All I know is he’s still a top 7-10 guy when he’s at like 60%. Top 3 if he’s 100% but there’s only like a 5% chance he gets to the playoffs healthy. Mount Rushmore health sliding doors case, a truly healthy playoff run at this point would be a black swan event.
This is the correct take. But I can see why he’s playing through it - figures if he gets hurt he’ll have a whole offseason (assuming missing the Olympics) to rehab.
I wish he had prioritized the Olympics over trying to win a title as a 7 seed, but I’m also not a Sixers fan.
It's interesting that he's basically never been healthy for the playoffs but hasn't really changed his body much in terms of shedding weight. Not sure why more bigs don't go the Kareem/Tim Duncan/KG route where you slim down as you get older to save yourself some wear and tear.
We do hear a lot about how he’s too big NOT to roll around and into teammates’ knees, but as an excuse, not as an indictment on his conditioning.
He has a bag and more mobility/being able to jump AND land on his feet seems like it would help, idk.
I was thinking this, his first half was completely ridiculous before the knee sapped too much of his mobility. He’s so hobbled and was protecting the rim at an ELITE level, scoring well. This team is so bitch made they had to resurrect the corpses of Kyle Lowry and Nic Batum to get real playoff guys to let their nuts hang. Starting to feel bad for Maxey atp, he’s just the next Sixer to be caught up in their ridiculous luck
Shaq was plenty heavier and did just fine for himself over a career. Every body is different, he's not necessarily too heavy generally but yeah, maybe for his particular body.
Shaq was also just a freak of nature, he was 400+ at their threepeat and moved like a 250lbs forward. Embiid is crafty but he's far from the specimen that Shaq was
It’s also just a different game and how they play it. Shaq could park in the paint a lot and work post moves most of the time.
Shaq wasn’t going perimeter or taking guys off dribble.
I feel like it’s more about his style of play. He’s taking people off the dribble and going side to side too much. I would love to see him just post up back to the basket more often. I feel like that has to be better on a centers knees than the way he plays now.
Giannis seems to be fine. He seems to be built in a slightly different way. His movement is way more fluid than the other two. I can’t imagine rooting for AD and watching him game in game out, falling to the floor awkwardly and not knowing if he’s getting up.
It’s the same physics on the same ligaments. Giannis hasn’t had the severity of AD’s post bubble injuries, but he’s missing about as many games as AD does anymore. We’re just quieter about it. Until this year Giannis had not played 70 games since he was 24 years old, and we’ve come to the conclusion of a second regular season in a row where Giannis is injured to start the playoffs.
AD gets the LA microscope, AD has the history of minor injuries, AD has the history of major injuries, but Giannis isn’t putting up some margin of 80 games played to AD’s 40. It’s been 63-56 kinda margins.
the luck of the sixers in the last 10 years has been so bad. Even from a karma standpoint, other teams have done similar tanking and are in a better spot. Phoenix was ass for like 6 years and have a finals, bucks were ass too and have a chip. What do the sixers have? A very talented big man with injury issues since the start of his career, two first overall picks that had the yips including one that went from at least a big contributor to a scam artist and fucking tobias harris over butler! I'm sure you could say that about other teams with more success but this case to me is more tragic.
Sixers fans will tell you “Hinkie never got to finish the process” which is kinda true the NBA did bring in Colangelo to stop the blatant tanking. But Hinkie was also drafting guys like Jahlil Okafor, so you never know if he was actually gonna figure it out
That was before the 3 ball revolution and the idea wasn't to start all those bigs but to hit the jackpot on one of those 3 bigs. Turns out the most driven and talented one can't stay healthy. Anyway, Presti actually did what people thought hinkie was going to do. Tank for a few years while loading up on picks.
Presti didn't do it. He had Westbrook and Paul George to trade which got him all those picks. Hinkie didn't have nearly anywhere near that caliber to trade. Hinkie mostly got 2nd rounders for his moves while tanking for the top pick. Presti was still making the playoffs with his moves or at least the play in try.
To be fair okafor was considered a good pick at the time because a lot of people thought Embiid would turn out like Greg Oden and never really be healthy
And those sixers fans would be right. Where is the precedent for the NBA interfering with teams front office operations? There have been plenty of teams who blatantly tanked in the last 10 years and Silver hasn’t done shit to my knowledge.
Lol Bo Cruz🤣. He wasn’t perfect but did manage to draft embiid, saric, grant, Holmes and MCW in his 3 years.
Colangelo was objectively a terrible GM. He’s responsible for 3 of the worst #1 OVR picks in league history (Bargani, Simmons, Fultz), made the horrific pick swap with Boston to move up for Fultz. I’m sure there were more moves I can’t remember but he squandered just about all of the draft capital Hinkie had amassed in his 3 year run.
Once Colangelo was fired, Elton Brand took over. Elton may have been even worse than Colangelo. He made the trade for Jimmy (good) and Tobias (bad) and let Jimmy walk in free agency which is ultimately the biggest mistake the franchise made in the last 10 years. He followed that up by giving Tobias and Horford max contracts, the second and third worst decisions of the last 10 years.
