The Ringer NBA Show - The Sixers Are All In (We Think?), With Bill Simmons | The Ringer NBA Show (Ep. 382)

Episode Date: February 6, 2019

Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan hop on the Ringer NBA Show feed to talk about the Sixers spending what was left of their draft capital to acquire Tobias Harris and make a push for the NBA Finals this season (1:06). Then, Ben Detrick joins to break down how this Sixers lineup might jell come playoff time (28:04). Hosts: Bill Simmons and Chris Ryan Guest: Ben Detrick Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Liz Kelly. With the Super Bowl and the books, I wanted to let you know about all of our coverage across the site. We have Kevin Clark, Robert Mays, Roger Sherman, and more breaking down every aspect of the game, including winners and losers and key plays from the game, and the winners from the game, and the winners from our channel on YouTube.com and the ringer. is very good. Jimmy Butler is actually a good teammate. Saabonis is the most important front court pacer. Dearen Fox is better than Donovan Mitchell. Basketball is very good. Hey, this is Bill Simmons here with Chris Ryan. One day before the trade deadline, it is noon on Wednesday, Pacific.

We are brought to you by the Ringer podcast network and the ringer.com. This is a special bonus ringer NBA show podcast this week. it's 1210 and you've already done two podcasts today. And your team, the Philadelphia 76ers, made a very polarizing trade. Yeah. People both liked it and didn't like it. Because you got the best part of the trade. That was fun.

Yeah. And now we have arguably the best starting five in the Easter conference. Arguably. Arguably beating the key word. Boy, look at you bat and your baby blues. I say that. I thought it was a needlessly reckless trade considering that I think we both think the Warriors are going to win the title this year. Riverboat Elton. Yeah. Well, for me, if I'm the

Sixers, I'm thinking five years, right? I got Embed, I got Simmons, this is a marathon, not a sprint. So why have you traded basically all of your trade assets except for faults and who knows if he's an asset anymore? And then Zaire Smith, who lost 45 pounds. Why go all in on two guys who could leave in July? Makes me nervous. How does it make you feel? It makes me nervous. It makes me nervous because I don't feel, I feel like it only just started to click with Jimmy in the last couple of weeks anyway. Now you're adding another component to it.

You're losing more rotation guys, bringing new rotation guys in. I have to imagine this is like about a couple of different things. One is that you say it's like a five-year window. It's really until Ben signs his second day. True. It might be an 18-month window. So there's that.

This is also, you could say it's a soft hedge against Jimmy leaving in the summer, which there's no confirmation that he's going to sign in July, nor that the Sixers want to give him that five-year max that they can give him. I got to say, I think he's a two-year guy at this point. I don't know if Jimmy Buller agrees with you. But how does any team give him more than two-year? So this is a hedge against that, and they remain competitive because you have to imagine

that they're going to offer to max out, Tobias, right? Max? Well, whatever the deal is that Tobias wants, they're going to want to keep him. Well, so he turned down, didn't he turn down like 20 a year from the Quippers last summer, right? Yes. So he thinks he's worth more than that, and he probably is, because you're going to have 10 to 12 teams that have cap space and enough to kind of go in on somebody who's the 20 and 8 guy on a good team. I just think that this trade is really, it's representative of where we're at the NBA right now where this is all sand castles.

Like anything you're building, the water is coming in and it's going to knock it down at any given time. You might think you have Kyrie Irving or Anthony Davis or Kevin Durant, but that can change in a press conference. So what does a team do to change that? Well, they basically commit to these top heavy lineups, yeah, and maybe get rid of some of the draft capital. But the Sixers tried to get a meeting with LeBron. The Sixers tried to get a meeting with Paul George. I don't think they're a free agent destination.

So their way to get guys is going to be through these kinds of reckless trades. I have two issues with the trade from Philly's side. One is that, of course, the Clippers are going to do this. They're a fringe playoff team, probably not going to make it. Maybe, who knows, they're right on the edge. But if they made the playoffs, congratulations, you're the 8 seed. You get to lose to Golden State in four games. Now you lose your first round pick to the Celtics.

If they're in the lottery, they keep their first round pick. So it's, in a way, they get an extra pick out of this trade. Great. They're losing Harris in three months. I got to say, I've been following this league for 45 years. It's really rare to see somebody get 120 cents in the dollar for an expiring free agent. usually those are the guys that are available. You're talking like the Rashid Wallace to the Pistons type trades

where it's like somebody who's awesome and you just kind of steal them for 50 cents in the dollar. I remember the Celtics, I'm going to say 02 the year, they almost made the finals with a crap team. They traded Joe Johnson, who's a rookie, and they traded a future first-round pick for Rodney Rogers and Tony Delk. And at the time, everybody in Boston,

we had been so long since we'd had a team that Pats had just made it. It was like, yeah, now the Seltz coming. We do this trade and it was a disaster. And we got these two bench guys. We had no business making the finals. We ended up losing in six. And then I was like, oh shit, I wish we had to made that trade. It was one of those. Yeah. And with this one, I wonder if that's going to be Philly's version of this. Butler is better than the two guys Boston got in that trade. But so there's that. And then the basketball fit

I don't totally understand it you're gonna have to explain it to me yeah I mean Tobias is another guy when you watch the Sixers at the end of games it's just you need somebody who can create with the ball and you need somebody who can make their own plays what was the game they had Jimmy playing point guard that was the one before the Warriors game

I can't remember which one it was the Kings game yeah and he's dribbling it up and and they were pressing him because he can, he's not like an A plus dribbler. Yeah. He's an okay ball. He's good and pick and roll though. It's nice to have him initiating.

