Sixers Season Preview: 10 Questions With Rich Hofmann!

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We got a little bonus episode, because you know what? We're looking at that Sixers calendar, and we're like, we got to sneak in a little season preview here. Their season starts on Tuesday. And so of course, the great Rich Hofmann of the Broad Street Bulletin, he's like, double dip this week? Sure, why not? I like talking about sports. I got thoughts on the Sixers. So we've got him in here. We're going to do the old Kapadia 10. I've got 10 questions for Rich about the upcoming 76er season, which I am so excited about. Cliff is so excited about. And we're just going to get his take. And then at the end, gentlemen, we're going on the record with our predictions about how we think this is going to go. But Rich Broad Street Bulletin, I mean, you're just churning it out every day. I recommend it to people, you know, if you're regular, you know, it's a nice, just morning routine. If you know what I'm saying without getting too graphic. But I always give it the promo. You're the one writing it. Give the people the sell a little bit with this wonderful newsletter. Yeah. And so many of the Philly Special community are giving me the Philly Special pump, which I really appreciate. But guys, it's like, we have a Sixer season coming up that might be the only good thing we got for a little while right now. And it's been a crazy couple of weeks, honestly, with the content, because the Eagles, it's just during the week, they're just hitting you over the head with just like insane news after insane news after, you know, it's so crazy that the game ended the way it did, because it's kind of like uncle, like I don't even know, you know, we've got guys retiring. The quarterback now has a blood clot, which is terrible. But Sixer season is coming up. I would argue that that is even my specialty. And if you want, look, the thing is, I think sometimes we pump it up. If you just put your email into the nice box, on the home page of broadstreetbulletin.com, that's broadstbulletin.com, you get signed up for the free tier. I have two tiers. You have the paid tier, which is everybody who gets it every day. And then there's the free tier, where if you sign up, you get it for seven days for free, and then one every two weeks. And if you want to stay in that tier, that's absolutely fine too. But there's no strings attached on that. Like if you just want to get anything that I send for free, sign up in that inbox. And look, we still got three months of an eagle season. Hopefully Tanner McKee tears it up this weekend, and we'll have something to write about for Monday. And then the Sixers start on Tuesday. There's always stuff going on. So sign up in that box for free at broadstbulletin.com. Rich, the only reason I know that the Flyers haven't won a game is because of the Broad Street Bulletin. I'm like, man, this is like it's sort of daily suspense for me. I scroll down, Flyers, I'm like, they lost again? They still, we're like, how deep are we into the season? They still haven't won a game. So I don't know, maybe that's on me, the Kapadia curse. I wore the, I bought the t-shirt during the playoffs last year. I wore the t-shirt, you know, I was a Jamie Drysdale head for a couple of weeks there. And since then, they haven't won a game. So I'll take responsibility there. But yes, go to broadstbulletin.com. Like Rich said, just throw your email in there and then decide which one to do. I would say he doesn't have to say, get the credit card out because it's the best deal in sports content. And I would say that even if it was just a Sixers newsletter and he didn't do anything else, it would still be a great deal and worth it to me. But he is a one man sports section. It's the best written content on Philadelphia sports in the city. So please give Rich the Philly Special bump. Okay, Rich, I lied. You know the Kapadia 10. 10 is going to be our prediction. So you can't pick the number 10. So you pick a number between one and nine. I didn't prep you for any of these, but I've been reading your preview stuff in the newsletter. You're ready at any point to talk about anything that has to do with the Sixers current or in the last like 20 years. So I'm not worried about you being unprepared. And by the way, you mentioned Jalen Hurts. We're not doing a Jalen Hurts episode on our socials, Instagram, Ringer's Philly Special, Sheil Kapadia, TikTok, Ringer's Philly Special, Sheil Kapadia, YouTube, Sheil Kapadia. I did a little video on what to make of that situation. So you can check that all out there. I don't know that there's a ton new to say about it. Rich and I will have that covered Sunday night when we do Eagles Panthers. I'm sure we'll get into it a little bit more there and maybe we'll have more information at that time. All right, Rich, one to nine. What do you got? Got to start with number three, right? Number three. You know, Allen Iverson was on Lou Williams podcast. I've got things in my algorithm and every clip is unbelievable. I'm like, I need to listen to this whole podcast. It really, he's telling great stories left and right. I will tell you this, if you see Allen Iverson in public, don't do the practice thing. He is, he's over that. He doesn't want anyone to come up with him and say, yeah, we talking about practice. No, if you see him, definitely don't do that. But yeah, he was telling all kinds of great stories about his connection to Philadelphia, his younger days, sobriety now for AI. So there was, I got to listen to that entire podcast. Cliff. I listened to like half of it this morning at the gym this morning. You know, AI Lew Will, man. Lew Will is an underrated, beloved Philly legend. I forgot how outside he was when he was in Sixers. He said that. He said, because everyone views him as being connected to AI. And so everybody loves him too. No, yeah, Lew Will was the man. I remember I seen him. I was a young boy though. I seen him at one time. Super cool dude. Lew Will, shout out to Lew Will, man. It was a little before my time being out in the city. It was sort of like 2008, 2010 era. And Lew Will obviously had a great career even long after that or whatever. But yeah, he definitely reps Philadelphia pretty hard. Yeah. And he was doing a good job hosting that podcast too. He was asking good questions at a good way about him. All right. So number three, okay. This is about kind of some of the narratives around the team, Rich. I was reading up on a lot of national stuff this morning in preparation for the pod. So I'm getting some of the narratives out there. So rank these three storylines based on how seriously you take them. Okay. Number one, there's only one ball. Look at the usage rates. This ain't going to work. Okay. That's storyline number one. Number two, Jalen Brown wants to be an Alpha. They signed LeBron. You think he's going to be happy for this? He's not going to be happy. Jalen Brown. That's number two. And number three, which you covered in the great Broad Street Bulletin, there's something fishy about LeBron's use of this fanatics helicopter and a Pablo Torre investigation could sink the Sixer season. Right, so those are three just kind of things out there in the universe about the 2026, 2027, 76ers. Rank them based on how seriously you take them. Do you want to start with most serious or least serious? Let's go, whatever you want to do. You decide. I didn't think of that one through, you know? Okay, I think the, let's go worst to first here. Least serious, there's only one ball. I think it's clear, right? That everybody's going to have to sacrifice, that is the key word of training camp. I've been joking, calling them the Ubuntu Sixers, if anybody knows what happened with Dock Rivers 2008, Boston Celtics. They're just going to have to play a different style. I think the two players of that starting five that you worry about a little bit, are Joelle and Jalen Brown in particular. We'll get to him in a second. That said, it's going to be clunky at times. Maybe this