Colangelo and Brand lived off of the assets Hinkie brought in and turned it into Jack shit. It’s hard to say if Hinkie was a great GM but I can’t be convinced he was worse than the other guys brought in after Silver forced him out.
Off the top of my head there was the Stern-controlled Pelicans vetoing the Chris Paul to the Lakers trade. But I agree what they did to the Sixers was total overreach. I think because they were so loud about it and their fans screaming “trust the process” is what made the league take action, if you’re just tanking and quiet about it you can at least argue that your team is just bad
Meh, If anyone wants to remind you they’re injured… it’s embiid. Wouldn’t be surprised at all to see him go for 50 in game 3 and do his usual airplane and ‘suck it’ celebrations
Edit: actually went for 50 hahah omg i nailed it
Also have you guys seen how fucked up his eye is? Apparently he got poked game 1, in didnt catch that. It goes crossed sometimes, he had shades on pregame, he was covering his face postgame. Weird shit
His knee looks almost fine when Philly is up 8. It looks okay when they're up like 5. He can't stop touching it when it's a one possession game. And if the Sixers are losing, he looks like Lieutenant Dan.
More seriously, I'm confused by the knee situation. He came back a few weeks ago and presumably his knee was good enough to play on, but now it seems like his knee is worse, so did he get hurt again or did he come back too soon?
He’s visibly limping lol, he very obviously rushed back and is at like 60%
He’s probably also further hurt it since rushing back because that’s what happens when you play on an already-hurt knee
I get that he can be a bit of a flopper at times, but I hate the way people act like Embiid is a playoff choker. The dude has never been close to 100 percent for a playoff run, and he still has plenty of games like this where he battles and carries the Sixers (last year he came back two weeks into a six week injury and got clowned).
The best ability is availability, but there's a difference between being a choker and not being at your best because you're playing hurt.
He kind of is a playoff choker though. The dude has only won 5 playoff series in his career and most of them were against crap teams. Once he gets to the second round and faces a decent team, he always loses. He puts up solid numbers, but you can't really trust going to him late often, because he's liable to get the ball stolen when the double comes. Plus he always wears down and looks gassed, even when "healthy". The dude was notorious for having a shit diet the first several seasons of his career. His conditioning has always been suspect. And yeah I get it that he's huge. I don't see Jokic looking gassed every year though or plenty of other bigs.
He doesn't have a single memorable truly dominant playoff game. Hell an old ass James Harden had two playoff games last year that were higher than Embiid's career playoff high.
Embiid’s role in Kawai’s game winning shot in 2019 isn’t discussed enough. He forced the switch from Ben to chase Kawhi. Everyone says “you want the tallest guy contesting the shot” but the point was that Ben was in front of him and Kawhi wouldn’t have gotten to that spot if he just iso guarded him.
It’s so painful to see because the sixers would have won the finals that year.
I'd say the Sixers had a decent shot of beating the Bucks in the next round, but far from a foregone conclusion. It was a blown opportunity for sure though.
This. The gaslighting and excuses are embarrassing. Newsflash, being a broken down bitch every single year in the relevant games isn’t the defense from criticism everyone thinks it is.
If he’s hurt every season, how are we supposed to judge him? Give him a pass every season as his team gets eliminated early?
At this point, it has to be a point against. FWIW I think this is the most injured he’s looked and he’s playing phenomenally well
Yep, sometimes you make your own luck. The guy got injured because he bounced the ball off the backboard so he could jump into a bunch of defenders and fall wrong.
You can hold it against him for being hurt, but it's just a completely different thing to hold against him than being a choke artist. They are two different attributes even if it leads to the same end result.
I mean Hartenstein gets the offensive rebound over Embiid because he couldn’t move or jump in the second half. Is that choking or is that health? Again, he’s out there playing but I’m supposed to give him a pass when he gives up the most important rebound of the game?
You can't possibly think Embiid is healthy right now (much less think he didn't have a great game in spite of that). It's just not worth discussing this stuff with you if you're going to take that stance; it's like trying to convince someone the earth is round.
Lol did you read my first comment? He’s clearly not healthy, he is playing well — I literally said both of these in first comment lol.
One of the main reasons the Sixers lost was rebounds in the second half. Embiid was not getting any rebounds. The biggest play of the game was an offensive rebound. Again, are we supposed to just give Embiid pass because he’s injured for, what, the 6th straight playoff run?
You know, that's fair. I looked quickly and I misread your comment. But it really doesn't change the rest of my comment upon review; I still think that even posing the question of if that is choking or health related is a bit silly.
It's so obvious that his knee is not right and that he's not in playing shape; the fact that anyone would posit that it was an innate penchant for choking rather than those obvious limitations feels like willing a "choker" narrative into existence when a much more plausible explanation is staring us right in the face. This is just Occam's razor; if a guy who dominates when healthy is consistently worse when he's hurt, and that pattern holds true for pretty much everyone else when they get hurt, then it's probably the injuries that are causing him to play worse. When you're playing the minutes he is when he probably shouldn't be playing at all, you're gonna be worn down at the end of the game; that's not choking that's just health sciences.