But not like going 94 feet with the ball. That was weird. And I don't know. I thought, I said on Twitter today, I thought like the kind of guy they needed, the ideal situation is Drew Holiday, who ironically they had.

Yes. But if you put him in there and he can guard the other team's point guards, but then play off the ball on the other end, that's the dream situation. Now you have Harris, you have Butler, you have Simmons, three, six, six to six, nine guys.

Switchable on D. But then you have JJ, who unfortunately cannot guard other teams' point guards. And then you have Embed. So for me, I look at them and the issue for me is what do you do against Kyrie Irving, Damien Lillard, Russell Westbrook.

You have to play Butler against him. You have to play Butler on those guys. And I don't think that's really his skill set. I mean, Butler has been deeing up. He had Buddy Healed the other night. He had. That's who you want him to know. You want him to guard Durant, you want him to guard Buddy Heald.

Do you want him to guard perimeter guys? I don't want him guarding Damian Lillard. Right. Which is, the biggest question for me is, is this really going to be there at Crunch Time? Because I do feel like T.J. McConnell is going to be playing Crunch Time against certain teams. So now who's sitting? Yeah. Is it Butler or is it Harris?

It's probably Butler because you feel like he's leaving anyway. And then now are you going to sit Jimmy Butler and Crunch Time? I don't think they're going to sit Jimmy Butler and Crunch Time. I can't wrap my head around this. Yeah. I mean, aside from the, I guess it depends on how you're feeling about Kyle Lowry. I'm not worried about any of those guys up against Bledsoe necessarily in the playoff series. No, that's true.

If you go through the Eastern Conference point guards. Oedipo's out. Right. So you would have wanted, I guess Butler could have guard Oedipo. Bledsoe? Eh, whatever. Take your chances with JJ on him. I don't know if it'll go great.

Who else is in the East that's going to make the playoffs? Kyle Lowry. That's a problem. Kyle Lauer is a problem. Yeah. So if you played Toronto in the second round. Assuming Kyle Lauer is still a Raptor. Right.

By the time we finish this podcast. He hasn't been excommunicated. So you play them second round and now you bother chasing around Lary. Yeah. That's a problem. Yeah. So I feel like they, I still don't feel like they have a flexible enough roster yet,

which is weird because they made two major trades and they went into the season with so many assets. Well, part of the reason why there was a little, aside from like process vibes, part of the reason I think people were kind of a little bit anxious about the butler trade was because we saw firsthand what happens when you start to get away from having a deep team, which most of the best teams in this league, with the exception of the Warriors, are deep teams. So if you're going to have all of your eggs in this five-man basket and say, hey, when you get to the playoffs, guys are going to play 40 minutes a game anyway. It's more about your best five than it is about your best eight or nine. I get that. But even down the stretch like,

They're still playing and beat like 40 minutes a night in losses in frigging February. You need eight guys. Yeah. So it would be nice at least to have like Jonah Bolden out there a little bit more now. Then if we're going to put all of our faith in the we're going to have a six-man rotation in the playoffs. It's funny. I would have rather, you know, you get Harris, but I would have rather than had a second move of trading Butler. Yeah.

And done it that way. I mean. And traded Butler from multiple guys. I mean, like, I would assume that what they want is, if this works, we make the pitch to Butler and Harris, like, look, this is a championship calendar per team. So, we sign with us. Let's make it work. If it doesn't work and one of them wants to go, fine. If it really doesn't work and both of them want to go, you start over again.

You know, the problem with it, with that, that worst case scenario is you've also liquidated a lot of your draft capital. You seem pretty spent by this whole last night, six months. Well, it's been quite a couple years. Yeah. It's been quite a season. What's the funny part is, you have these two guys that just went into Golden State on Thursday night and took it to the worst. In a game where Butler scored six points.

Butler sucked in that game. And Embed in Simmons, and Embed didn't even play well, but House and I talked about it on my podcast this week. I like that he really impacted the game, even though he wasn't playing well. Yeah. He was eight for 24, but he was dominant. And he had 20 rebounds, and he was protecting the rim and doing a bunch of stuff. and Ben was playing really hard. Ben's been playing out of his mind the last two, two, three weeks.

I love how he's crashing the boards offensively now. Yeah. And he's doing the Rondo thing on the baseline when he's kind of lingering, waiting for a shot, and then he comes flying in on the weak side. Yeah. And the spacing thing is still, I don't, I can't wrap my head around that. So they do wind up having like a decent, now their eight-man rotation is essentially off the bench.

McConnell, Cork Maws, Mike Scott. It's going to be Wesley Matthews. And then there's rumors that Zaire could come back this season. Zier Smith, who was our draft pick. When he gets over 170 pounds? Yeah. And then we've had another mysterious Markell update where Brett Brown was like basically like I'm not counting on it. So that was the other thing I was thinking is Markell the next piece in this.

Well, but the thing is that you would think one of those picks that they just traded would have been the sweetener on Markell. I was rack. I was actually on the trade machine today. trying to figure out where Markell could go and who made sense. It is not a long list. Like, would you trade into Chicago for Chris Dunn and Darnel Valentine?

Denzel Valentine? The Michigan's date guy? Who was Darnel Valentine? Oh, he was the guy from 40 years ago, the top five pick on Portland. Sorry, Denzel Valentine. Yeah, I don't think I take Darnel Valentine. Don't take Darnel Valentine.

