what I mean? Hardin said as much after the game where he was just like the ball didn't come back to me. Now, I think Hardin, I think at least had like a few second half turnovers that I watched and tried to erase from the hard drive, but was like just essentially dribble. Hardin Drive? Dribbling into my Hardin Drive.

Dribbling into three Miami players and either throwing a pass up in the air that got picked off by Bam or losing his dribble. And so he seemed completely flummoxed by this Miami zone. And also just there was nothing special about his, if you were going to say, you know, James Hardin's just going to be like God-level George Hill or something. I mean, George Hill is a way better defender than James Hardin. But if you were like, James Hardin is. just going to start the offense and be like a reliable outlet when you need to give it up if you get

pressured and like then maybe get his 14 and nine assists or something. I don't know. I mean, this team is just so slow. They're so unathletic. There's there's really so few convincing driving kick players on this team. And even if they were going to kick, they traded away Seth Curry. Like they don't even have the shooting that they used to have. They have no perimeter defense. I just don't think that Embed playing 15 more minutes or scoring 20 more points would have made that big of a difference, even though they looked okay when Danny Green was in the game yesterday. There's kind of two ways to think about this. So on one end, you have Hardin, who is kind of just a player he is at this point. And is also, I think Miami is just a horrible matchup for him, even in

Houston, even in his prime, he was not somebody who thrived when there wasn't a matchup that he couldn't exploit. And Miami, to their credit, was like, hey, sorry, Duncan, you're going to be on the bench for the series. And after that point, it's like, well, okay, you're kind of screwed then because Bam is an excellent switch defender. He switches more than like any other big in the NBA. And then you've got just like a slew of really great perimeter defenders. And you've got PJ Tucker who played with him and is also one of the better, like the best perimeter defenders and is his size and strength and all that stuff. And if you have to, you can always put Jimmy Butler on him. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. Like oh yeah. Exactly. Exactly. And I mean,

it was interesting to me how little Miami had to like stretch and dig deep in their defense to stop him. So there are, there is like a structural superstar issue with James Hardin. But at the same time, I look at this roster and I'm like, there is so much talent on this team. Is there? There is. If you actually like, we are now at the point where it has become distorted because of we've watched them play and we're like, holy shit, right? But if you take these players individually, they should all just be performing better than they do. Tobias Harris especially, as somebody who sticks out to me as somebody like if they traded Tobias Harris like I would if I was a different like I don't know where he'd fit but you could you could buy low on Harris right now and I you can almost

guarantee that he'd have a way better season anywhere else right yeah and B'd obviously you know then you know Hardin we kind of went through it but he's still you know he's a he should be a serviceable playmaker slash all-star right maxi also you know and like he's one guy that's like going to continue to get better there is still talent on this team. And I wonder if really, like, the issue is the coaching, which you can change. Sure. I mean, I would love to see, like, a creative tactician on coaching this team. Like, I think we got to, like, forget about, like, the raw, raw motivators. Like, let's get somebody who just, like, let's get, like, a Jack McKinney type on this. You know what in this team and see what he does.

You say that. But the thing that I think about is, and this is funny because this used to be the bedrock of the Sixers identity during the Ben Simmons years. The thing that I think about about the teams that are left in the playoffs, I think about Boston and Dallas who completely like refresh their defensive identities with their new coaches. It's not about like, oh, like I have like the new Showtime offense that I'm going to institute. Like I think Dan Tony would be a big mistake for the Sixers is what I mean. Like I think I think if they think that they can go and outscore the Milwaukee's and Miami's. I would go Kenny Atkinson, you know?

Like that is the direction. I'd not, not, maybe not exactly Kenny Atkinson, but that is a type of coach I would be thinking about. I'd be thinking about like maybe a guy who hasn't coached before in a head coaching position. Sure. But they need to go and whether it could be Dan Burke who's on the Sixers bench right now or Dave Yeager or maybe there's somebody in the Sixers orbit that they think is the right guy. But the idea that the Sixers need to spend more time trying to unlock their offense

rather than recommit to what, like, you have to be a great defensive team. The Warriors are never going to be what they were five years ago as a defensive team. But like, I think that they know that they need to like lock it up sometimes. And the Bucks and the Celtics and to some extent the Mavericks and the Sons are all really, really, really good defensive teams. Oh, if you look at where the Warriors are struggling right now, right? Like, no Gary Payton, no Andre Agadala, no auto porter after last game, right? I would kind of run it back with these guys. I don't even know that you really have a choice unless you want to start getting

into like trade world again. I just, I just think that this- He signed Hardin. Daniel House is available this offseason. He's a former, no, seriously. So you want to reconstruct like the 18 rockets? You need more of those types of guys. Like, PJ Tucker's not going to be a free agent and they have the taxpayer bid level.