shooting, there's going to be nights where Jalen Brown is passing up a few threes, which you don't want because he's playing a different style. He doesn't have the ball in his hands. They're going to be a good offense. They're going to be a top seven, eight offense. There might be a question with that specific thing, so you don't get too far in your projection. But they're going to be better than that. There's too much talent here. They're going to figure it out. They have guys like Anthony Simons off the bench, where if you throw him in the game, he's just going to make threes and you're going to have to guard him. They're going to figure that part out. So that would be the one that I am least worried about. Not to say that there isn't some element of it at play. I just think there's too much talent here. They're going to be a good offense. I would say number two, not because I think that the Sixers are going to get in trouble for it, just the acknowledging the degree of the circus that we are in store for this season would be the helicopter story because I wrote about this yesterday. Look, I kind of get it like why people are saying, oh, like that's suspicious. Like, wow, he's using Michael Rubin's helicopter. Michael Rubin, former minority owner of the Sixers, really rich guy, still a huge Sixers fan. But there's like a bunch of differences between that and Kawhi, for instance. Like, number one, that contract was signed in 2024. Like, LeBron didn't think he was going to be a Sixer in 2024. His fanatics contract. Yeah, that's what I mean. Not the Sixers contract, the endorsement deal. I also think LeBron James, one of the most famous athletes on the planet, working for a trading card company and being an endorser for a trading card company makes a little more sense than a guy who doesn't really like to talk or do ads, working for some random tree planning company as well. And we're also talking about, yes, free rides for this whole season, I guess, as part of his contract. We're talking about maybe like a million dollars. Like overall, it's not $30 million like Kawhi. So he can investigate, LeBron, just keep doing commercials for fanatics, it'll be okay. But like, look, I do think that sort of underscores, yeah, it's gonna be a circus. Like we've already seen it with the Mike Breen throwaway comment that completely blew up, which I couldn't believe how much it blew up. So we're in for that type of season. When you sign LeBron James, you sort of sign up for that. And LeBron acknowledged that at Media Day. Like he's like, look, man, the volume is gonna be turned up on a bunch of different things. And some of it, I can't help. Like it's just the way things are around me, media attention is gonna be ratcheted up a bit. So that would be number two, I would say. Like we're in for a little bit of a circus. Okay. And then the last one was Jalen Brown wanting to be the Alpha. He came to Philadelphia not knowing they were gonna sign LeBron James. They signed LeBron James. He was asked about it at one of his press conferences from I think a national reporter, not a local reporter. And he didn't care for that question. I think he said next question or whatever. He's not gonna be happy though, you know, kind of being in the role that he's gonna be in for this version of the Sixers. Yeah, I think differentiating between Alpha, which I think is how Jalen Brown didn't like that question, like, which is fair, right? Like, I think that's just a, I don't know, it's just like a charge term. It would just be annoying. If you asked him, like, hey, like, are you gonna have to play differently than you played in Boston last year where you were the guy and your usage and the amount of plays you had called for you is just gonna be totally different than in Philadelphia? Yeah, I think that is a legitimate question, particularly for him. Like, you saw in the first game against the Nets, the Sixers ran, this was the best play of the preseason so far where LeBron MB'd pick and roll, double LeBron, nice little slip pass to Joelle. He's playing four on three, Joelle wraps it around the final defender, and Jalen Brown is standing in the Ben Simmons dunker spot on that play, and he flushes it because he's good and he could do that. But Jalen Brown got MVP votes last year, so putting him in the dunker spot could be considered a sign of disrespect, even if it's an important floor spacing spot, it really is. To his credit, Jalen Brown after the game is like, no, man, I've done that before. Like, I'm willing to do that. But I just think it'll be a little bit, it might be a little bit awkward just figuring out how much Jalen Brown gets the ball and just how differently he's going to have to play from Boston a season ago. I think he's going to figure it out, by the way, and I think he's, I'm not going to, I'm sure there's another question about this, but I think he's going to score a lot of points for the Sixers this year. But that could be a little bit of a figuring out process for sure. Okay, I think those, I think, I think you ranked them how I would rank them. The usage rate thing, I mean, when people even mention Vijay, with that, I'm just like, did you watch Vijay last year? Like the power of Edgecombs is that he feels like he could kind of fit into any type of team that you would want to have, and he plays unselfishly and that he does all the little things. If anything, I'm a little worried about Maxey deferring too much. That is kind of one concern that I have, especially at the end of games. We've seen that a little bit in the past when Embiid comes back from injury, and now it's the fourth quarter, and it's like, wait, why isn't Maxey taking over this game? He's the guy I want to have the ball. So that's one, I think you're right to have that in the last spot there. The helicopters thing I don't want to talk about. I don't know what's going on there. I don't know who's investigating what, but hopefully there's nothing going on there. And then you mentioned it. The Jalen Brown thing, I'm sure there are personality things that yes, I am concerned with. Where if we're talking about what's the worst case scenario for this team, and how do we get there, there's probably going to be some of that stuff. But now that those narratives are already out there, and he's been painted with this brush about his time in Boston and all that, I feel like he seems like he would have the personality where I'm not going to feed into that, and I'm going to prove to people that's not who I am. At least that's what I'm hoping for Jalen Brown here. All right, that was a lengthy one. Yeah, that's a long one. Seems like he developed a nice relationship with Edgecombe already too. They're already doing the Twitch streams together. Did you see that? I did. I'm not going to watch it because I don't got time for that. But good to see. I like it. I'm a pro Twitch streamer right now. Maybe not all of the Twitch streams that are out there, but that one, sure. Yeah. All right. All right, that was number three. What do you got? What's next? Let's go. I'm trying to think Sixers, Sixers, Sixers. Number six. The good doctor. Okay. Which bench player Rich is likely to become a fan favorite? Where everybody's just like, oh, we love when this guy comes in the game, whether it's the energy, the shooting, maybe there's conversations, he's got to play more. Look at the minutes he's giving them. Who is the bench player? Cause I do think they've got a few guys that are kind of in the running for this, who is most likely to become a fan favorite. Fan favorite. I think being a fan favorite, you have to do, and I don't even mean this in a bad way, you have to do noticeable things. You have to do flashy things. Their best sub, if everybody is healthy, is going to be Dean Wade. Dean Wade is a good player, but the reason he's a good player is he helps you do the stuff that nobody else wants to do. Like nobody else wants, and he doesn't do it in a cool way either too. He just guards the other team's best player one on one. He'll make a couple