When I do Foltz to Chicago for Chris Dunn and Denzel Valentine? And then you have a defensive point guard. See, I don't even know if Chicago does that. Like, do we need to, is Chris Dunn just just like kind of like a slightly less good version of T.T. Jim Connell? I'm just saying like, get anybody who might be able to be in a 10-man rotation. You want to do trash for trash, faults for for monk? Oh, now you're speaking my language. I mean, like, I've, I've always been on the monk train. Could they get faults for monk? That's pretty good. I just assume monk's going to be in that Memphis trade for Gassau. I know. I mean, he's, there was like a really funny

rumor about him where they were like, Malik Munk quickly dressed and left the stadium. And then all the Hornets guys were like, he does that every game. Yeah, what the hell? What's the hell out of there? Well, so. He's so mad that, like, Dennis Smith got the garden trade. Here's what I want for him, Sacramento. Malik?

Yeah. Buddy backup. Remember how close he was with Fox? Yeah. Remember those dudes crying in the locker room after they lost the NCAA game? Put that dude in Sacramento. I'm still a believer. I love Malik Mug.

They came your six man off the bench. Sacramento, not to get away from this Philly thing, but I think Sacramento is the team to watch over the next 24 hours other than maybe the Celtics. Because he needed three? Yeah, because they have no pick. So it's not like there's no tanking thing. It's like they want to make the playoffs.

They need to make the playoffs. They're in the mix to make the playoffs. You have the Clippers getting out of there. You have the Lakers who the fuck knows what's going to have on them. They really have a chance now to get to like a seven seed potentially. So Gallinari. I love the Gallo, the Gallo idea. So I put that on our Slack today.

Gallo for basically the Randolph Cufus expirings and then maybe like what a top 12 protected. So Zach Redolph's like still in the NBA. Yeah. He's just a veteran at this point. But if you're the clippers, let's look at it from that side. Weird to trade Harris, but not weird if you think you're getting Kauai Leonard and you're trying to create cap space. And now if you get rid of Gallo, you basically have nobody on the books next year

except for, I think, Avery Bradley and some of their younger contracts. I don't think any of those other, I don't think they have any other double-figure contracts. The Avery Bradley thing, well, I mean, that might kill as a glee of the ringer. He's complaining about it every day. It's like Clipper for Life now, yeah. But if you put Gallo in that King's team... So that Gallo, then that King's Best Five

is Fox Buddy Gallo, Bagley, Giles? No, I think the Bagman. A bug down, yeah. Collie Stein. Fox and healed. And then probably

Gallo at the three, but then sometimes if you wanted offense, you could just do the Gallo Bagley scoring us. We're going to outscore you. How are you feeling about Harry Giles? I don't want to jinx it. That's how I feel. Okay.

Because I really do think, remember when we saw him at Summer? This guy's astonishing. Jesus Christ This guy Kevin Gardein? I just hope it works out for him and it's going to be a Brandon Roy thing where he gets three, four years

and then he's probably done because his knees are shot already but I would love to see that work out for them. So somebody like Gallo, Malik Munk, there's room for one more shooter on that team and they have 20 million expiring contracts which nobody has. So now you have the ability to go

try to get Harrison Barnes maybe? That's another thing. Could the Mavs, now that they have all these other big contracts try to get out of Harrison Barnes or what they do there. Or do the Mavs want to make a run out the playoffs this year? Yeah, or do they think our cap screwed next year anyway? We'll keep Harrison Barnes season expiring next year. There's some good 15 to $20 million guys available right now.

So do you see what I'm saying, though, with like everybody's talking about this free agency situation next this coming summer? But there's really only like three teams anybody seems to have to have any interest in going to with the exception, I guess, of Paul George resigning with Oklahoma? but that you have to get in on these guys and have their birds to be. Who's really saying that there are three teams and where's that coming from, I guess it would be my question.

Okay, but... Because it's like, all the clippers and the Knicks are free agent suitors. As Dan Devine put in our Slack today, what do you call them institutional Fredos? Yeah. That was great. Good line, Dan Devine. They really are Fredos.

Like, how does anybody look at either of those organizations? The Clippers, I think, have rallied more than the Knicks. but, you know, it's weird. Yeah. I just think that L.A. and New York, maybe it's just like, maybe I'm blind to it, but they, to have the Lakers and the Knicks and the Clippers all with the ability to make moves, you're automatically going to be in fourth in the pecking order.

I mean, I just think that the Sixers are traumatized by going through that last free agency. Lakers haven't gotten anybody for last six years other than LeBron, though. Yeah, that's true. That's true. I know it would be kind of... The Knicks have struck out left and right. So what do you think happens if like... I honestly think Brooklyn is more appealing

than the Knicks as a situation. After watching how they handle the Porzengis thing, I mean, they fucking hit the lottery with him and he's got off the team in three and a half years. Yeah, it is like cursing their name. Organizational stupidity. Yeah. It's pretty dangerous.

The Clippers part, clearly they... There's some teams where you just kind of know that they know stuff. Yeah. And with the Clippers, it just came out, Kauai bought this $13 million house outside of San Diego, Red Flag. And then you have the Clippers who are 30 and 25 trading their top score for no reason other than for assets. Right. So either they're making a Davis play or they know.

Or Uncle Dennis. This summer. Yeah. Or this summer, it's like, we'll get Kauai. We have the chips for Anthony Davis if he doesn't get traded. So Philly's already in. So the problem is if you lose in round three. two.

And it's not a very happy experience. The Sixers are not going to lose in round two. Why? Do you think there's three good teams in the east? Somebody's losing around two. Somebody's losing around two. Toronto, Philly or Boston or Milwaukee. There's four good teams of these.