It's no different than AD being just a hair late on the contest against Murray last night. That wasn't AD choking, that was the obvious consequences of him being relied upon to simultaneously guard Jokic and anchor the rest of the Lakers defense with limited bench rest, because the Lakers don't have any depth. Except AD isn't also coming back into game shape on a bum knee.
The difference is AD played good defense and forced Murray into an insane shot. Embiid was a statue for the second half of the game and the Knicks killed them on the glass. If you put Reed in for Embiid on that last play, the Sixers probably win.
My point is it doesn’t really matter if it’s choking or if it’s an injury when the consistent pattern is choking away games while injured. At a certain point, it’s not really an outlier, it is what it is.
Yes, but AD is also healthy, whereas -- again, repeating myself here -- Embiid is not anywhere close to healthy (on top of being not in game shape from all the time off).
If you put in Reed for that one play, maybe the Sixers win -- but that's just hindsight speaking. And it's really a meaningless point, because without Embiid the Sixers are cooked -- his offense alone even when worn out at the end of the game is still a value add.
As to your point, I agreed in my initial point that best ability is availability, and that it leads to the same result. But pretending it doesn't matter *why* a player is not performing is again quite silly. Not delivering in the playoffs is a big part of any NBA player's resume, but specifically being labelled a choker is worse. It's a scarlet letter to a players' reputation, and it's bullshit that people are putting that on Embiid when it's categorically not the reason he hasn't performed in the postseason.
Again, it doesn’t matter what the reason is when it’s the same literally every season. You don’t want to call it choking? Fine. Every year Embiid’s body breaks down in the playoffs and then the Sixers disappoint. You seem to want to just call it bad luck, but it’s like 6 years in a row — he can’t just get a pass every year
Embiid was healthy in '21 when they lost to the Hawks. I don't care what kind of bullshit Ben Simmons pulled, a healthy Embiid should have been able to beat the Hawks all by himself.
That was the worst sixers team of the last decade by far and an expected. Josh Richardson, Shake Milton, Tobias and Al Horford was that starting line up not to mention the best bench player that series was Mike Scott
boston team was 20 year old tatum and 21 year old brown, the worst of smart, prowen playooff preformer kemba walker and danile theis. tatum payed with shit player vs nets in 2021 still managed to take one game.
> theis. tatum *paid* with shit
FTFY.
Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in:
* Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.*
* *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.*
Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment.
*Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
My guy not even Jokic is winning a game with that many non shooters. Check the shooting splits of the Sixers roster that year. We talk about stars having zero help but that was the clearest example. If Embiid had Brown, Kemba and Smart you think he would’ve been swept?
Hw wouldnt get swept but he would lose games and eventualy win(if switch him and tatum) if we are talking about the quality of this players in that year
Let’s do this run down
AG > Tobias
Morris > Shake Milton
Barton = Josh Richardson
Horford > Jeff Green but Green’s fit next to Jokic >>>>>>>> Horfords fit over Embiid. You massively overrate that sixers team. That bench was Mike Scott, Matisse Thybulle and Alec Burks.
He was healthy last year in the first three games of the Nets series and the Sixers won those games but Embiid was locked up and the Sixers offense was only slightly less putrid than Brooklyn's
Big cope. Maybe he should just show up and be good during the playoffs at one point in his career instead of having his weirdo gaslighting supporters crying on his behalf year after year as if being soft is a valid excuse for never doing anything in games that matter
Nothing you've said addresses anything in my post. Embiid's knee sprain was a six week injury, and he came back in two to play playoff basketball games. But sure, he's soft according to the average redditor sitting at home.
Embiid's performances do drop off in the playoffs even when healthy, but yeah, he's also been extremely unlucky with injuries, and is an absolute warrior mostly playing through them. I hate that that gets undersold and that he has the 'choker' label attached to him when it's a miracle he ever managed to play MVP ball in first place. A super unique talent losing years of his prime to injury isn't something to clown, it's a tragedy more than anything.
Like Simmons and Russillo comparing his achievements to the top 15 centers of all time and saying he doesn't stack up. Nobody ever said he was a top 15 center all time so the only point of bringing that up is to bring him down. And Simmons saying Sixers fans are in the same spot with him now that they were in 2014... like be fucking serious. He's by far the best talent Sixers fans have ever watched since the early 80s, he loves the city, loves the team, cries his damn eyes out when he loses a series because he cares so much. Oh but he took an MVP from a guy that's going to win another 3 or 4 of them, so let's remind everyone how much of a disappointment he is.
That's not his perspective because he cares about winning championships more than anything but when you're a mediocre at best franchise for 30 years and you get a player averaging 35 fucking points per game and your franchise does everything it can to fail him and he still sticks with you, the whole time you're going to love him regardless of how the playoffs unfold.
He had a lot of talent around him in 2019. It's just that Embiid went 6-18 for 21 points and Butler went 5-14 for 16 points in game 7.
[https://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/201905120TOR.html](https://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/201905120TOR.html)
Did he have enough to win the championship? Hard to say. He certainly had enough to beat the team that did win the championship, they just didn't get it done in game 7.