threes a game, gets out of the way, quick ball movement. Good player, but I don't think he's going to be a fan favorite. So he's a little more hipster-y, it sounds like. Where like you'll come on with us after 20 games. I'll be like, Rich, are we sure this Dean Wade guy's here? I'll be like, no, Sheil, he did that X, Y, and Z, and he's actually a good contributing player. I'll be like, all right, fine. Okay. That type of thing. Okay. That makes sense. I think it's got to be Anthony Simons off the bench is going to be the guy. Because his shooting, it just jumps out at you. For a team that needs that shooting, that was a really key signing this year. I mean, the volume on Anthony Simons is crazy. He shoots basically like 10 threes per 36 minutes. That's hard to do to get that many threes up, and to shoot it at a high thirties clip. That is a legit elite, elite, elite skill, and he could do it off the bounce too. It's not just that you have him playing off LeBron, or off Embiid and Maxey. No, he can run a pick and roll, and if you go under that screen, that dude is pulling from deep. He's been a little bit banged up in the preseason. I don't think we're going to see him at all even in the game. We're recording on Friday afternoon in the game later tonight. But I think he's going to be good. Now, the question for him moving forward is that he looms as the team's only tradeable salary, which is just the way this is structured. But I think most teams, like in Boston, this was the same case last year. The fans really enjoyed Anfri Simons and his three-point bombing. And I think Sixers fans are going to do the same. His average between what, seven and nine, three-point attempts for like the last five years and shooting 38% from three for his career. So I think that's a good one. Yeah, that I saw you writing about that too, already looking ahead at that. Like, hey, if they need to make a move, who are the chips that they can potentially move? And he could be one of them. It felt like Celtics fans were not happy that they moved him last year. Anthony Simons, but I think that's a fun one to keep an eye on. Maybe a little under the radar-ish signing, it felt like from people who had had them on their team before. I think, yeah, getting him for six million because it was a scenario where they had the full non-tax payer mid-level exception. And so once they use that though, then they're hard capped, but they use a good bit of it on Dean Wade, like probably 60, 70 percent. So the fact that they were able to get a player as good as Simons with the rest of it, I thought was really good business. Because I think he's a better player than that personally. All right. What do we got? What's next? Let's go with number, let me do three, six. Let's do nine next. Nine, okay. We moved on. Okay. So I actually clicked on this link because I saw it in your newsletter. John Schumann of nba.com did an annual GM survey. And so I'm gonna read off a bunch of the things that were Sixers related in that. But I wanna know from you, what did you think was the most interesting Sixers related nugget in that piece? So I guess this is a piece, I think he said he's done it for 25 years. I guess he just pulls a bunch of GMs and a bunch of different topics before the season. And so here are some of the things that are in there. Now, one was just about how the Sixers are gonna perform this season. 23% of the participants picked the Sixers to finish first in the East. That was second to only the New York Knicks. Their no other team was above 7%. So among the GMs, he doesn't say how many GMs he pulls. Right Rich, do you know the background of this baby or no? I don't know the background. He does it every year and us basketball scribes use it as hashtag content for every year. I think he pulls all of them though. I think it's kind of mandatory. Now part of me wonders though, you know how in college football they have like the coaches poll and the coach just like gives it to like his like fourth assistant and fill this thing out or whatever. Are they actually taking it serious? I don't know but I actually, if I had to guess, somebody in a front office, he's getting 30 of those things. Okay. All right. So it's a works for nba.com. So yeah, it's not like, and he's been around. I'm sure he knows a lot of it's a lot of these people. He's not just some random person showing up. Okay. So 70% of the GMs had the Sixers as a top four seed. So I thought that was interesting. This one was interesting. It said, who's the best small forward in the NBA? And one GM had Jalen Brown and Rich, I was thinking you should have traded for him. Whoever that, unless the GM is Mike Gantzi. It's like literally this guy was on the market for not that much. If you thought he was the best small forward of the NBA, I know there's other restrictions there, but I had a laugh at that one that someone had him number one. They ranked all the off seasons and 73% of the GMs had the Sixers as the best off season of any team. No other team was above 10%. 73% of the entire NBA, these GMs said Sixers. So Mike Gansy, when you're at these league meetings, walk around with your head held up high. These peers are like, man, that guy cooked last off season. So that was one that had my attention. There was a question, which off season edition will have the biggest impact? Yannis was first at 53%. Jalen Brown was second at 20%. And LeBron was third at 13%. So that was another one that had my attention. Two more that had my attention. One was, which team is toughest to predict? And the Sixers finished first in that one at 27%. I think they had like, they were first last year too, I believe. But it was like 47%. And then this one got me a little excited. We talked about the bench already. Which rookie was the draft's biggest steal? LeBron Phylon ranked third on this list. So again, I thought, GMs, like you could have drafted LeBron Phylon. You know, if you thought he was that good, why are you letting him slip and letting the Sixers draft him? But those were a bunch of the nuggets that I found interesting in this survey. Again, John Schuman of nba.com, annual GM survey. What did you find most interesting in there, Rich? Two of them, and I'll go with number two first. Just quickly, the Phylon thing that you said at the end. He's going to be an important player because I talked about the Simons being eligible to get traded thing. Part of that depends on how Cantavious Caldwell Pope and LeBron Phylon play. Like if they are good enough to be third and fourth backup guards, then maybe you can trade Anthony Simons for say, a backup center. I'm sure we'll get to that in a little bit. But the most interesting thing, even though they all said that the team is going to be tough to predict, is the most obvious thing. The fact that they got the second most votes is crazy to me. Because this isn't a bunch of podcasters like us, Sheil. This is your MBA front office people who are clearly very skeptical about a bunch of things. They have all the numbers. There's been a bunch of analytics people that have said, the Celtics are going to be really good this year. I've heard the Raptors, people are very high on that Kawhi fit up there. For the Sixers to come in second place, I think is really, really good. It surprised me a little bit, especially because you would think that these GMs would be a little contrarian almost. They'd say, you know what, everybody's going to be talking about the Sixers. I don't think these guys are going to be that good. But maybe a couple of them are like that, but not the majority for sure. Yeah, yeah, the divide there between them being 23% and no one else other than the Knicks being above 7%. That was surprising. I thought there would be maybe three or four teams, like you said, in that mix after the Knicks that they would say, all right, the Sixers are getting all this hype. They're getting all this pub, you know, they're getting all these attention. Every reporter is moving to Philadelphia now to cover the team. You know, let's pump the brakes a