Yeah. Okay. Philly fans are way too confident. I'm not too confident. I don't know. You have the worst coach of the four coaches. Let's start there. Okay.

Let me see Nick Nurse in a game that counts before we say that. but sure. Just say it. Nick, there's Brett Brown. Should we call Dietrich? Yeah, I just wanted to ask you really quickly. What's your up to the moment Lakers take right now?

Oh yeah, yeah, let's talk about that. They get annihilated last night. If I was a Laker fan, I'd be so mad how this went. Where last year I had this young core that was playing hard for a coach that they seemed to like and there was real progress

and guys getting better. and now it is not only in the other direction but is now free falling to the point you lose to by 42 to Indiana who doesn't even have Old Depot and Do you see LeBron said that they were jet lagged? Like it was like their first flight

and they didn't even like Indiana is not on the East Coast it's not like it's not that hard of a flight and you've just basically cut the legs off all those guys yeah yeah they're going up to those guys they're going to get what do you think about trade rumors

like wags right now have producing this podcast. If you and I were just like... If the ring or trade deadline was 24 hours from now, I hear this amazing guy. There's this guy at Gimlet. I'm really got my eye on. It's amazing pocket.

We might do a five for one for this podcast producer. You think Wags is focused at that point? No way. Terrible edits are going to be in there. And I just think that's, it's a crazy way for you have people in their early 20s who, this is like their first job, basically. They have free agents and a couple years.

And now it's like they're with LeBron. And now all of a sudden they might not be and they're just refreshing Twitter. To say nothing to the fact that Luke Walton is now like if this team is quitting on LeBron essentially, it's going to blow back on Luke. Well, and then the rumors of who's going to replace Luke are just in disbelief. Should we say? Go ahead. There's a lot of Jason Kid Buzz right now.

Wild stuff. It's just sheer lunacy. He's in Brooklyn. he totally backstabs them to get this Milwaukee thing with one of the minority owners to take the Milwaukee thing. Is there for a couple years? That couldn't go worse. And they finally, like, kick him out.

And then he's kind of been laying low for two years. And now it's like, you know, it would be a good coach? Jason Kidd. Like, really? Jason Kidd? Yeah. As a Celtics fan, I'm delighted. I mean, this is, this is, if,

I don't know if Demp's is going to cave or not. I don't know if that game last night was somehow, I mean, one of the things that's been so fascinating since LeBron got hurt is like Ingram's value, like this was the time Ingram needed to jump up to 25 in night. Yeah, they gave him a month audition. All those dudes like, hey, show your stuff. And it was the opposite.

Demp's not in control of this. Okay. It's the widow. It's Benson. Who knows not that much about basketball. And I think is learning the business on the fly with a bunch of football guys and is now being told she has to trade her best player and the only player that anybody in the city knows

other than Drew Holiday and that this is the best offer and you have to do it. And this is somebody that has no real history of the league, understanding of the dynamics of the year to year, other trades to compare it to. It's just basically a black and white situation of, yeah, you have to trade that guy who's going to go to the Lakers in a year and a half

and she's looking at it going, well, we have them under contract. We don't have to trade. She's like, in my sport, we wait until he's 40 and then we cut him. She's looking at it like, well, but then there's other trades that we could do this summer that might be, we get us more people, right? And they're like, yeah. And then she's like, and if we sit them out for the rest of the year, it'll help our chances to get that Zion character, right? And they're like, yeah.

And then she's going, well, why do I have to do the trade? Well, because Rich Paul wants you to. reports of the magic stuff, like of Magic Johnson and like all the varying reports about like they've pulled out of negotiations or they don't want to bid it. It feels increasingly like the John Favreau answering machine scene and swingers. Yeah. I was just like, I wasn't sure if maybe you were on the, you had your hairdryer on. So I thought I'd call back again. Hey, I'm not going to call again. You know, it's like, have they gotten a response yet? And yet through the press, they're negotiating how, like, first it was like, we'll trade you, Lance Stevenson, Rayjon, Rondo, and

And Cusma. Oh, that's interesting. And now it's like, we'll trade you everything. And now it's like this Herschel Walker deal where it's every draft pick they've got for the next four years. And they're like, that's suicide. But they're like, we're not going to do that. It's like, like, did anybody even say you should do that? Yeah.

It doesn't sound like Demp's, I mean, what we just said Demp's and Magic have talked a couple of times. But it sounds like Demp's like, I'm doing you the courtesy of listening, but I'm not, we're not even counter offering. The Southex can put Tatum smart and the Memphis pick on the table in June. And that's just a better trade than anything the Lakers could offer. Not to mention all the other teams that could probably top that trade. There's just urgency. Rich Paul, who I really think fuck this thing completely up. I really do.

I think the whole strategy of dropping the grenade on Monday morning, blowing up the news cycle for a week and thinking that he was going to pressure New Orleans into feeling like they had to do this, not only did it not work, it made everything worse. I get the fact that like his value now to get two, playoff runs on this current contract, I understand why his value is technically higher. But by that same token, it just seems like this was really, really, really miscalculated.

