Amazed at the TNT announcing crew just keeps hammering home how many games Embiid has missed this year and throughout his career. You almost never hear that stuff coming out of national announcing crews. It's usually all hype, hype, hype.
I've been pondering this. Are the Sixers better off moving Embiid instead of Simmons. Embiid is clearly the better player and he is locked up long term so even with the shaky health I believe they could get more for him then they could for Simmons. Perhaps then the Sixers can get better fitting parts around Simmons. Just a thought
Makes sense. If they and the medical staff think Embiid might constantly be missing 20 games a year and be hard to keep healthy for the playoffs, now might be the best time to move on from him. If next year he misses another 20-25 games and is on a minutes restriction or hurt for the playoffs, hurting the team, the Sixers certainly wouldn't get what they would if they moved him this summer.
Would the Knicks trade their pick for Embiid to match him up with an incoming Durant? Would make more sense for the Knicks than Durant trying to train Zion on how to play championship quality NBA ball for a couple years.
Knicks build around Durant/Embiid and Sixers have Zion/Simmons/Butler/Harris to move forward with, though maybe Butler takes off if he feels he has to give shots to a rookie. Probably lose Butler so maybe that trade isn't so great.
If the Sixers are stupid enough to put Embiid on the market, Danny better be the first in line to make an offer.
The Sixers ran Embiid into the ground (only missed 4 of their first 58 games). 65 games a season is plenty for Embiid and it will easily get the Sixers into the playoffs. Kawhi has only played more than 66 games twice in his 8 seasons. Don't see anyone suggesting he be put on the trade block.
Kawhi also has never had a fit problem with another potential superstar on his roster either. If the Sixers think that Embiid and Simmons are fine together, then they don't need to move either one, but if they are ultimately going to have to decide between Embiid and Simmons, then they should probably just make that move this summer. It is in that scenario that I'm talking about perhaps moving on from Embiid as opposed to Simmons.
Simmons is the fit problem, not Embiid. Simmons can't shoot. Kawhi is a great shooter.
Plenty of great players had shooting concerns. Heck Giannis is a very bad shooter and yet the team was built around him and was the best team in basketball in the regular season. Simmons is 6'10" and is almost impossible to guard in the paint, yet he can't play in the paint because of Embiid. If the Sixers built their team around Simmons, much like the Bucks have with Giannis, I think they would be just fine and a real title contender year in and year out. And let's be clear, there is no way I come anywhere close to bringing this up if Embiid didn't have significant health issues year after year. He just can't stay on the court.
Let me know when Simmons has attempted more than, say, 1-2 career 3 pointers. Or when Simmons is a DPOY frontrunner.
Or let me know when Giannis scores 1 point in a playoff game. Or when his team is better with him off the floor for the majority of a playoff series.
Take all the time you need.
1 point in a playoff game, you're comparing a scorer to distributor. Magic Johnson had a playoff game with 2 points, and prime Jason Kidd has had several low scoring games: 2, 3, 0. Like those guys, you can have a team built around you, be a championship contender, and not be a scorer, so Simmons has hope there. And maybe never a DPOY front runner, but he'll probably have a few All-D selections too, got 5 first place votes last year.
I don't like the guy, but he's a talent.
He was also a 21 year old rookie.
Giannis in his first playoffs (14-15 season) had games of 5 and 6 points scored. In the 6 games, he only had 1 game with more than 12 points scored and took a single 3 point shot in the 6 games. Giannis was 21 in his 2nd year that season.
Simmons obviously had a bad game where he wasn't very aggressive and scored just 1 point going 0-4 from the field. He did manage 7 assists and 5 rebounds in the game though, so he was still doing much of what he does. Simmons scored at least 16 points in each of the other 4 games in the Boston series. He was never below 14 points in the first round. So in the 10 playoff games Simmons played as a rookie he had one terrible scoring game, but was pretty much his usual self in the other 9. Not sure why that 1 game should define him when the other 9 are a much larger sample size.
Just for the record, Jaylen Brown had a playoff game where he played over 26 minutes and didn't score a single point his rookie year (he had other games where he didn't score but didn't play nearly as much in those). Tatum played just under 30 minutes and scored just 4 points in a playoff game last year as well. I just find this notion that a young guy is defined by one bad playoff game as quite strange.
I don't see a lot of similarity between young Giannis, a young talent so raw he almost went outside the lottery and is now likely the MVP, and "generational #1 pick" and ROY in maybe the toughest race ever, Ben Simmons. That's a comp that will lead you to make bad predictions.
Maybe, maybe not. Giannis wasn't a rookie. He was a 2nd year player. Sure he was raw, but he also hasn't ever been a good shooter and as you say is the likely MVP with that terrible shot.
You're the one that seems to ignore plenty of examples, including Magic Johnson in the 83 playoffs playing 48 minutes and scoring 2 points in a playoff game. Magic was 23 and in his 4th year at the time and had already won multiple championships.
Again this notion that a 21 year old rookie is defined by 1 bad game is absolutely astonishing, especially when you consider the other 9 playoff games he had he didn't score less than 14 points in any of them. Why aren't those 9 games the better gauge of Simmons?