little bit. There's a lot of concerns with this team. And that wasn't the case based on this survey. They were kind of like, no, I, you know, if I had to pick, I think they're probably going to be pretty good. Even though they said they're the toughest to predict, when you actually have to predict who's going to win the East, you know, 23% of them, almost a quarter of the GMs polled, said they were going to, again, win the East. And then even when you talk about the floor, 70% said top four seed there for the Sixers. So that caught my attention. All right, let's take a break. We come back, bunch more questions to get to here with Rich Hofmann. All right, we're back here on The Ringer's Philly Special. We're through a few of these, Rich. We're through three, six and nine. What do you got? What's next? Let's do number five. Number five. Five will always love you. All right. Give me, this one's right down your alley, the X's and O's NBA ball nowhere nerd thing that you're most concerned about with this team. Like, hmm, yeah, I'm not sure how this is going to go. Sheil, don't break this out for a social clip because it might not do numbers. But the hardcore Sixers, you know, the hardcore Sixers fans who are tuned into this podcast and want to go in depth here. Here's one thing I'm concerned about. Yeah, embracing my inner calculator boy here. You know, the cool thing about the recent trends in the NBA is that the intricate stuff is actually kind of simple. And the big thing, there's two big things that have happened over, I'd say, the last four or five years. The first thing is that the defense has gone full court to an alarming degree. Like teams are trying to make it hard to get the ball across half court. They're trying to just gain a couple of seconds, taking teams out of their offensive sets. And you have all of these guards, like the Indiana Pacers did it the best, with like Aliburton and Nemhard, TJ McConnell just pressuring you full court. We're not even really trying to take the ball from you, but we're trying to make this a much more physically grueling, mentally taxing sort of game. And for the Sixers, they're not that worried about that. They have LeBron James, they have Jalen Brown, they have Tyrus Maxey, VJ Edgecomb. They got a lot of guys that can get the ball up the court. In past years, when Maxey was out of the game, yeah, it was a little bit hard. Like it was, you know, with teams, you know, getting up and playing full court events. The second thing, which I am terrified about, and I think is the biggest worry for your Philadelphia 76ers this year, is that teams are crashing the glass like crazy. It's just, when a shot goes up, possession is not even close to over. And 15 years ago, it was completely different. It was get back on defense. We'll take one shot. We don't want to give up any transition points. The whole league is like, nope, we are crashing the glass. And unfortunately, we have learned this the hard way in Philadelphia over these last, let's say, three uneven years, because the Sixers have been terrible at defensive rebounding. And it's, you know, if you're a fan of the team and you're actually like really paying attention, it's kind of hard to watch at times, right? Because you're you're getting the times that you're getting stops. The other team has three guys at the glass and they're playing volleyball on the rim. And they're it's just it's tough. Like it's a helpless feeling when when they're able to just get second shot after second shot. So that's I think they were like 26 or 27th in rebounding last year. And so they bring in LeBron. OK, like obviously we know he can rebound when when he wants to. But, you know, you do want him to save his energy a little bit. Jalen Brown, like OK, Dean Wade should help. But also you lost Ariel Huckport to your backup center. It's really going to come down to Joel Embiid, who does look like he is moving a little bit better this year. So that that is the big worry. Now, I will caveat that with one thing. And I hope the Sixers lean into this, even if they are not a great defensive rebounding team. The downside to crashing the glass if you are an opponent is that you don't have numbers back in transition. So maybe the Sixers give up a lot of defensive rebounds, but they got to punish you when you do get the rebound basically. And they had, I think, there is a stat last year in transition points, total transition points, top five players, LeBron, Jalen Brown, Tyrese Maxey, and VJ Edgecombe wasn't in the top five, we know that dude can fly and is a good player. They got to run, man. Like if you get the rebound and the other team is sending two, three guys to the glass, guess what? Push that ball and make them pay for it against a not set defense. So that's my big worry. I think they're not going to be a very good defensive rebounding team. Can they get the average? That would be great, frankly, but that's sort of where I'm at there. All right, so you're right about, I think anyone who's watched the team, there have been games, playoff games, key moments where you're just like, oh my God, they are getting killed on the boards here. And this is literally a reason why they're losing this game. The backup center thing, how seriously do I need, as a fan, how seriously do I need to take this? How concerned do I need to be? How hard is it to find somebody who can end up being your backup center for half the season before the trade deadline? Because this is the thing that is, like you said, with the Huckporty injury, specifically, this is the thing that it feels like a lot of people are starting to point to. Yeah. I mean, what a Sixers move there, where the new guy that you signed, who apparently was playing really well in training camp, and everybody was excited about just a minimum of signing. I mean, there's Achilles in the first freaking game, man. It's just, and here we are again. I've been doing this for a decade now. The Sixers backup center is a problem. It's just a tail as old as time. For this team, you look at their options. I think Dambona, whenever he comes back, is going to get the first shot, and he's a weird player in that he does do some positive things. His ability to move his feet and cause havoc on defense is legit. You might be able to even switch. I wish they would switch more with him too. The other team wants to go one-on-one against the Dambona. Yeah, he might jump and commit a crazy foul, but if he stays somewhat disciplined, he can stay in front of wings and those types of players. But he's such a bad defensive rebounder for a center man. He does trouble catching the ball. He doesn't really even box out. So I think he's going to get the first crack, but he doesn't really fix that major issue that they have. And then they have a bunch of small ball options. I think Jabari Walker is probably the most interesting of those options right now because he actually can rebound. He's not much of a rim protector. But if he can rebound, the big thing with him is, can you play five out on the other end? Can he make his threes? He was in Portland the year before. He was close to a 40 percent guy. And last year he was like low thirties and he was hesitant too. He was not shooting the ball very quickly. Now he still was like a very good two-way signing by Darrell Morey that converted him to a standard NBA contract. But there's a different threshold between getting converted to an NBA contract to can you be the Sixers backup center on a normal basis. Dom Barlow is another potential option. I like him a little more as a four personally because he's not like the rebounder. I think he could be a helpful player. He's also hurt right now too. That dude has weird injuries in October and November every single year. I think he's dealing with a back injury right now. And then you could actually go really small. You could play Dean Wade at the five. I think the Sixers playing small ball over the past few years has been like a disaster defensively. It's like silly hoops. It's fine. You might hit a couple of