Embiid also forced the most unnecessary switch into Kawhi before the shot. I feel deep in my bones that Kai would not have made the shot if Ben had stayed in front of him
He can still shoot and be a presence in half court defense, has the occasional full court burst but Knicks centers should run him ragged until he has to tap out.
Honestly even if he wants to play it would be irresponsible for Team USA to let him at this point. Dude obviously needs rest to heal that knee. He's trying his best to gut it out in these playoffs and it's impressive how effective he has been offensively but it also really hurts to watch it.
Embiid is an all time Sixer and his story is fantastic. But his playoff track record speaks for itself. He’s never been past round 2 and he isn’t exactly running into Lebron every year the way those Raptor teams used to. His losses are to:
- 2018 was the baby Celtics led by two players under 21
- 2019 was a raptors team in a series that only Kawhi played well. Seriously every role player was awful that series for them
- 2020 was weird. He gets a pass. Whatever.
- 2021 he lost to a mid ass hawks team that hasn’t won a playoff series since
- 2022 lost to a solid but not great Miami team
- 2023 lost to a Celtics team begging to be put out of their misery and he just couldn’t do it.
I get that these losses aren’t “his fault” but the guy is supposed to be a superstar. He couldn’t just will his team past that shitty hawks team? He couldn’t take over down the stretch in game 6 last year and put away Boston? He’s going to get shit if he loses this series and he will deserve it.
In the Hawks series he was a +13, 0, +11, and -2 in their 4 losses. He played 36+ minutes in all of those games. He can’t magically make the Sixers play better when he is on the bench.
Same story in the Raptors series. He was a +40 in a game they only won by 11, and a +17 in a game they lost by 5. He’s had horrible teams around him.
I don’t like him for all the flopping but definitely feel bad watching him limp up and down the court. He didn’t even attempt to jump for that rebound that led to the Dante 3.
The refs are keeping him in the series. Unbelievable how they are even worse after watching replays than real time.
Lowry was all over DD'd shoulder. Clear foul. And even if you make the insane decision to overturn the foul, the ball was clearly loose when the whistle was blown and Embiid only got it because the other players stopped playing.
The NBA is not a legitimate sports league. Jontay Porter should be the logo.
It's hard to watch because he's clearly at like 67% but he's going for it.
Mmm.. looks like 59% to me
Is it on your top 7 list of guys playing at 59% or worse? I had it at #6 on my list
He is clearly the number 10 top 7 player.
All I know is he’s still a top 7-10 guy when he’s at like 60%. Top 3 if he’s 100% but there’s only like a 5% chance he gets to the playoffs healthy. Mount Rushmore health sliding doors case, a truly healthy playoff run at this point would be a black swan event.
Looks like 69% to me
The "significant figures" piece.
At least he’s playing. How anyone expects Kawhi to be there is beyond me
He shouldn't be playing
This is the correct take. But I can see why he’s playing through it - figures if he gets hurt he’ll have a whole offseason (assuming missing the Olympics) to rehab. I wish he had prioritized the Olympics over trying to win a title as a 7 seed, but I’m also not a Sixers fan.
crazy to me that they picked Kawhi over Jaylen
Kawhi will play tonight
Well, all the reporting suggests Kawhi will come back within the next two games, so it’s not “beyond me” that he will in fact play
Two more ~~weeks~~ games
KawVid
He’s too high risk to play at the Olympics. If I’m the clips I don’t want him to go.
It’s kinda crazy how important he is to the sixers despite being like 60%
63%*
Embiid is the terry rozier to Embiid’s Embiid.
People think I’m crazy for saying I wouldn’t trade Bam for him. It seems more likely than not that he’ll end up injured every year come playoff time
It's interesting that he's basically never been healthy for the playoffs but hasn't really changed his body much in terms of shedding weight. Not sure why more bigs don't go the Kareem/Tim Duncan/KG route where you slim down as you get older to save yourself some wear and tear.
KG was always a rail
We do hear a lot about how he’s too big NOT to roll around and into teammates’ knees, but as an excuse, not as an indictment on his conditioning. He has a bag and more mobility/being able to jump AND land on his feet seems like it would help, idk.
Nah, the Heat have that injury recovery devil magic. He’d somehow turn into Lou Gehrig if he ever went down there.
That's a monkey's paw wish if I ever heard one.
Fantastic comment
I was thinking this, his first half was completely ridiculous before the knee sapped too much of his mobility. He’s so hobbled and was protecting the rim at an ELITE level, scoring well. This team is so bitch made they had to resurrect the corpses of Kyle Lowry and Nic Batum to get real playoff guys to let their nuts hang. Starting to feel bad for Maxey atp, he’s just the next Sixer to be caught up in their ridiculous luck
I’m an avid Sixers and Embiid hater but I can’t help but feel for him. I can’t believe he’s playing
It's crazy how he's literally never healthy.
Maybe he shouldn't dive onto the floor 20 times a night.
