Speaker 1: Let's talk about this Celtics sixers. Series sixers were a
Speaker 1: cute story. They were, They really were. They made it
Speaker 1: seven games. It really was never in doubt. They had
Speaker 1: the potential to send the Boston Celtics home in six
Speaker 1: They had four minutes where all of a sudden they
Speaker 1: allowed Jason Tatum to go nuclear and it pretty much
Speaker 1: was a rap ever since. Right, Like even the most
Speaker 1: diehard Philly fan, if you're honest with yourself, if you're
Speaker 1: a dieard Philly fan, you're probably not even listening because
Speaker 1: you probably hate my guts. But were you confident heading
Speaker 1: into game seven? Like, were you were you even like
Speaker 1: having a modicum of you know, excitement about going in
Speaker 1: to TD Garden on that parquet floor and thinking you
Speaker 1: were gonna beat Jason Tatum who had just come alive
Speaker 1: and found his mote again like he was Angela Bassett
Speaker 1: and Stella got her groove back, like no, if you
Speaker 1: say yes, you're a liar, you are. History of course
Speaker 1: was against you. Uh, Doc Rivers record in game seven's
Speaker 1: they speak for themselves. I don't think he's won. I
Speaker 1: don't think he's won a Game seven in his career
Speaker 1: as a head coach, which is crazy. Momentum was against you. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know what else? The universe seemed to be against
Speaker 1: you because you had not one, but two superstars, both
Speaker 1: together have had well documented playoff struggles. Maybe not put
Speaker 1: those two guys together right, like, maybe you want to
Speaker 1: balance it out. How could you possibly have thought that
Speaker 1: this was gonna go any other way than the way
Speaker 1: that it did. Insanity? What do they say? Insanity is
Speaker 1: doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result.
Speaker 1: It is Doc Rivers coughing up Lee in the playoffs.
Speaker 1: It is James Harden underperforming in the playoffs. It is
Speaker 1: Joelle Embiid being injured over and over in the playoffs.
Speaker 1: Wash rintse try repeat, wash rents dry. That's them, that's them.
Speaker 1: We keep trying to say, oh, maybe twenty twenty three
Speaker 1: will be different, Maybe twenty twenty four will be different,
Speaker 1: maybe twenty twenty five will be different. At a certain point,
Speaker 1: we just got to accept reality. Move on. This version
Speaker 1: of the Sixers is not working. And you know what's
Speaker 1: wild is that the Sacramento Kings, a team that's been
Speaker 1: regarded as a poverty franchise for many years now, a
Speaker 1: team that has been you know shit on by the
Speaker 1: national media. A team that really has just been like
Speaker 1: the laughing stock of the league until this year. They
Speaker 1: have been to the conference finals more recently than the
Speaker 1: Philadelphia seventy six ers. I don't mean that it is
Speaker 1: sad in a trolling way. I mean it, and it
Speaker 1: is a very sad thing that a got I like
Speaker 1: Joel Embiid has not been to anywhere close to the
Speaker 1: place that the Sacramento Kings have been in. And that's
Speaker 1: saying something like, I don't know how this team stays
Speaker 1: together honestly moving forward. The process. I've said it once,
Speaker 1: I've said it twice, I've said it three times. The
Speaker 1: process is dead. The process has been dead. We're trying
Speaker 1: to put it back together like operation, and it's just
Speaker 1: not working. We're trying to revive it with those two
Speaker 1: little paddles with the electrical current on them. It's no,
Speaker 1: it's dead. It's dead. Fifty one points by Tatum and
Speaker 1: the Game seven route a destruction, an embarrassment, or, as
Speaker 1: Embiid and Jannis both like to say, steps to success.
Speaker 1: How bad is it? How bad is it right now?
Speaker 1: It is so bad that you have Ben Simmons on
Speaker 1: his Instagram from his living room with a glass of
Speaker 1: red wine, taking a photo of the Sixers getting blown
Speaker 1: out by the Celtics by thirty and just posting it
Speaker 1: no context, just like yeah, like they are just enjoying it,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? He red wine, a beautiful
Speaker 1: living room and a photo of the TV of the
Speaker 1: Sixers getting destroyed in a game seven. Yeah, that's how
Speaker 1: bad it is. He is loving that, And that is
Speaker 1: the sad truth that Philly fans woke up to today.
