Whose Team Will It Be? (Sixers)

[Who]

I do think there?s a lot of risk there for them. Say what you want about PG, but he was accepting of his role. How is JB going to react to significantly fewer touches and likely being the third banana instead of the second banana in Boston when he was already not happy with that?

And in that same vein, I?m really interested to see the JT-centric team we have now with much more complementary players in terms of style/fit/role around him.

Exactly. Good luck to Nick Nurse managing all those egos. 

And for some insane reason they go and sign Anfernee Simons, too. I actually really like Simons and wish we could have signed him at that bargain pricepoint, but that team doesn't make any sense right now. It's all iso all the time.

They'll probably be good just based on sheer talent, but that looks like a team that is worse than it's individual parts. How differently would we all feel if they just gave up Edgecombe instead of the picks? And now they are going to go and stunt his growth. Just really odd

A defensive guard like Marcus Smart would have been a much better fit for that 76ers than an offensive guard like Anfernee Simons.

[Phantom255x]

It'll still be Maxey for sure. Embiid is just not reliable enough from a health standpoint to be that guy. Jaylen absolutely does give them another gear and can fill in as the alpha especially on nights Maxey isn't available either. It'll be interesting to see.

[Who]

I think Maxey is over-rated. He puts up numbers but they don't lead to many wins. That is because of how bad he is defensively which wipes out a large chunk of his offensive contributions. Plus, as good of a scorer as he is, he is also a middling passer / playmaker. He doesn't make other people around him better. So he looks after himself but doesn't enhance his teammates.

Jaylen is also a player who looks after himself more than he improves the guys around him but at least Jaylen plays both ends of the court. Maxey doesn't.

[Ilikesports17]

I think Maxey is over-rated. He puts up numbers but they don't lead to many wins. That is because of how bad he is defensively which wipes out a large chunk of his offensive contributions. Plus, as good of a scorer as he is, he is also a middling passer / playmaker. He doesn't make other people around him better. So he looks after himself but doesn't enhance his teammates.

Jaylen is also a player who looks after himself more than he improves the guys around him but at least Jaylen plays both ends of the court. Maxey doesn't.

I totally get the trade from a talent perspective but Brown/Maxey/Embiid is a brutally bad fit. They should be designing everything around Maxey/Edecombe and this trade does not do that at all.

[Who]

I think Maxey is over-rated. He puts up numbers but they don't lead to many wins. That is because of how bad he is defensively which wipes out a large chunk of his offensive contributions. Plus, as good of a scorer as he is, he is also a middling passer / playmaker. He doesn't make other people around him better. So he looks after himself but doesn't enhance his teammates.

Jaylen is also a player who looks after himself more than he improves the guys around him but at least Jaylen plays both ends of the court. Maxey doesn't.

I totally get the trade from a talent perspective but Brown/Maxey/Embiid is a brutally bad fit. They should be designing everything around Maxey/Edecombe and this trade does not do that at all.

I think JB works great with Maxey & Edgecombe if you take Embiid out of the mix. JB fits their uptempo offense brilliantly. He is one of the best transition players in the league. He gives them another on-ball creator. Another isolation scorer when things get sticky.

I love that trio. It is Embiid I am not wild about. I would be trying to move on from Embiid if I were Philly although that may not be possible given his contract & injury issues. But if it is possible, I would do it. And I would build around those 3 guys. I think they are great together.

Get them a mobile center who can defend & rebound and can finish around the basket. Surround them with shooters. Let them run. They will be lethal together.

[Neurotic Guy]

Well, Brown wanted his own team and he's the only one on that squad with "FMVP".

It's got to be Brown's team. Embiid will need to play second fiddle. Maxey will be the #3 guy. Edgecombe the 4th man.

Our division is very stacked. New York, Philly, Toronto and Boston.

I really do not see that happening for a few reasons.

Embiid is probably one of THE biggest egomaniacs in the league.  The man has a rediculolus god complex and seems to think he's the center of the universe.  Add this to the fact that he's won an actual MVP (not the "Andre Iguodala" type FMVP treatment) and that he's been the star of this sixers squad for upwards of 10 years, and I don't see him budging on the mentality that he is the guy. 

Maxxey was drafted to this team and has grown with the team from day one and developed into the guy he is.  He's carried this team through the (not insubstantial) number of games that Embiid has missed, and hes been a ballpark top-10 scorer in the league for the past three seasons - Brown cannot say the same.

If you're Embiid and Maxxey - two home grown guys who were have been in Philly since draft day - how are you going to feel about a newcomer who has been a Robin his entire career, suddenly rocking up trying to claim this as his team?  I'd be putting that man in his place real quick. 

I honestly see potential for this to be a huge disaster for Philly.  Not only does this have potentially to completely destroy team chemisty (and the flow of their offence),I'm actuallly more concerned with the defence.  The Sixers ranked 16th in defensive rating last season and they just lost Paul George, who might have been their best defensive player.  Jaylen Brown is going to come in, and due to his reputation as a stopper he's probably going to be expected to take on the opponents best defensive player every night - and with no Queta/Tatum/White as backup I feel there is a high chance that his average off-ball defence will be exposed and that people will realise he might not be the impact defender that people have labelled him as being. 

This has all the signs of being one of those teams that looks amazing on paper, but looks like a chaotic mess on the court.  And given how emotional and edgy JB is as a person, the Embiid's tendacy to throw teammates under the bus, this sounds to me like a disaster waiting to happen. I wouldn't be shocked if JB is throwing tamper tantrums and demanding trades by the end of next season.

Their salary situation is also going to be...intersting.  You have Embiid on $58M, Maxxey on $40M and Brown on $57M - and all of them have 3 years left.  Philly are about $15M over the tax line so they will have pretty much zero ability to add supporting talent...so they will likely be a very top heavy roster relying very heavily on thee guys...one of whom has been so unhealthy that he's practically a meme.  I also can't see Philly extending all three of those guys long term given that they will probably all be eligible for somewhhere int he $60m-$70m/year range...so we could have 3 guys all trying to battle each other to prove they are more worthy of a contract than the others. Yikes. 

If they don't win a title (or AT LEAST make the Finals) in the first year that locker room situation could start getting VERY messy.

Great post.  I?ve heard Embiid?s ego questioned by no quite to the extent you put it.  Please share more about the god complex and the biggest egomaniac.  Could be a big problem with Jaylen especially where JB has made some unflattering comments about about Joel.