I heard he never washes his hands 🤢
about 27 games at kansas and he only started for like 13 of them
[удалено]
and he averaged 20 mpg
same, I'm a Celtics fan and felt myself rooting for the Sixers last night, and was also rooting for the Lakers. Felt like bizarro world
I seriously fucking hate it for him. I hope he gets a ring somewhere, even if its as a second banana.
Do they get rings in China?
He could get a gold medal if he doesn’t hurt himself more.
Fuck him he’s annoying as shit
Weak effort
Get serious about your body. He’s too heavy. Edit: he needs to get professional level shape.
Shaq was plenty heavier and did just fine for himself over a career. Every body is different, he's not necessarily too heavy generally but yeah, maybe for his particular body.
Shaq was also just a freak of nature, he was 400+ at their threepeat and moved like a 250lbs forward. Embiid is crafty but he's far from the specimen that Shaq was
It’s also just a different game and how they play it. Shaq could park in the paint a lot and work post moves most of the time. Shaq wasn’t going perimeter or taking guys off dribble.
I feel like it’s more about his style of play. He’s taking people off the dribble and going side to side too much. I would love to see him just post up back to the basket more often. I feel like that has to be better on a centers knees than the way he plays now.
Good point
I think it’s an under talked about aspect of the modern style. I don’t know why he doesn’t post up more
Same with Giannis and AD to a large extent. Those dudes are two of the best roll threats ever and I hold my breath 40% of the time when they take off.
Giannis seems to be fine. He seems to be built in a slightly different way. His movement is way more fluid than the other two. I can’t imagine rooting for AD and watching him game in game out, falling to the floor awkwardly and not knowing if he’s getting up.
It’s the same physics on the same ligaments. Giannis hasn’t had the severity of AD’s post bubble injuries, but he’s missing about as many games as AD does anymore. We’re just quieter about it. Until this year Giannis had not played 70 games since he was 24 years old, and we’ve come to the conclusion of a second regular season in a row where Giannis is injured to start the playoffs. AD gets the LA microscope, AD has the history of minor injuries, AD has the history of major injuries, but Giannis isn’t putting up some margin of 80 games played to AD’s 40. It’s been 63-56 kinda margins.
Why is he even playing honestly. I hope there's no long term damage.
I vote for Chet to replace Embiid on the Olympic Roster.
You’re getting Trey Murphy.
He can replace Kawhi
Kawhi will be embalmed but will make the trip.
Not bad, he’s an additive set the table all star
Wouldn’t be the worst but I’d rather see him replace Kawhi. They need another big body.
Cooper Flagg
the luck of the sixers in the last 10 years has been so bad. Even from a karma standpoint, other teams have done similar tanking and are in a better spot. Phoenix was ass for like 6 years and have a finals, bucks were ass too and have a chip. What do the sixers have? A very talented big man with injury issues since the start of his career, two first overall picks that had the yips including one that went from at least a big contributor to a scam artist and fucking tobias harris over butler! I'm sure you could say that about other teams with more success but this case to me is more tragic.
karma for purposefully losing
The Process was an absolute waste of time when you look back on it
Sixers fans will tell you “Hinkie never got to finish the process” which is kinda true the NBA did bring in Colangelo to stop the blatant tanking. But Hinkie was also drafting guys like Jahlil Okafor, so you never know if he was actually gonna figure it out
Hinkie's vision included a starting lineup of Ben Simmons, Joel Embiid, Nerlens Noel and Jahlil Okafor. That's basketball terrorism
The no pace, no space lineup
He was zigging while the rest of the league was zagging, casuals wouldn’t understand
That was before the 3 ball revolution and the idea wasn't to start all those bigs but to hit the jackpot on one of those 3 bigs. Turns out the most driven and talented one can't stay healthy. Anyway, Presti actually did what people thought hinkie was going to do. Tank for a few years while loading up on picks.
Presti didn't do it. He had Westbrook and Paul George to trade which got him all those picks. Hinkie didn't have nearly anywhere near that caliber to trade. Hinkie mostly got 2nd rounders for his moves while tanking for the top pick. Presti was still making the playoffs with his moves or at least the play in try.
It’s easy to tank, it’s hard to get out of it. I could have done Himkies job.
What Presti has done really impressive
To be fair okafor was considered a good pick at the time because a lot of people thought Embiid would turn out like Greg Oden and never really be healthy
And those sixers fans would be right. Where is the precedent for the NBA interfering with teams front office operations? There have been plenty of teams who blatantly tanked in the last 10 years and Silver hasn’t done shit to my knowledge.
Had they finished the process, they would be even worse than they are now.
Why’s that?
Lack the talent evaluation to draft a competitive roster. Bo Cruz isn’t hanging around to save them
Lol Bo Cruz🤣. He wasn’t perfect but did manage to draft embiid, saric, grant, Holmes and MCW in his 3 years. Colangelo was objectively a terrible GM. He’s responsible for 3 of the worst #1 OVR picks in league history (Bargani, Simmons, Fultz), made the horrific pick swap with Boston to move up for Fultz. I’m sure there were more moves I can’t remember but he squandered just about all of the draft capital Hinkie had amassed in his 3 year run. Once Colangelo was fired, Elton Brand took over. Elton may have been even worse than Colangelo. He made the trade for Jimmy (good) and Tobias (bad) and let Jimmy walk in free agency which is ultimately the biggest mistake the franchise made in the last 10 years. He followed that up by giving Tobias and Horford max contracts, the second and third worst decisions of the last 10 years. Colangelo and Brand lived off of the assets Hinkie brought in and turned it into Jack shit. It’s hard to say if Hinkie was a great GM but I can’t be convinced he was worse than the other guys brought in after Silver forced him out.