threes, but they're just giving a buckets on the other end just every single time. You need actual, the thing with the offensive rebounding surge in the NBA, you need real centers nowadays. You can't get away with fake centers if they can't rebound or protect the rim at all. Dean Wade would not be that, but could you go with a taller line up? Could you play Dean Wade, Jalen Brown and LeBron at the same time? Maybe you'd be able to make up for the lack of size at the five with the size of the three through five and maybe get a little bit better. I don't know, but I think this is going to be something to really look at. Nick Nurse is going to have to be very creative. I wouldn't be surprised if there aren't some ups and downs at the beginning of the year. No, you can't really sign a very good player. They're not able to sign anybody to a standard NBA contract until December because of how much they are up against the hard cap because of the stupid second apron rules right now. I think the real question is, do you eventually trade somebody like Simons for a backup center at the deadline once you get into January and February? What a setup for dads across the Delaware Valley to be prepared to yell, you got a box out left and right to the right. It's going to be that tight. It's going to be that that type of season here. It feels like for the Sixers, you mentioned a Dembona as a defensive rebounder. I will maintain, it's October, a lot of scary, scary movies, people going to Linville or church, you're going to different haunted houses. A Dembona in transition, man, that is a scary sight. Now, we find it in the Kapadia household to be a funny, like we laugh anytime he's just like, all right, I got this, or they batting. Paul George, I swear, Paul George in transition, he was like, where's Bona? I got to find Bona on the wing. Every time, like, what are you doing, PG? Come on, man. And every time the ball, he's just, he's dribbling it out of bounds. It's hitting his knee, he's missing the shot. So yeah, Dembona in transition. Comedy, horror, however you want to describe it. Entertaining player, I don't know, how good of a player he is. He certainly is, you notice him when he's out there. I can say that for a Dembona. Some of the craziest blocks you will ever see at Dembona. Like, wow, like I can't believe he recovered to that one. The PG thing is pretty funny. I did a story about the 1983 Sixers and Julius Irving. I got to actually talk to the good doctor, which was cool for it. And I remember he told me on one of his dunks, Charles Barkley used a joke and be like, Maurice Cheeks would only throw the ball to Doc on the fast break. He wouldn't throw it to me. Said that he had a Doc eye is how Charles put it. PG had a Bona eye. A Bona eye, oh my God. We're getting a lot of use out of that this season. Amazing. All right, that was number five. What do you got? What's next? Let's do number two. Number two, we go up to Moses. All right, I teased it earlier. You can probably guess what the... There's going to be another question on this, but this question is, where will the Sixers defense rank at the end of the season? Now, we, you know, in today's day and age, we got these very simple offensive rating, defensive rating metrics that everybody uses across the NBA content machine, whether it's podcasts or written content. I can tell you they were 17th last year. And you know what? I won't tell you where I found one person who ranked some offenses and defenses. There's a little hole out there in the NBA coverage, if you ask me. That's open. That's a corner for someone to take. But I found one person who ranked them. They were 17th last year. Rich, if you had to project, hey, I'm going to guess this is where they're going to rank this year in defensive efficiency. Where would you have them? I think a little higher than 17th, I would say. This team's strength is going to be offense for sure. I did find it interesting that Nicky Nurse was feeling himself a little bit. I think in training camp where he was like, look, I haven't had my whole bag available to me, all the tricks that we were promised over the past few years. I know for Sixers fans, especially like last year, the help schemes and just when the Sixers gave up wide open threes, that was on Sixers Twitter, that was a big topic that people either argued about or maybe not even argued about, just complained and said Nurse was being a bozo with those things. I do think in general though, they finished 17th last year and they were completely injured last year for the most part. I forget where they were two years ago, the year where MB got hurt and started out great. I think they were probably in the teens. Then obviously, they were terrible the year in between where everybody got hurt, and it was this disastrous year. So yeah, this team's strength is going to be offense. The most important player for the defense is the newsflash, Joel Embiid, because center is that that's the position that could make the biggest impact on defense. Now, over the past, I would say, the post-Kaminga injury, the past two years, Joel's defense has fallen off by a lot. I would say that's where the big impact. When you say Joel Embiid is when he's healthy and when he's playing now, instead of being a top five player, he's a top 20, 25 player, something like that. Most of that drop-off to me is on defense. Like on offense, he's still pretty darn good, man. He was scoring like 30, 35 points in January and February for a long stretch last year. I've always said this about him. That dude, if he can just stay upright on offense, he's going to age fine. He's not getting any shorter and he's not getting any worse at shooting and skill. He's going to be absolutely fine with that. But when you get Jalen Brown and you get LeBron James, you need him for defense. That's the big thing that you need. I've been happy to see that he lost a lot of that weight. I think that might hurt him a little bit on offense because he's not quite as strong. He can't play bully ball quite as much, but it had to happen to help his knees and help the landing. Now, at this point, we've only seen him in one preseason game. Liked how he looked in that game. He also had eight turnovers, so I'm just going to not even index on that. Okay, that was weird. That's just a very odd performance from him, but that's big. I think to answer your question finally, Sheil, I think it's going to be 13th in defense, I'd say, like just slightly above average. If they get to that number, I think they're in business because I think the offense is going to be pretty good. Is the floor pretty low here though? You know, hearing you like kind of describe that, and I'm with you on Embiid, he has not been the same type of, you know, defensive player, and maybe that is to be expected. But when you kind of talk about that, when you talk about smaller guards, when I know you mentioned during the LeBron pod that like, all right, he'll pick his spots on what he might want to play defense in the regular season. Like there is a chance that this is a, and you mentioned the rebounding thing, which we already, you know, discussed, and your backup center is an exact, you know, he'll block some shots, but he's not going to dominate defensively. It feels like there's a scenario. Hopefully, it's not the one that we actually see. It's not the most likely outcome maybe, but there's a scenario where they kind of stink on defense. And that's maybe what we're talking about at some point after the first 20 games or whatever. Totally. And so their subs, Dean Wade is going to be, excuse me, Dean Wade is going to be a very helpful defensive player. Anthony Simon's fan favorite, he ain't helping you even a little bit on that end of the floor, which is fine. They signed him for six million dollars to score a bunch of points. I agree with you. Now, LeBron, in his, I think it was his media day press conference, he mentioned that, like, look, everybody talks about there's only one ball, but the fact that we do have to share a little bit on