Really miscalculated. I also, maybe I'm old school, turning 50 this year, I don't know. The guy's under contract for another year and a half. Why does he think he can just be like, all right, it's a lot. time for me to go. Trade me there. Yeah. It was kind of like Manchurian candidate when Anthony's like, it's my time. It's my time. It's my legacy. So like, why are you doing this? And he's like, well, it's my time. It's like, well, no, your time technically is a year and a half from now. Yeah. And like that's understood. And also why, why is it a guaranteed title to go to the

Lakers with 35 year old LeBron has put 55,000 minutes and no other assets on the team? Right. Didn't we just live through this in 2010 with Miami where they had three guys and it still took two years for them to get to where they'd go because they couldn't put any of wrestling the team. The whole thing is lunacy. LeBron has caused more dysfunction and chaos

and just organizational unease over this last, really since 2010 when his last year of Cleveland all the way through to now. But can you argue with the results? That's the thing. I can and I can't. Does it have to be that way every year?

Does every coach have to be in danger? Does every player have to, it has to be somebody else's fault? Right. It's Chris Bosch's fault. It's Kevin Lowe's fault. Trying to get Spoh fired. Got David Blat fired.

Like we did the This is Bust thing as a joke two months ago. Now it's like fucking happening. Nobody calls the guy out. Every is afraid of him. I think it's nuts. I think it's because I think the resume speaks for itself. I think if you go to the finals that many time and it's almost unprecedented,

then you kind of understand. that this is the way things happen. I think that the fact... But why... What's the urgency with Davis? Why now? You're not beating the Warriors this year, no matter who...

You're not beating him with... So maybe it was exactly what you're saying. Maybe it's like, we know that if Kyrie... Like, if they go to Kyrie and they're like, let's do the Davis deal. Is there anybody else you want to keep? And he's like, no, feel free. And they trade Tatum and smart

and all the guys you're saying in the summer that they lose out on it. And so maybe they feel like this is the last best chance. They lost unemployment. Paul George. They lost out on Kauai. But they still control. He could get traded to Boston

and they could still get him the Lakers a year later. Yeah, but if Anthony Davis wins the finals with Kyrie Irving in Boston, do you think he's going to sign with the Lakers the next year to play with 36-year-old LeBron or however old he's going to be?

If I'm Anthony Davis, this is not my best option. Yeah. To play with aging LeBron and nobody else on a pretty dysfunctional franchise that has been dysfunctional for this entire decade

and just hired Luke Walton a year and a half ago. Now he's not a good coach? Right. So who are you going to get now? Jason Cater's been fired twice? Right. The fuck is going on.

We're going to take a break and then we're going to call Dietrich. Before we call Dietrich, let's talk about the NBA schedule tonight. Wednesday night, that usually means ESPN. What do we got, Chris? Wizards Bucks? 5 o'clock PT, 8 o'clock ET, a little Yonnas MVP, showcase, maybe, a little Saddoransky. A little Bradley Beal Heroval.

Can somebody please trade for me right now? That's on. And then the late game is a nice one. Spurs Warriors. I really thought the Warriors were going to win like 25 in a row and then your team beat them last week. We do what we can. How about this Spurs team is actually oddly fun.

I was thinking for them as a gallo destination too, potentially. I mean, I just... I don't know if he'd be better than the best player alive, Davis Bertons. I swear to God, I've never seen that guy miss a three years. Has he ever missed the three? He's the opposite of Jeff Green. Yeah. Every time I watch them, it's like,

Burntown's from 32. Oh! He's like, never misses. Anyway, that's tonight. Check that out. NBA action on ESPN. All right, we're going to call Dietrich. All right, on the line right now,

he has been in the Grant Land Ringer family for a long time. He wrote the piece, the curious case of Brian Colangelo's tweets or whatever we call it, that like 5 million people were ever. I don't even know. Now, widely credit, is the man who ruined the 76ers. Ben Dietrich, how are you?

Hey, that's a great introduction. Thanks for having you, Bill. What was it like to write the story that led to front-off and some people and just a series of really bizarre moves that has now led to a really interesting, but I don't know what the hell we have with this team team? I don't really know what that question is, but, I mean, I guess it feels surreal. and I'm now just a fan like everybody else, seeing what the Sixers do.

Yeah, so Ben, this is a good segue way to ask. Not only what do you think of this Tobias Harris deal, but in terms of front office philosophy, what do you think the thinking is behind this deal? Because this is the liquidation of a lot of draft capital, like basically the remaining draft capital that the Sixers have built up. Well, I don't want to kink shame the Sixers here. You know, they like Big Bulls.

boys. They are into brolic youth. Yes. They are size kings. I think this trade, to me, from a dozen, it doesn't change much in the way that they've been operating for the last two years. They don't seem to care about guards, and they just keep loading up with forwards and, like, stretch big, etc. So in terms of, like, a team-building philosophy,

I don't see this being particularly divergent, from what they've done over the last two years. You know, when I look at this deal, there are things I like about it. But it seems to me that they just are getting better at what they did already without addressing some of the vulnerabilities that we've seen. Playoffs last season, they were cut to shreds

by, like, the Celtics B-teamers, and they didn't really respond by adding a lot of guards. When I look at the starting lineup right now, it's an improvement from last year, but they still have a pretty pronounced Achilles' heel that guys like Campbell Walker or Dinwiddie or like six members of the Brooklyn Nets can kind of exploit.

Chris and I talked about that earlier. It was what I didn't understand about this trade because fundamentally the Crunchtime Five has weaknesses where even Kyrie Irving on my beloved Boston Celtics, I guess you have to guard him with Jimmy Butler. Is that the best way to use Jimmy Butler to have him chasing around Kyrie Irving

and trying to shut him down? I would much rather have him on, like, Jason Tatum. Yeah. From the Sixers. And it was weird that they didn't address the lineup flexibility part of it. I feel like TJ is going to become even more important because of this trade. Well, right. If you look at the station now, you know, Shammat was getting a lot of minutes.