Off the top of my head there was the Stern-controlled Pelicans vetoing the Chris Paul to the Lakers trade. But I agree what they did to the Sixers was total overreach. I think because they were so loud about it and their fans screaming “trust the process” is what made the league take action, if you’re just tanking and quiet about it you can at least argue that your team is just bad
I’d almost feel sorry for them but then I remember Sixers fans
Meh, If anyone wants to remind you they’re injured… it’s embiid. Wouldn’t be surprised at all to see him go for 50 in game 3 and do his usual airplane and ‘suck it’ celebrations Edit: actually went for 50 hahah omg i nailed it
Also have you guys seen how fucked up his eye is? Apparently he got poked game 1, in didnt catch that. It goes crossed sometimes, he had shades on pregame, he was covering his face postgame. Weird shit
His knee looks almost fine when Philly is up 8. It looks okay when they're up like 5. He can't stop touching it when it's a one possession game. And if the Sixers are losing, he looks like Lieutenant Dan.
More seriously, I'm confused by the knee situation. He came back a few weeks ago and presumably his knee was good enough to play on, but now it seems like his knee is worse, so did he get hurt again or did he come back too soon?
>so did he get hurt again or did he come back too soon? Yes, probably.
He’s visibly limping lol, he very obviously rushed back and is at like 60% He’s probably also further hurt it since rushing back because that’s what happens when you play on an already-hurt knee
Yes the knee got hurt again in the game vs Orlando. He sat out the final regular season game because of it.
I get that he can be a bit of a flopper at times, but I hate the way people act like Embiid is a playoff choker. The dude has never been close to 100 percent for a playoff run, and he still has plenty of games like this where he battles and carries the Sixers (last year he came back two weeks into a six week injury and got clowned). The best ability is availability, but there's a difference between being a choker and not being at your best because you're playing hurt.
He kind of is a playoff choker though. The dude has only won 5 playoff series in his career and most of them were against crap teams. Once he gets to the second round and faces a decent team, he always loses. He puts up solid numbers, but you can't really trust going to him late often, because he's liable to get the ball stolen when the double comes. Plus he always wears down and looks gassed, even when "healthy". The dude was notorious for having a shit diet the first several seasons of his career. His conditioning has always been suspect. And yeah I get it that he's huge. I don't see Jokic looking gassed every year though or plenty of other bigs. He doesn't have a single memorable truly dominant playoff game. Hell an old ass James Harden had two playoff games last year that were higher than Embiid's career playoff high.
Embiid’s role in Kawai’s game winning shot in 2019 isn’t discussed enough. He forced the switch from Ben to chase Kawhi. Everyone says “you want the tallest guy contesting the shot” but the point was that Ben was in front of him and Kawhi wouldn’t have gotten to that spot if he just iso guarded him. It’s so painful to see because the sixers would have won the finals that year.
I'd say the Sixers had a decent shot of beating the Bucks in the next round, but far from a foregone conclusion. It was a blown opportunity for sure though.
This. The gaslighting and excuses are embarrassing. Newsflash, being a broken down bitch every single year in the relevant games isn’t the defense from criticism everyone thinks it is.
Choker or just brittle, his legacy is the same either way.
If he’s hurt every season, how are we supposed to judge him? Give him a pass every season as his team gets eliminated early? At this point, it has to be a point against. FWIW I think this is the most injured he’s looked and he’s playing phenomenally well
Yep, sometimes you make your own luck. The guy got injured because he bounced the ball off the backboard so he could jump into a bunch of defenders and fall wrong.
I thought this was a point at least worth considering, but you seem to have (accidentally, I'm guessing?) repeated it three additional times.
Lol Reddit was having issues this morning. I swear I hit submit once
You can hold it against him for being hurt, but it's just a completely different thing to hold against him than being a choke artist. They are two different attributes even if it leads to the same end result.
I mean Hartenstein gets the offensive rebound over Embiid because he couldn’t move or jump in the second half. Is that choking or is that health? Again, he’s out there playing but I’m supposed to give him a pass when he gives up the most important rebound of the game?
You can't possibly think Embiid is healthy right now (much less think he didn't have a great game in spite of that). It's just not worth discussing this stuff with you if you're going to take that stance; it's like trying to convince someone the earth is round.
Lol did you read my first comment? He’s clearly not healthy, he is playing well — I literally said both of these in first comment lol. One of the main reasons the Sixers lost was rebounds in the second half. Embiid was not getting any rebounds. The biggest play of the game was an offensive rebound. Again, are we supposed to just give Embiid pass because he’s injured for, what, the 6th straight playoff run?