that end, and I think he would know about this. He's like, the fact that the offensive load will be less for pretty much everybody, he's like, that gives you more energy to get a defensive rebound, make an extra rotation. So that would be the positive way to swing it, right? Like, you're going to be, you're going to have more energy on that end of the court because you don't have to have a 36% usage rate on offense, right? And that's taxing. But yeah, the floor is low. I agree with you. And then I'm a little scared. I do, like, I know some Sixers fans will not like this. I do think Nurse is a better defensive coach than he has showed over the past few years. I think there's enough kind of older players. I think KCP could also be very helpful. I have no idea what to expect from him. He has not had a good last few years. But as recently as two years ago, that was a dude who you could put on pretty good guards. And he'd stand in the corner and make threes and play good defense. On the other end, that's another option for them that it could work out. Maybe he's cooked. I don't know. We'll see. But I think Nick Nurse can get them as long as they stay reasonably healthy. I understand them. Beats going to miss games. LeBron's going to miss games. Like that's going to be a part of it. If they are reasonably healthy, I can't. I have enough trust in Nick Nurse to make sure that the bottom is not going to completely fall out of this thing. The Nick Nurse comeback started, you know, in that series against the Celtics in the playoffs. Now, let's keep that arrow trending up, because before that, I was kind of just ripping him left and right. You know what? That was a lot of people. So let's now you get some better players here. Nick, show me a little something with the defensive scheming. I like LeBron's sell job there. I don't know that I 100% buy it, but they haven't played a game yet, so I'm going to buy it for now that they're going to be a little better. Seventeenth last year, the only person who's doing Sam Quinn of CBS Sports. Are you familiar with his work, Rich? Sam Quinn of CBS Sports? I was not familiar with his work. Okay. He had that. What did he say? Sixteenth. Okay. Good job, Sam Quinn. I wasn't familiar with your game, but I enjoyed your offense and defense. You're the only one doing it out there. Now, Google is a mess now. So maybe I Googled it and you're the only one who came up. But you know what? I thought you did a good job with your offensive and defensive rankings there, which I always like to do for NFL before the season. So I was happy that someone did it there. He said, did you give me a number, Rich? Thirteenth. Okay, that's right, thirteenth. Sam Quinn says sixteenth, seventeenth last year. That feels like a good outcome. You don't have to be great. Just be competent, a little bit better than average. All right. What do we got? It looks like we have one, we have four, we have seven and we have eight left here. Let's do seven. Seven, go down to seven. All right. There's a tricky one. You mentioned the big man. Yeah, looking skinny. I told you though, Rich, that Joel Embiid was good. This is a question I really wondered about this, because the way people talk about the Sixers, it's like, it's still, if Embiid's healthy, they're this. If he's not healthy, they're this. I have wondered if there can still be a pretty good team, even if Joel Embiid missed a significant time. So my question to you is, if I tell you Joel Embiid's gonna miss 40 games this season, what would you say the Sixers' record would be in those 40 games? Okay, so the background here, why'd I pick 40? It's just based on how many games he's played. I think the last season it was 39, I believe. I think he's played fewer than 40 in three straight seasons. I think last year without Joel Embiid, I want to say they were 21 and 23 without Joel Embiid. So I'm looking at the roster this year and thinking, all right, even if he doesn't play a lot of games, I still think they can be pretty good. But I don't know whether it's the right take or the wrong take. Well, so I think there are three things. Two of them are external factors working against them. One of them actually is internal. But two things working against them. Number one, there's not going to be as many bad teams this year in the NBA. The Sixers were incredibly banged up. I actually think 21 and 23 without Embiid. That was clearly Nick Nurse's best work without him. Because, I mean, he had some skeleton crews in those games and they were able to win with Jess Vijay for like a little. Right. Other players were missing too. That's a good point. That doesn't mean it's Embiid. And you had everyone else in those 40 plus games. I mean, Paul George barely played last year as well. Maxie had a pretty long absence. So but there were other tanking teams in the NBA and the Eastern Conference in particular. They're just like a lot of easy wins out there for you. That's not going to be the case this year, in part because the East got better, and in part because the tanking rules, which are good, in my opinion, they have disincentivized. Don't come in the last three. Like there's no benefit to just losing and being one of the worst teams in the league. So that would be the external factor working against them. The internal factor working against them is what we already talked about, is that Huck Porty is hurt. And when Embiid doesn't play, you need to get 48 minutes from a center instead of, I don't know, 18 minutes, you know, 16 minutes, whatever it is. It's a lot more manageable when it's that many. So we talked about that. And so over a full game, you really got to piece it together. It's sort of like Don Mattingly with, how do I get to 27 outs? It's like Nick Nurse, like, how do I get to 48 minutes with these centers that we have right now? The positive though, the reason why I think you can be a little bit bullish about their ability to survive without Embiid is that they have three guys that I think are going to play a lot of games this year. Hey, look, somebody could get hurt, but their track records say they're going to play a lot of games. And that would be Tyrese Maxey, Vijay Edgecombe and Jalen Brown. And I don't want to overindex too much on the preseason, but I did think it was interesting that in the game where all five guys were available, now, hey, maybe Jalen Brown plays well against the Celtics tonight. And this is completely like this is irrelevant at this point. But in the one game that we have seen so far, when they had all five guys, Jalen Brown's in the dunker spot, and he didn't play bad, he looked at his numbers at the end of the night, he wasn't bad, he was pretty good. But he wasn't as sharp as he looked in the game where none of LeBron, Maxey or Embiid played. And in that game, against the Knicks, again, it's a preseason game, I'm sure the Knicks just came off the set of Saturday Night Live. But he was cooking agno-nobi for a little bit, and it was just like, oh yeah, that is his skill. Like he can create good offense, you can just throw him the ball and he'll get you a decent shot. And he looked really good, like he made agno-nobi look slow a couple of times, which is hard to do because agno-nobi is as good as it gets as a perimeter defender. So those three guys, the idea of them pushing the pace and being able to play a different style, whether LeBron also doesn't play without Embiid, or if you have LeBron in that game, I think there's a scenario where those guys are able to scale up their games and form a decent team without Embiid. So the idea that they're going to be good without Embiid, I'm not sure I can get all the way there, but you said it, like 21 and 23 last year, could they be a little bit above 500 in those games this year? Could they be four or five games above 500, which would be a win? That's hard to do without one of your better players. I think there's a scenario where that's the case for sure. I wrote down the same three names. It was like Maxi, like we said, you can never predict injuries, but