So now they're T.J. and Corkmov. You know, I think Butler can obviously play the two. This now actually like shake Milton breaking his hand in the G League is like now actually a big deal. Yeah. There's no guards on this team. It's like they're playing a different version of basketball. I almost respect it. Is there a buyout guy possibility, a buyout point guard that we're not thinking of?

Because that would be the only other way this makes sense. Like, they're not going to get like fornié, are they? I mean, like, they're... No, he's got years of his contract. Yeah, right. I'm trying to think of, like, who the guards are. Because there's buyout guys, but there's no point cards. It's like Robin Lopez, West Matthews, DeAndre Jordan.

There's a couple others, but I don't feel like even like a DJ Augustine, He's on a contract. Maybe Jeremy Lynn. He could be a guy. There aren't a lot of technical guards that are even available. I'd honestly, I'd rather send cork-maws out there to guard Kyrie Irving, though, than Jeremy Lynn. Yeah, when you said Jeremy Lynn's name, Chris's eyeballs just rolled up in a cell.

Chris is traumatized by all of this. Is there a chance they use Faults to get somebody, and does Fultz have any trade value, and what team would even take a chance on Faults and would you be okay with it? Four-part question. Yeah, I think Fultz would have to go to a team because you're just going for upside there. I mean, maybe somewhere like Orlando, as you were saying, with DJ Augustine, somewhere where they're not really trying to compete. They'd rather take a flyer and don't really feel like paying a veteran to be there. Same point.

Like, who's got that guy on the team sitting around that is willing to go because we hope Fultz can cure whatever melody ls him? Like, it's kind of, there's not a lot of teams that fit those criteria. I hesitate to ask this, but if they traded Faults straight up for DJ Augustine, what would be your reaction? Well, for a second, I thought you were going to say if they were going to trade Fultz for Dionne Waiters, and I almost had like a small seizure. That would collapse Sixers' Twitter. I have almost no take on Fultz other than, like, I hope he gets well. I don't know what his value is. It's completely moved into the Twilight Zone.

Well, he's... Yeah, yeah, he's like just a total, like, unknown, unknown. I have no opinion on Markle Fault other than like hopefully he Well the irony of this is that he's your last Real chance to improve this team now He's a last piece You've gotten rid of a lot of assets and that was why

I joked at the top about Ben Ruin the Sixers because You have you're going into the summer Really nice playoff series They get to round two you really should have been in Boston probably Some things go differently Heading into the summer You've cap space

you have the 10th pick in the draft. You've Faults who I think is more of an asset back in June than maybe is now. You've Sarich, you have Comethen, your future picks. And now you think just in those two trades, you turn the 10th pick into Zair Smith, who, as Ben has been chronicling on Twitter, has lost 45 pounds and almost died. The pick that you got to turn number 10 into Zair Smith,

you just traded for Harris. Right. You've traded another future. pick, which has all these protections, which then makes it really hard to trade other picks when these picks are like, well, we can't because, so that gets complicated. And then you trade Sarach, who I think had value on a cheaper deal in Covington. Who was on one of the great contracts in the league. And it's like, is this, to do all of that, to squander all this stuff for two expiring free agents, I just, I personally wouldn't have done it. I don't know if you guys

feel different. So Ben, what basically I was saying to Bill earlier was that like you could view this as an all in move or you could view this as like a hedge against Jimmy leaving in the summer is to have Tobias already in the building because you just don't feel like you're a free agent destination if you have to go to pitch a guy at a Marriott conference room. But if you can have him in the building already playing with Ben and getting wide open dunks like the way a lot of guys get when they play with Ben in transition, like that's a better option than hey, we're going to keep our powder drive for summer. I think it's part of that.

And the signal is crucial because after Ben Simmons gets his extension and it's a move in that direction to get the guys in the building to have that advantage. One thing about this is these guys will both have their cap hold, which I believe comes to somewhere around like $54 million together. So if you don't resign them, you still have about $20 million to play with outside of Ben, Joe, and those two. So the Sixers could conceivably make some moves and sign someone who's making $15 million to eat and then go and bring these guys back in. So I think they're paying a premium for bird rights on these guys. Would you have rather paid less and gotten Gallinari instead of Harris, who's under contract for another year? Gellonari. I love Gellonari.

But isn't that twice as... I give up to work for Gellonari. If we do that, don't we then get to the same point in the conversation where like, how are you going to defend any of? anybody? Yeah, but I was just thinking he brings all the same issues that Harris has, I guess the difference is he's under contract. I'm probably a little bit

of being a nini about this, but I think my number one concern beyond who guards the opposing point guard is also just like a chemistry situation. And Harris is a great teammate. Harris is a great teammate. The Harris and Bobon experience is by all accounts delightful. And beat and Boban on

social. But this is just like a lot of like up people for any team I can't remember the last time a team has gone through this much personnel upheaval in a regular season. It's usually not a good sign for the playoffs. I think you can pass a point from a continuity

comfortability standpoint when it's just too many Ben Dietrich still plays basketball all the time. It plays with our friend Jacoby. It becomes pickup basketball where it's just you're just switching who's on your team every time you're playing.

Whereas like what Ben and Jacoby have is just years of chemistry. I've seen it. I've played pickup with them. It's just years. The unspoken language of basketball loves. The unspoken beautiful language of basketball, it's hard to have. It's telekinethystos out there for sure.

It really is. Who's more fun to play with them, Jacoby? Nobody. But I do think that matters, though. The Celtics, even though it's been a little rocky, these guys have been together for a couple years now, this nucleus. Maybe too long. Yeah, maybe too long with Kyrie.