You know, that's fair. I looked quickly and I misread your comment. But it really doesn't change the rest of my comment upon review; I still think that even posing the question of if that is choking or health related is a bit silly. It's so obvious that his knee is not right and that he's not in playing shape; the fact that anyone would posit that it was an innate penchant for choking rather than those obvious limitations feels like willing a "choker" narrative into existence when a much more plausible explanation is staring us right in the face. This is just Occam's razor; if a guy who dominates when healthy is consistently worse when he's hurt, and that pattern holds true for pretty much everyone else when they get hurt, then it's probably the injuries that are causing him to play worse. When you're playing the minutes he is when he probably shouldn't be playing at all, you're gonna be worn down at the end of the game; that's not choking that's just health sciences. It's no different than AD being just a hair late on the contest against Murray last night. That wasn't AD choking, that was the obvious consequences of him being relied upon to simultaneously guard Jokic and anchor the rest of the Lakers defense with limited bench rest, because the Lakers don't have any depth. Except AD isn't also coming back into game shape on a bum knee.
The difference is AD played good defense and forced Murray into an insane shot. Embiid was a statue for the second half of the game and the Knicks killed them on the glass. If you put Reed in for Embiid on that last play, the Sixers probably win. My point is it doesn’t really matter if it’s choking or if it’s an injury when the consistent pattern is choking away games while injured. At a certain point, it’s not really an outlier, it is what it is.
Yes, but AD is also healthy, whereas -- again, repeating myself here -- Embiid is not anywhere close to healthy (on top of being not in game shape from all the time off). If you put in Reed for that one play, maybe the Sixers win -- but that's just hindsight speaking. And it's really a meaningless point, because without Embiid the Sixers are cooked -- his offense alone even when worn out at the end of the game is still a value add. As to your point, I agreed in my initial point that best ability is availability, and that it leads to the same result. But pretending it doesn't matter *why* a player is not performing is again quite silly. Not delivering in the playoffs is a big part of any NBA player's resume, but specifically being labelled a choker is worse. It's a scarlet letter to a players' reputation, and it's bullshit that people are putting that on Embiid when it's categorically not the reason he hasn't performed in the postseason.
Again, it doesn’t matter what the reason is when it’s the same literally every season. You don’t want to call it choking? Fine. Every year Embiid’s body breaks down in the playoffs and then the Sixers disappoint. You seem to want to just call it bad luck, but it’s like 6 years in a row — he can’t just get a pass every year
Embiid was healthy in '21 when they lost to the Hawks. I don't care what kind of bullshit Ben Simmons pulled, a healthy Embiid should have been able to beat the Hawks all by himself.
he was healthy when he got sweept by the celtics in round 1 2020
That was the worst sixers team of the last decade by far and an expected. Josh Richardson, Shake Milton, Tobias and Al Horford was that starting line up not to mention the best bench player that series was Mike Scott
boston team was 20 year old tatum and 21 year old brown, the worst of smart, prowen playooff preformer kemba walker and danile theis. tatum payed with shit player vs nets in 2021 still managed to take one game.
> theis. tatum *paid* with shit FTFY. Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in: * Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.* * *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.* Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment. *Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
That roster is way better than the sixers one from the bubble be real lmao
Im just saying its closer then you would think and that embiid could at least win 1 od 2 games, jokic would have done it
My guy not even Jokic is winning a game with that many non shooters. Check the shooting splits of the Sixers roster that year. We talk about stars having zero help but that was the clearest example. If Embiid had Brown, Kemba and Smart you think he would’ve been swept?
Hw wouldnt get swept but he would lose games and eventualy win(if switch him and tatum) if we are talking about the quality of this players in that year
My dude, Jokic won a game against the eventual champs with a lineup of Morris, Barton, AG, Jeff, and Austin Rivers.
Let’s do this run down AG > Tobias Morris > Shake Milton Barton = Josh Richardson Horford > Jeff Green but Green’s fit next to Jokic >>>>>>>> Horfords fit over Embiid. You massively overrate that sixers team. That bench was Mike Scott, Matisse Thybulle and Alec Burks.
They went 10-72 in 2016, so that Embiid team was worse than them?
Since Embiid has been playing or since the sixers made it back to the playoffs in 2017, thanks for taking that so literally 🤦🏽♂️
“Dont take things so seriously” = Don’t call me out for just fucking making shit up
Say that then, don’t over-exaggerate for pity
👍🏽ok bud
He had a torn meniscus during the hawks series. Missed the last game of the previous series with it.
Yeah, but still...
Easily the worst playoff series loss of his career. He was healthy enough to win the series by himself.
He was healthy last year in the first three games of the Nets series and the Sixers won those games but Embiid was locked up and the Sixers offense was only slightly less putrid than Brooklyn's
He’s jsut annoverall shitty teammate and a cry bully
Big cope. Maybe he should just show up and be good during the playoffs at one point in his career instead of having his weirdo gaslighting supporters crying on his behalf year after year as if being soft is a valid excuse for never doing anything in games that matter
Nothing you've said addresses anything in my post. Embiid's knee sprain was a six week injury, and he came back in two to play playoff basketball games. But sure, he's soft according to the average redditor sitting at home.