Maxi, Jalen Brown and Vijay Edgecombe. What we know is that they're going to be, now I know Edgecombe, it's only been one year, but they're going to be available and they're going to play hard. They're going to take these games seriously in the regular season. They're going to try to win. They're going to try to put their best foot forward. And LeBron, I mean, yes, he turns 42 in December. He's ever 67 games per season the last three years. I mean, that's incredible. I don't know if he's going to get to that number, but he plays a lot of basketball as well. So that's why I was looking at that going, all right. You know, I think they can definitely stay afloat here. The upgraded bench you mentioned, you know, can you have a random game where Anthony Simons is lighting it up or Dean Wade has to play a lot of minutes and he still keeps you afloat? I feel like you can. So I think that's something that we're probably going to have to deal with it at some point. You don't want to predict injuries or whatever, but Joel Embiid is 32 years old, has played fewer than 40 games in three straight seasons. What's the number where you're like, if you went down, let's put it this way. You go down to Camden, you go to the facility, you get Gansy, Nick Nurse, whoever else. I don't know if Bob Myers is around for that or not, but you say, we can negotiate a deal where you can sign up for this many games of Joel Embiid this season. Now, when you sign up for it, you're not getting more than this, but you're not getting less than this. And you could sign up for it right now. And I can guarantee that you're going to get this many games out of Joel Embiid. Cliff, I see you smiling. So think about it. I want your answer too. What number do you think they sign up for knowing all of the variables? This is just regular season. Obviously playoffs is a different story. 82 regular season games. What number do you think they would take the deal and say, We'll sign up for this number right now. No further questions asked. So part of me is going to be conservative on this because I want to avoid the disaster scenario where it gets really injured. So I will say somewhere around two-thirds of the games. So that's 57-ish. So I'm going to go a little lower. I'm going to go a little lower. I'm going to say 54 games. I would sign up for that. 54, Rich is signing up right now saying you missed, what's that, 28 games. You missed 28 games. That's fine. We'll sign up for that right now. Cliff, what do you think? I have 50. I think for a guy that hasn't played over 40 games in the last three seasons, if you get 50 in a season where you're expected to make major strides and win a title, that is a miracle. So I think if you told Mike Gansy, hey, this whole off season, you trade PG, you get Jalen Brown, you miraculously get your Ohio bro LeBron on the team, and Joellen B is expected to play X amount of games. He would have been 50. I think he's tied on the dotted line straight up. I think you're right. I think 50. Maybe they have a meeting, they discuss it for a few minutes. It's not a long meeting. Maybe they go take a little walk or whatever, and they sign up for 50. I think there's a possibility they would sign up for fewer than that. I think Rich said 54. I think that's a definite yes. I personally think 50 is a yes. I think once you get between 45 and 50, that's probably the sweet spot somewhere in there where they're like, how much time do we have, Genie? Can we get like 24 hours to really discuss this, get our analytics team on it and figure it out? Like it might be 47. It might be something like that. I don't think it's fewer than 45. In my head, I think it's somewhere between 45 and 50. So I think that type of number feels like it would be a win if you get Joel Embiid for that many games this season. I don't think it would be a disaster by any means. I do think, and again, I don't want to be the guy that's banking on Joel Embiid's health here. But I do think the signs are pretty good, at least health-wise. In that Nets game, guys, he had a play that in the middle of all those nonsense turnovers, where he went up to try and block a shot, guy pump fakes, he gets down on the ground, and then he goes right back up in the air to block the shot again. I have not seen that in years. So look, he's skinny. I think that will help with the knees. He is legitimately skinny. That will help with the knees. If you just listen to Nick Nurse, even after that nonsense eight turnover game, he was like, man, it was great to just see him out there, just playing hard, because I think Nick Nurse is, he's the guy who's seen how little he's practiced over these past three years, how unavailable he's been at the beginning of camp, and Nick Nurse has done nothing but rave about what Joel has given them so far. So that's why I'm probably turning it up a little bit. That's it. He's also just one weird thing from being injured again. The other thing too, I would say, is that after that next series, Joel did say, I feel pretty good with the knee. I know it didn't look like it out there. He's like, that was the weird appendectomy thing. That is something that I will get over with. That was a freak occurrence. I don't know. We'll see. I feel it's weird. It's uncomfortable for me to be a little more bullish about Joel and Bates health than you guys are, but I'm there, I think. Well, the truth is the timing is really what matters here. If he's feeling great before the playoffs start and they're a lower seed than maybe you would like them to be, that's a scenario I think everyone would sign up for. For sure. How many playoff games can he stay healthy for and what does that look like? So really the question I asked is probably not the key question, but still as I was just thinking about this team and what can they withstand, what can't they withstand, I figured I would throw that one your way. By the way, you mentioned the Knicks coming off the SNL thing. You know, Naya was watching something the other day. Come over, what are you watching? She's like, I'm watching SNL. I'm like, oh, this is great. I'm like, of all the crappy stuff out there on YouTube and all the influencers and all the other people, I'm like, you're watching SNL skits? I'm like, this is fantastic. Good job by you. Be careful. Be careful. SNL? Well, it depends. It depends. She said, I said, which one? Rich, you just caught up on what else? Be careful. That's all over my algorithm. She was like, if the jail in front of one, I'm like, fantastic. I'm like, this is great. I'm like, if you ever want to watch cold episodes, let's dial them up. I'll join you. So yes, just compared to, I know what Cliff's saying, that's a good point. Yeah, stay far away from that guy. Anyways, what's it called? Druski is about to be on there. Oh, really? Yeah, apparently he's like one of the first internet sensation, Rasset to Talk comedians to host SNL. But I think there's been others prior to him, but yeah, it's pretty cool. Druski is someone I know very well. I know who he is. He comes on random sports stuff, but I have no idea like how did he get to this level of fame? I guess you're explaining to me. I was telling Cliff. It's the internet, man. It's the Instagram, bro. There's this one guy hilarious on my algorithm who was ripping bald guys for taking too much time in the barber shop when he's trying to get a cut. So listen, some of you are talented out there and I'm glad you have a way to get your content out there. Not all of you, but some of you are talented out there. So I like when you get to my algorithm. All right, Rich, what do we got? What's next? So what do we have one? We got one, we got eight. I thought we had one, one, four and eight. Then we do our predictions. Let's do one. One, okay. Mo Cheeks, who I saw in the airport once. He couldn't find his ticket. I was going up the escalator. This was back when you had actual paper tickets. I'm like, Mo Cheeks, how's it going? He's like, I'm doing good, but I seem to have misplaced my ticket. He's like looking inside his jacket pocket. I