Right I mean the fact that we're talking about two 30 year olds (who in Bellineli's case was getting picked apart in the playoffs with his defense) that signed for less than the MLE shows the limitations of that roster at the time. They did need to upgrade the core of the team to become a contender, they just didn't do it correctly (or arguably they did it last year by the end but it wasn't sustainable for a variety of reasons).

Grotewold wrote:For the Xs and Os mavens: I've heard a lot about Ilyasova being a good fit offensively with Embiid and to a lesser extent Simmons. Why was that, and could Tobias pick up some/much of that?

Ersan was a pure catch and shoot guy and knew how to play without the ball. Tobi only shot 43.2 on open 2 pointers and 35.4 and open 3 pointers this year (per NBA.com). He's more of a scorer than a pure shooter and wants the ball in his hands.

Ideally everything would run through Tobi on the second unit and he could feast against undersized and/or slow footed bench lineups. Unfortunately because of our dumb roster construction that's difficult. Have to get Ben and Al minutes together. Joel and JRich. Get Ben some minutes at backup center with JRich running the show. Run things through Al for awhile. There's too many things to do.

Augustus wrote:Ideally everything would run through Tobi on the second unit and he could feast against undersized and/or slow footed bench lineups. Unfortunately because of our dumb roster construction that's difficult. Have to get Ben and Al minutes together. Joel and JRich. Get Ben some minutes at backup center with JRich running the show. Run things through Al for awhile. There's too many things to do.

Thanks. That gives me some hope for next year, assuming they can turn Horford and Richardson into a shooter/dribbler or two.

Augustus wrote:

Grotewold wrote:For the Xs and Os mavens: I've heard a lot about Ilyasova being a good fit offensively with Embiid and to a lesser extent Simmons. Why was that, and could Tobias pick up some/much of that?

Ersan was a pure catch and shoot guy and knew how to play without the ball. Tobi only shot 43.2 on open 2 pointers and 35.4 and open 3 pointers this year (per NBA.com). He's more of a scorer than a pure shooter and wants the ball in his hands.

Ideally everything would run through Tobi on the second unit and he could feast against undersized and/or slow footed bench lineups. Unfortunately because of our dumb roster construction that's difficult. Have to get Ben and Al minutes together. Joel and JRich. Get Ben some minutes at backup center with JRich running the show. Run things through Al for awhile. There's too many things to do.

Ersan was also just a role player that plays limited minutes and pick his spots whereas we expect Tobias to average 20+ a night.

Related to the Horford point, Harris Simmons and Embiid without Horford on the court were the equivalent of a 91st percentile offense this year, they were a 96th percentile last year. He's not a terrible fit with those two, contract aside.

The issue with Tobias is that he went from 40% 3pt shooter in 2017 and 2018 to like 35% with the sixers.

Perhaps 2017 and 2018 were flukes for Tobias. But we thought we were getting an above average 3pt shooter.

seems like a Brett problem

jamiethekiller wrote:seems like a Brett problem

I don't know. I don't think Brown is getting all that he could from him, but Harris does get a lot of open looks and opportunities to finish at the rim

I’ll say this - Tobias shot 3s at a Redick level before coming here.

From an eye test perspective, I never had the same comfort with Tobias as i did when Redick would spot up an open 3 ball.

Maybe it’s Brett but we thought we were getting another redick.

We hesitated on on Marco and Illy because we were holding open the cap space in the vain hope that LeBron would come to Philly. That team with those two guys, Dario, RoCo, TJ, etc., was my favorite team of The Process era. If they kept that squad together they may never have won a championship but they were really fun to watch.

JFLNYC wrote:We hesitated on on Marco and Illy because we were holding open the cap space in the vain hope that LeBron would come to Philly. That team with those two guys, Dario, RoCo, TJ, etc., was my favorite team of The Process era. If they kept that squad together they may never have won a championship but they were really fun to watch.