But yeah, the Philly thing, You get to a playoff series, and you saw it last year in the Philly Boston series, where crowds going bonkers. You got Bell and Ellie Osova, who are relatively new to that team. You've Simmons, who's never been in a situation before. You have Embed, who is gassed by the third quarter in each game. He's so much energy. He had no idea how to pace himself.

And it's little stuff like that that flips a playoff series. So I would be a little concerned. Yeah, I agree. With the Sixers this season, you know, form in various ways where Ben and, Joe and Jimmy understand each other better on the floor and that chemistry improves over time. And now they're throwing another wrinkle in where Tobias Harris isn't the guy like, say, Joe Ingalls or David Jacoby. Yeah.

You know, kind of, he just kind of passes the ball, moves around, plays some defense, posts up, talks a lot. Tobias Harris is a very good player, but he's generally a score. He shoots quite a bit. He's not an exceptional passer. He's not a shutdown defender. He's a good weapon. but he's one that kind of is reliant on touches and shot in a way that so is Jimmy and so is Joe. And by the way, so is JJ Redick.

Yeah. Who's another guy who needs to touch the ball. I think it's, I think the lack of a glue guy is a problem. Yeah, that's why it was so kind of like amazing to watch the Sixers play some of their best basketball of the season when Corey Brewer was there for 20 days. It would happen to Cory Brewer. They let him go because they were going to make, they knew they were going to make all these. moves. So, Butler has to be the glue guy.

No, the weird irony of the season is he has to be the glue guy. And he thinks he's one of like the best nine players in the league. So you're asking somebody to make like an incredible sacrifice when they're in a free agent year of, hey, give up your shots, guard the other team's best player, which might be a point guard every once in a while. Butler's so weird. The Butler experience is so strange. Do you think that if you watch Jimmy Bull, if, if,

Jimmy Butler didn't make how hard he works the number one point in his narrative. Do you think you'd watch Jimmy Butler and be like, nobody outworks Jimmy Butler when you see him on the court? No. Of course not. I see a guy who throws an entry pass to Embed and then looks pissed off that he had to throw the entry pass. Right. He just takes the two defiant steps back. I'm a little more optimistic.

And I feel like this makes the Sixers more talented than they were last year. their starting lineup was really good last year and, you know, Butler and Harris, personality, you know, meshing, notwithstanding. So I think you roll the dice on that. But my thing is that, like, how do you not get Beverly in this deal? If you're going to give up that heat pick and you're going to give up one of your guards,

how do you not get a guard back? I was listening to Zach Lowe and Arnavitz yesterday, and they were talking about Beverly being a piece in some prospective deal, and I was like, God damn, I'd love a piece of that. I would love to go on the garden with Patrick. Beverly on Kyrie Irving for 20 minutes a game? Oh, he is...

If they got Beverly, I would say they were the favorite to go to the finals. It's that big of a deal that they don't have a point of attack defender or someone who can kind of handle the ball and run at the same time. He also would be he would make you the favorite for the next Artes-Mele. I mean, I just go to Boston. Patrick Beverly in Boston in the playoffs. Every game I watch it, he's better to me. Who do you think you're talking to?

too. I mean, Beverly Butler and B. And in Boston, come on. That is, that is like incredible. Yeah. Well, I do think if you're just ranking the possible playoff series in either conference, Boston, Philly is off the charts. Yes.

We need that. Oh, we need that. I mean, and also Toronto is off the rails, too, not like in terms of emotion, but that's like, that's a goon squad too. Yeah. The. Because the box is going to elbow somebody in the face. I saw it happen.

every game. Yeah, it's true. I saw it last year. Embed is really ready to be the next great villain for Boston sports fans. Oh, yeah. He laid a lot of the groundwork

last year. They were chaining Embed sucks. He was cupping his hand. He really hates Baines. He stormed off after they lost. He wouldn't shake hands. Like, he's ready to really immerse himself into this.

And so is Jimmy Butler. I actually think that stuff makes Jimmy Butler better. Yeah. You know, I have no idea about it. Is Marcus Smart to be? He's my favorite player. on the Celtics by a long shot.

I think Marcus Smart is fantastic. If Marcus Smart and Patrick Beverly had played in the playoffs, we would have just had to put a bike lock on the doors and be like, whoever comes out is the winner. They'd be funny. And Marcus says, I think he's improved this year

and he's been a big reason why they've been playing well lately. It's, you know, it's going to come down on the Kyrie thing and just the fact that the best player in the Celtics is really weird. Yeah, it's the same thing for the Sixers. It's going to come down for as good as Embedian

and Ben and are, it's going to be like, what's Jimmy's physical and mental commitment to this moment? Yeah. And Embed is a little bit of a wild car too. He has no problem saying something with a reporter. Kyrie, we could be up 3-1 against the Sixers in the conference finals. That's the funny thing. Embed like 10 times this year has been like,

I want the ball more and nobody's been like, Joe Embed is tearing the Sixers apart with his demands. But it's like, you know, it's just because of the way he says it and the way he is. You're just like, oh, it's just Joe being Joe. I will say if... Joe Embed has the usage of, like, prime shack. Like, he can tip ball every time down the court and through, like, Simmons beat that 14-footer.

Like, how is that going to free up Embed, man? Yeah. Like, M. Bede needs a whole side of the court. Like, you can either shoot threes at a high clip or you can lurk into dunker spot. Like, mid-range jumpers don't do shit when you're just feeding Mbid the ball on, like, 40% of your half-court possession.