Speaker 1: No more excuses. You don't have any other scapegoat left,
Speaker 1: Not even Ben Simmons can wash away the stink of
Speaker 1: this epic failure of a team. It is their third
Speaker 1: straight loss in the conference. Semis you ad Joe l
Speaker 1: Mbid the MVP. It is the year for him to
Speaker 1: show out the stats in this series. Twenty two points,
Speaker 1: nine rebounds and two assists. That's disgusting. That is garbage
Speaker 1: efficiency numbers also terrible, forty two percent from the floor.
Speaker 1: He shot twenty percent from three getting absolutely locked up
Speaker 1: by a man who has his AARP card in Al Horford.
Speaker 1: Al Horford on Joel Embiid. Remember when PJ. Tucker said
Speaker 1: no one on the planet can stop joelmb when he's aggressive.
Speaker 1: Turns out, forty year old Al Horford can stop Joel Embiid.
Speaker 1: Harden roller coaster ride had a couple of insane vintage performances,
Speaker 1: which we've already talked about. But overall during the series,
Speaker 1: he's averaged twenty two points per game, forty two percent
Speaker 1: from the floor and thirty four percent from three And
Speaker 1: if you want to talk about comparisons to Ben Simmons,
Speaker 1: in the last three games of this series, Harden had
Speaker 1: no points in the fourth quarter in all of those
Speaker 1: three games combined, none, zero, zilch. He went zero for
Speaker 1: six in the fourth quarter of games seven, six, and five.
Speaker 1: In fact, Ben Simmons had more points than James Harden
Speaker 1: in fourth quarter in that Hawk series where he basically
Speaker 1: ended his career right then and there, five points, all
Speaker 1: free throes. And so now where are we at. The
Speaker 1: rumors are that James Harden is itching to get back
Speaker 1: to Houston. He has a house there, he's there, and
Speaker 1: every off day he's got a restaurant there, beautiful, very luscious.
Speaker 1: In one of those Fois Gras wrapped steak lobster deals,
Speaker 1: you know, that kind of a deal. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of strip clubs there. I'm sure he loves he loves Houston.
Speaker 1: Now im Udoka is there? Another rumor is also floating
Speaker 1: around that Harden may be going to Phoenix, you know
Speaker 1: where the rumors are not that he's coming back to Philadelphia, Like,
Speaker 1: I don't hear any rumors of Harden excited to return
Speaker 1: back with Darryl Morey and Doc Rivers. Harden was asked
Speaker 1: after the game and a scrum, Hey, what's your relationship
Speaker 1: like with Doc? And what did Harden say? Did he
Speaker 1: reap like praise? Oh, I love Doc. We've got a
Speaker 1: strong relationship. So good? He said, Uh, it's okay and
Speaker 1: just left it at that. Does that inspire confidence? Is
Speaker 1: that a ringing endorsement for Doc? No? What did Doc
Speaker 1: say about James? He said, I think overall he enjoyed
Speaker 1: being here. When you got to add an overall to it,
Speaker 1: that means there were some places he did not enjoy it.
Speaker 1: He said. You know, it's tough for him. We asked
Speaker 1: him to play a little different than he's always been
Speaker 1: accustomed to. I think it made us a better team.
Speaker 1: But unfortunately, I thought for James at times it wasn't
Speaker 1: always best for him, but he still did it. And
Speaker 1: you know, we appreciate that as a coach. You know
Speaker 1: who didn't appreciate it probably James Harden. He probably didn't
Speaker 1: appreciate it at all. Back to what I said before,
Speaker 1: no excuses. You don't lose because hard and went to
Speaker 1: Brickville in the fourth quarter. You didn't lose because Embiid
Speaker 1: settled for mid range jumpers instead of attacking the rim.