Yeah and also not wanting to do more than 1 year deals to keep their flexibility open for the following offseason.

Of course then they just traded for Butler and Harris anyway.

It also didn’t help that in the most important offseason of The Process we didn’t have a GM.

Didn't get any better when we got one and traded a huge haul for an expensive 4th banana.

The GM spot is a small symptom of a bigger problem.

jamiethekiller wrote:seems like a Brett problem

Brett is the problem for a lot of things but I agree with Spike that he's become the villain of every Marvel movie. Someone everyone roots against and blames when there are additional problems just like Tobi missing open shots.

Feels a lot like the Kapler stuff last year and how Girardi would immediately fix all the problems day 1.

Who cares how culpable or not culpable Brett is for every little failing, he’s done, talk a walk Brett thanks for your services please sign a release before exiting

joe table wrote:Who cares how culpable or not culpable Brett is for every little failing, he’s done, talk a walk Brett thanks for your services please sign a release before exiting

Yep. The shortcomings and mistakes of others don’t excuse Brett’s.

Marco and Ersan not being re-signed (based on the contracts they ended up getting) was a good move. It would’ve been nice if we successfully replaced them though.

Coming out of our first playoff stint, we needed a two way wing, a couple of shooters, a point guard to run the half-court offense, and a backup big. The only guy closer to the end of his career than the beginning was Redick (it’s not easy to replace an automatic three pointer, but he still had enough mileage to go and he’s not good enough to warrant moving up your timeline for him). We gave away Richaun (who grew into a decent NBA big) and TLC (who is looking like a two way wing), traded Shamet (who was a good shooter while he was here and may have ended up growing into the Redick role), gave up on/got nothing substantive for Fultz (who still isn’t great, but is looking like a decent third guard at least), traded the Bridges pick for a guy that has had a rough go of it so far. We also got good progression from Furk and Shake.

If we just didn’t do any of that and didn’t ship out anyone else our roster now would be:

Embiid / Holmes
Covington / Dario
Bridges / TLC / Thybulle
Redick / Shamet / Korkmaz
Simmons / Fultz / Shake

That team wouldn’t have nearly as much “star power” as our current roster, but it would be good and probably better than why we’ve got. Would’ve been nice if Ed Wade were in charge and stood pat everywhere.

the NBA is like poker... the sixers got a very good hand, one of the best at the table. no, it's not a royal flush but it's a full house with aces. am i going to break that up to go for a straight flush? hell no. you can win with this hand, if you know how to play. there's other coaches that know how to play and can almost bluff their way a round or two higher than the cards would say. brett don't know how to play.

without ben, they don't have a full house right now, but with even let's say two pair, you should have a competitive game and not be embarrassed like they have been.

joe table wrote:Who cares how culpable or not culpable Brett is for every little failing, he’s done, talk a walk Brett thanks for your services please sign a release before exiting

Because if we're blaming the coach for something he has little to no control over chances are the new coach is going to run into many of the same issues.

JFLNYC wrote:We hesitated on on Marco and Illy because we were holding open the cap space in the vain hope that LeBron would come to Philly. That team with those two guys, Dario, RoCo, TJ, etc., was my favorite team of The Process era. If they kept that squad together they may never have won a championship but they were really fun to watch.

100% agree!!

azrider wrote:the NBA is like poker... the sixers got a very good hand, one of the best at the table. no, it's not a royal flush but it's a full house with aces. am i going to break that up to go for a straight flush? hell no. you can win with this hand, if you know how to play. there's other coaches that know how to play and can almost bluff their way a round or two higher than the cards would say. brett don't know how to play.

without ben, they don't have a full house right now, but with even let's say two pair, you should have a competitive game and not be embarrassed like they have been.

We figured that if we hit that bullseye, the rest of the dominoes would fall like a house of cards, but instead we got checkmated.

Also, I forgot TJ in my breakdown of the “coulda been” roster.