Yeah, anytime he's within, like, six feet of the basket, I just feel like he's going to score. Yeah. And anytime he's 25 feet from the basket launching a three, great. Knock yourself out. How about taking 12 of them, Joel? He's no Daniel Thice. No, just keep launching those.

I've been really impressed by how he's added subtle stuff to his game. Chris and I were talking about it earlier. He didn't play well in the Golden State game, but still really impacted it in a way that I don't know if he could have last year. And also, like, did not get mentally dunked on by Boogie. Like, got in, like, was like going with Boogie the entire time. But didn't escalate it to a point that it would have gotten. It was like, all right, settle down, dudes. Maybe that'll happen in the finals.

What's also incredible is that Joel has such a great personality that no one yells at him about getting to the follow line more than James Hart. That should just eat from the stripe. And somehow is not like an unethical player like Hardin who is like glitching the system here. And B and beat shoots so many free throws. And that's kind of what you're saying. You have a bad game and points because he's scoring half of them. the free throw line. What NBA player right now do you think has a game closest to Dave Jacoby, if you had to guess?

Oh, man. That's a tough one. I mean, I just want to say it's Yokic because it looks similar, but Dave got really mad when I compared them last week. Why? I think it's just a haircut that he was furious about. I'm like, come on, you look like him, and Dave was not stealing that. The hilarious thing about the Yokage comparison is Jacobi thinks he's Yolkich, but half the passes are sailing out of balance or over somebody's head or off somebody's face.

But he wants to be Yokic. The spirit is there. You will get at least like three behind the back passes per game. That's mandatory. And I expect it. And I love it. Dietrich's game, it's like if Willie Colleystein was awesome, an incredible lefty kind of slasher passer.

I don't even know. It's like young David Lee crossed with Willie Collie Stein, but with like a New York street. Like a six-foot roll man? Yeah. The beast defensively knows how to switch. I was impressed. Jacobi and Dietrich and I, we held the court one day at USC for like three hours.

Maybe you guys should be the 9, 10, and 11 players on the Sixers. I would trust Dichrist. I mean, I feel like we could out the starting lineup. I would trust it. So do you think the Sixers are done? Done dealing. Yeah, I think we could see that move like a second rounder for a guard. I mean, the guys that I was looking at are like the,

the non-sex dudes who are on, I don't know, the bench somewhere, like Yogi Farrell. Right. Like that's a guy, I'm like, fixer, snuck around her, go get Yogi Farrell. You know, go get, I don't know, Shaquille Harrison from Chicago. Get someone who can defend a little at the one. Yeah. If the Knicks are trying to move like, you know, Frankie Smokes, sure. Just get a point of attack defender other than T.J.

Because the biggest problem is in a crucial moment of the season, when everything is on the line, The Sixers have to choose between putting Redick and T.J. on the floor. And one of those guys can play defense and one of those guys can play offense. They need someone to kind of split the difference. Or it could be the wet guy double switch. The offense defense. Yeah, the offense defense. Which Doc Rivers that took him 15 years to figure out.

They could actually just try and pull one of the Morris Twins acts where they just put, send TJ out there in Redick's jersey or something. Jay's too jack now. I know. I like the way JJ's been playing. this year, though. And I do think, like, the touches thing is a real issue. Yeah. And B. needs 20 shots a game. Yeah, that's his value.

His value is shooting and taking a lot of threes and drawing the defense to him. And if he's not going to be doing that, then it absolutely diminishes his value. Covington just gives you spacing and defense without actually having to take those shots. Covington was

the MVP of the playoff series last year. I knew you were to bring that up. For Boston. I knew you're going to bring that up. that essentially ended his sixers. I loved every time he was feeling it. It was like, yeah, you shoot Robert Coventon, please, take one. All right, Dietrich, you sound like you're relatively calm. You're one of my favorite Twitter followers.

I love when you get mad at people for Sixers' perceptions. My favorite Dietrich bit is just like the Nerlins' Noel per 36 numbers and comparing them to like, to compare them to Carl Malone. I've been validated. If OkC is serious. If OKC wants to make their run, hive all the way. If only playoff games

were 36 minutes long. We always joke about Waiters Island, but like, Nerlin's Island, it was just Dietrich. He's on Nerland's estuary. It was an 8 by 10 island.

Every 36 minutes, like, it's fucking glorious. He's going to get paid this summer. Nourlands. I think he gets like three years 30. First day, the Philadelphia 76. Oh, my God. That would be great.

Thanks for you. You want to plug anything, Dietrich? Well, we've got our podcast, Cookies Hoops, and we'll be doing our similar trade deadline breakdown tomorrow afternoon. And that's with my buddy's Andrew Quo and Georgia Deli. And it's Cookyshoops.com and it's on iTunes and all that kind of stuff. So more of this kind of Sixer-centric analysis will be headed in your direction. Awesome.

All right. Thanks for coming on. We appreciate it. Later, Ben. Oh, thanks so much, guys. Have a good one. All right, so coming tomorrow, me and Ryan Marcello on the BS podcast. We're going to come on.

We're going to start recording probably a half hour before the deadline. Go all the way through to maybe 115, 1.30 Pacific time. Put that up as soon as possible. So that should be up around dinner time. And we got the Ringer NBA show. Group chat hosted by Chris and a bunch of Ringer people that were also putting up. So we have plenty of podcast stuff for you tomorrow. Be ready.

I hope there's some fun deals. Until then. Basketball is very good. Basketball is very good.