Speaker 1: You didn't lose because Embiid was hurt for yet another
Speaker 1: playoff series. The Sixers didn't lose because Doc Rivers continued
Speaker 1: to freeze in a big moment. The Sixers lost because
Speaker 1: of all these things combined. There's not one person or
Speaker 1: one thing to point the finger at. They lost because
Speaker 1: this team was never as good as anyone thought that
Speaker 1: they were. And that goes all away from Darryl Moury
Speaker 1: down to Doc Rivers, to players like Embiid to Harden,
Speaker 1: to role players who are overpaid like Tobias Harris and
Speaker 1: George Yang and Tyrese Maxey and PJ. Tucker and all
Speaker 1: of them, and everyone all of them. The question is
Speaker 1: not how to tweak this roster and fix it. The
Speaker 1: structure is broken. I think we now know major changes
Speaker 1: need to happen in order for them to figure out
Speaker 1: a path forward over and above where they've continuously been
Speaker 1: and hit their ceiling on the glass ceiling is obviously there.
Speaker 1: They can't get to the com Diference finals, So how
Speaker 1: do you do that? Who do you keep? How do
Speaker 1: you build a team around them? Because ten years in
Speaker 1: the process has told you that this team is no
Speaker 1: better than a second round exit. So that's if you
Speaker 1: aspire to more need to change it. You've got to
Speaker 1: make radical changes that this franchise has avoided for a decade.
Speaker 1: What does that mean if you're honest, If you're honest,
Speaker 1: who's the major trade piece that you have and you
Speaker 1: can get a lot for Well, you know, Harden's a
Speaker 1: free agent, so it's not him. Tobias Harris is overpaid,
Speaker 1: so it's not him. Tyree Maxi's very young and very cheap,
Speaker 1: so you could probably get something back for him. But
Speaker 1: if we're really honest, the only real trade chip that
Speaker 1: this team has is Joel Embiid. That is a tough
Speaker 1: pill to swallow. And do you trust Joel Embiid to
Speaker 1: be healthy enough to build a winning team around him?
Speaker 1: The answer is maybe not. He's one of the best
Speaker 1: players in the NBA. But if you look at his numbers,
Speaker 1: he's missed on average twenty three regular season games per
Speaker 1: year during his career. That is not counting the full
Speaker 1: two seasons that he missed with his foot injury. When
Speaker 1: you miss thirty percent of the regular season every year,
Speaker 1: like just you can just like book that you can
Speaker 1: just just pen it in not even pencil, you can
Speaker 1: just pen that in. Uh. And that's not even the
Speaker 1: full story. Like when Joel Embiid's not missing thirty percent
Speaker 1: of a regular season, he's also nursing injuries from missing
Speaker 1: multiple games in the regular season. So, given that he's
Speaker 1: almost thirty, he's had numerous health issues, is there a
Speaker 1: greater or lesser chance that he's gonna miss more or
Speaker 1: less time in the future. Probably more. And then second,
Speaker 1: given the health concerns, do you think you can build
Speaker 1: a championship team around him? The answer is probably know.
Speaker 1: If you can't answer yes to both of those or
Speaker 1: either of those, then the sad and painful truth is
Speaker 1: you probably have to move on from Joel Embiid. I
Speaker 1: love MPI, I think he's one of the most dominant
Speaker 1: players in the NBA. I think he could be a
Speaker 1: really great pairing for another player like I don't know
Speaker 1: Damian Lillard. That's just me, very unbiased fans take but
Speaker 1: in what postseason has Joel and beat ever been healthy?
Speaker 1: Can you recall one? I'll answer for you. Never, literally never.
Speaker 1: When he got drafted multiple years he missed. Remember just
Speaker 1: like total seasons twenty eighteen, his first playoffs, fractured orbital bone,
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, playoffs, knee injury, twenty twenty, ankle injury twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one, torn meniscus, this is all playoffs twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: as you remember, fractured horrible bone this year twenty twenty
Speaker 1: three playoffs, sprained LCL. That is literally insane. So if
Speaker 1: he's your all NBA guy and you can't rely on him,
Speaker 1: is he the star of a championship team or is
Speaker 1: he a really really really really really good role player
Speaker 1: who can drop forty at any time. Now, with the
Speaker 1: rumors that James Harden is on his way to Houston,
Speaker 1: Doc Rivers might have coached his last game in Philly.
Speaker 1: This team is at a crossroads. It will be very
Speaker 1: fascinating to see which correction they go next