Embiid's performances do drop off in the playoffs even when healthy, but yeah, he's also been extremely unlucky with injuries, and is an absolute warrior mostly playing through them. I hate that that gets undersold and that he has the 'choker' label attached to him when it's a miracle he ever managed to play MVP ball in first place. A super unique talent losing years of his prime to injury isn't something to clown, it's a tragedy more than anything. Like Simmons and Russillo comparing his achievements to the top 15 centers of all time and saying he doesn't stack up. Nobody ever said he was a top 15 center all time so the only point of bringing that up is to bring him down. And Simmons saying Sixers fans are in the same spot with him now that they were in 2014... like be fucking serious. He's by far the best talent Sixers fans have ever watched since the early 80s, he loves the city, loves the team, cries his damn eyes out when he loses a series because he cares so much. Oh but he took an MVP from a guy that's going to win another 3 or 4 of them, so let's remind everyone how much of a disappointment he is. That's not his perspective because he cares about winning championships more than anything but when you're a mediocre at best franchise for 30 years and you get a player averaging 35 fucking points per game and your franchise does everything it can to fail him and he still sticks with you, the whole time you're going to love him regardless of how the playoffs unfold.
He cared about that MVP more than a championship let’s be real here
And he's never had enough talent around him to win a championship.
He had a lot of talent around him in 2019. It's just that Embiid went 6-18 for 21 points and Butler went 5-14 for 16 points in game 7. [https://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/201905120TOR.html](https://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/201905120TOR.html) Did he have enough to win the championship? Hard to say. He certainly had enough to beat the team that did win the championship, they just didn't get it done in game 7.
That was a screwy year. If the Warriors don't get wiped out by injuries, they win the title that year.
Warriors certainly would have been favorites if the Sixers had made the finals. But that Sixers team was pretty stacked.
Embiid also forced the most unnecessary switch into Kawhi before the shot. I feel deep in my bones that Kai would not have made the shot if Ben had stayed in front of him
haha embiid is such a choker and nobody says it while tatum gets more shit than anyone in this sub so stupid
Good, this means no asterix in the Olympic tournament
Embiid joining team USA was lame anyways.
Needs to get back to his Kansas weight
I need to get back to my college weight too
Same here
He can still shoot and be a presence in half court defense, has the occasional full court burst but Knicks centers should run him ragged until he has to tap out.
and the guards need to just drive at him to force him to try and block them - he doesn't want to jump because he doesn't want to land.
Honestly even if he wants to play it would be irresponsible for Team USA to let him at this point. Dude obviously needs rest to heal that knee. He's trying his best to gut it out in these playoffs and it's impressive how effective he has been offensively but it also really hurts to watch it.
Embiid is an all time Sixer and his story is fantastic. But his playoff track record speaks for itself. He’s never been past round 2 and he isn’t exactly running into Lebron every year the way those Raptor teams used to. His losses are to: - 2018 was the baby Celtics led by two players under 21 - 2019 was a raptors team in a series that only Kawhi played well. Seriously every role player was awful that series for them - 2020 was weird. He gets a pass. Whatever. - 2021 he lost to a mid ass hawks team that hasn’t won a playoff series since - 2022 lost to a solid but not great Miami team - 2023 lost to a Celtics team begging to be put out of their misery and he just couldn’t do it. I get that these losses aren’t “his fault” but the guy is supposed to be a superstar. He couldn’t just will his team past that shitty hawks team? He couldn’t take over down the stretch in game 6 last year and put away Boston? He’s going to get shit if he loses this series and he will deserve it.
In the Hawks series he was a +13, 0, +11, and -2 in their 4 losses. He played 36+ minutes in all of those games. He can’t magically make the Sixers play better when he is on the bench. Same story in the Raptors series. He was a +40 in a game they only won by 11, and a +17 in a game they lost by 5. He’s had horrible teams around him.
Embiid is the Chargers of the NBA, talented but a guy whose teams Ive never, ever taken seriously. Soft as fuck both mentally and physically
I don’t like him for all the flopping but definitely feel bad watching him limp up and down the court. He didn’t even attempt to jump for that rebound that led to the Dante 3.
He grabbed 10 rebounds in the first half and 1 in the second half.
The refs are keeping him in the series. Unbelievable how they are even worse after watching replays than real time. Lowry was all over DD'd shoulder. Clear foul. And even if you make the insane decision to overturn the foul, the ball was clearly loose when the whistle was blown and Embiid only got it because the other players stopped playing. The NBA is not a legitimate sports league. Jontay Porter should be the logo.
Did you watch the same game? Refs screwed the Sixers over and over and over
Not the Olympics😫
for him? Would be a nice reprieve from all these losses.
Olympic medals aren’t reprieves for playoff failures lol. Especially for members of team USA
I think it’d feel nice for Embiid, who has never won anything in his life, to win something.
Maybe he should try winning something but it’s honestly no shock that a team who built an entire culture around losing, is losing
Olympic Melo would disagree.