Like, go get some guys who. will push some other guys. Yes, I agree with you. And I think that like when I, the team that makes me salivate the most weirdly is Dallas. Like when I watch Dorian Finney Smith and that type of player, I'm just like, ah, God. Like, you mean there's somewhere out there, there's like a guy who has like 60% of Thibyl's defense and 150% of his offense. Like, you know, just like a really, really solid wing defender, two way player. The bridges, the Dorian Finney Smith guys that just seem to have escaped the Sixers entirely after all of this roster maneuvering. It's just like, oh, we have a bunch of, like, crafty veterans, nobody's particularly athletic, nobody's particularly good at defense,

nobody's that great of a three-point shooter, and here we are. I guess the biggest question here then, sir, the remaining one, is there anything, is there a different version of MBE that you want to see next season? And is there a version of MBEED? You know, you can't guarantee that Pascal Siakam's not going to get elbow a guy. Like, it's just like, Like some of these injuries are not like long-term stress injuries. They're more like I was in the mix. I think that he falls a lot. I think that he has a little bit of Anthony Davisitis where I feel like there's something weirdly like comforting for him to fall, like to just like go for a rebound.

And then if that means like falling onto the ground. Falling can be smart also. Sure. But like it happens a lot. It really does. Yeah. It does. And I would love to see like a more earthbound like maybe. safer Joelle Embed who plays like 31 minutes a game and is like in the best shape of his life going

into a postseason. Yeah, that's exactly where I'm at. Like, I don't know how you make that happen. Maybe it's play less games. Maybe it's play less minutes. Maybe it's, I don't know. Like, does Joel and Bede need a bodyguard? Should, should they start playing two bigs? Is like a Paul Reed Joelle and Bid, like Boston playing Horford and Williams? Like, is there something there? A real power for it would help. Like, the way this team gets killed on the boards, despite having Embed on the floor is pathetic. But aside from what you said, I mean, yeah, I'd love to see him on purpose play 65 games a year and just live with what people say about that.

And just, yeah, be healthy. And, you know, I'm sure he'll make the requisite improvements that he makes every single year. I'm like, you know, just a little bit better touch, a little bit better, you know, reading the game and all that stuff. I hope that he, it sticks to what he said about not caring about the recognition of an MVP award. But at the same time, like I feel like this also all just needs to be in the context of none of this is his fault. And he's in this position because he's trying to carry this team that is absolutely just pathetic in a lot of ways.

And we should be pointing the finger away here on Doc Rivers and James Hardin and Tobias Harris and like the thinness that they have passed beyond those guys as well. Here's the other thing is that in the same way that only one team can be. win the title. Somebody's got to be the sixth best team. You know, in a conference or in a league or whatever, like, it might just be that Joel Embed is amazing, an MVP candidate that in the best case scenario, they beat Atlanta last season, they go to the conference finals. Like, there's all these different what ifs. But look, man, Janus is really good. Yeah. The Zer of the Celtics got really hot. They're really good, too. Like, Miami is the number one seed. They're awesome. It's not that

surprising that they beat the Sixers. Like there's tons of NBA All-Stars throughout the decades who have similar stories. It's just like it just never came together for me in the playoffs. Yeah. And I think he's in the fear of that being the case for him. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, no, I think that's that's a great perspective to have on it. And I think that's why years ago, Sam Hinky took over and, you know, completely decimated the team. It was so that they could keep just making the second round over and over again. So. So, yeah, the process, the process never dies, Chris. It does it.

We'll be back next Friday. We'll be talking conference finals next Friday. So that's exciting. You are on the road. Are you going to see any teams? Yeah, we'll see. We've got to see how things shake out, but I'll be out and about. Oh, right.

Because, you know, we have to go see what happens with if Marcus Smart's redeem himself in Wisconsin and see where that series goes. Yeah, yeah. I'm personally very excited for this Grizzlies Mavericks conference finals that we're going to get in the West? You laugh. We don't know. All right.

Thanks to Chris Sutton for producing us for Siri. This is Chris Ryan. We'll be back next Friday.