did show his national anthem thing to Lila last year. Well, it's still a great moment there where the girl forgot the words to the national anthem. Yeah, he goes over, puts his arm around her, sings it with her. What a heartwarming moment that was. All right, where will the Sixers offense rank at the end of the season? You kind of teased this one earlier, a little bit rich. You believe they're going to be an offensive team, that that's going to be their strength, that they're going to be pretty good on offense. They were 16th last season. I don't know if these points of reference help you or not. The Celtics were second last year with Jalen Brown as their best player. The Lakers were 10th last year. Of course, they had Luka Doncic as well. And I'll give you the Sam Quinn of CBS Sports projection after you give me your pick here, Rich. So I think I'm going to say six, but I think for a playoff offense, it's going to be even better than that because a lot of these regular season teams, they juice the numbers that, by the way, Boston Celtics are the kings of this. Threes, like so many threes, and then offensive rebounding like crazy. I think we saw in that series last year, once you have a locked in opponent that is a little bit on your stuff, and obviously they're playing with playoff intensity at all times, the depth and sort of those strategies don't, they're not always as effective. I don't think the Sixers are going to be like the craziest offensive rebounding team in the league. Now, hey, look, VJ Edgecombe is going to get his fair share for sure, like Hustle Plays, Jalen Brown, LeBron, all those guys. There was a possession against the Nets though, Sheil, where they ran like a flex set, where it was basically LeBron passing on one elbow, and then they had Tyrese Maxey coming off a Joel Embiid screen on the other elbow, and I was like, man, that's nice. I think any team in the NBA, good luck trying to guard that, like that. Again, locked in playoff defense, good luck trying to guard that star power because there's like 30 things they can do off of that to end up getting a bucket, and they have the smartest player of his generation, also the best player of his generation, pulling the strings and figuring that out. I don't think they're going to be able to juke the stats a little bit with the offensive rebounding and the threes, which is why they might take a little bit of a step back in the regular season, but I think when the playoffs turn into an execution battle, like in the half court, going one on one, I think we're going to get to a point where maybe it won't be in October. But once we get to February, March, these guys have played a bunch of games with each other. They're going to be pretty tough to guard, and there's going to be a bunch of different ways that they can beat you. I like that. It's not going to be a bobo offense, you know? You could take your bobo offenses, get some threes up in the regular season, and then playoffs come around and you can't score. This isn't going to be a bobo offense. This is going to be a legit name brand offense. By the way, if you're listening to this, you are interested in the Sixers. And we gave you the sell for Broad Street Bulletin earlier, which I thought was a good sell. This man is grinding, I mean, how he's grinding the preseason film. He's breaking down sets. Imagine when they play an actual regular season game, what the coverage is going to, this guy's a junkie. This guy's a hoops junkie flex set against the Nets in the preseason. He's breaking it down from memory. I didn't give him any notes for preparation. So man, I can't wait till the actual game start, Rich, and you're breaking down actual games that matter. That's going to be incredible. I can't wait, man. And I got to say, there's been a lot of regular season games where I haven't been taking the notes over the past few years because I'm like, this doesn't matter. Look at the guys who are on the floor. I'm not going to remember this in two days. Who cares? All right. We got four and we got eight and then we got our predictions. What do you want? Let's just go in order. Let's go with four. Four. Okay. So I asked you for the X's and O's NBA ball, no or nerd thing that you're most concerned about. Now I want the one that you're most excited about with this Sixers team, the nerdy X's and O's ball, no or thing that you're most excited about with the 2026, 2027, 70 Sixers. This is definitely nerdy, and I hate that I'm about to say this, but here it is. I can't wait to see how efficient Tyrese Maxey is scoring this year. I can't wait. I think he is going to shoot the lights out from three. His career has been pretty simple where he, eventually when James Harden comes here, he becomes the third star along him and Joel Embiid. James Harden, for all of his faults, awesome passer. When Joel was taking up that much gravity and James Harden was passing, Tyrese Maxey at the end of, I guess that was the 21-22 season, and then when Harden was here for the full 22-23 season, his catch and shoot numbers out of this world, like just the ability to just play off the ball, throw it right to him in the shooting pocket, he's going to make the three. James Harden leaves and Tyrese Maxey shows that when Joel Embiid is destroyer of worlds, and right before he got hurt in that 23-24 season, Kaminga fell on his knee. Man, they were running the two-man game as good as it gets. It was perfect. He hasn't had that level of availability for Joel over the past few years, so he's had to take harder shots. And by the way, there were some growing pains, like that 24-25 season was the first season he actually ran up against some adversity. I don't want to say he faced adversity, because usually he just overcomes the adversity, but he struggled a little bit and he was in a terrible situation, so that's fine. But even last year, as he becomes, what was he? I think he finished 11th in all NBA voting, so third team all NBA player, almost a second team all NBA player. He still had to take tougher shots, and I think he did a great job in scaling up his game, and I think he has put himself in the conversation of the top 10 players in the NBA. You see that on the preseason ranking list. But now, he's got a lot of talent on this team, right? And the idea of him having to score 35 points, he doesn't have to do that. Now, could he do that? And would it be fun in some scenario to watch him do that? Yeah, absolutely. He's definitely capable of it for sure, and he's gotten better every season of his career. But the fact that you can throw the ball to LeBron, you're going to have Embiid hopefully a little healthier and a little bit more integrated into the offense. He's a little more consistent. I don't know, man, I think whether it's the two-man game with Embiid, the off-ball shooting, and then, hey, if you do have a bad possession, just throw out the Tyrese at the end of the clock. He's continually gotten better at that. I think he is going to be plus 40 percent from three on a bunch of threes. He's going to be better finishing around the rim because he's got all of these other guys. I think you're right to say you might feel like he is floating a little bit or he's not involved in the offense as much as you're looking for. But every time you look up, it's like, here's him off a back cut throwing down a dunk. Here's him in transition. I think he is going to be incredibly efficient this year, especially because his wrist, what was it, his pinky that's been hurt those past few years, looks like that's gotten back. That's the big thing for him. Keep that pinky okay, Tyrese. Man, that is just so exciting as you were discussing like that. I don't know if it's optionality or flexibility, but there are different pieces to be able to overcome things offensively with this team. One guy's out tonight, okay, it's not the end of the world. One guy's in foul trouble, it's not the end of the world. One guy doesn't have it, it's not the end of the world. Last two minutes, last four minutes, it's not just one guy, it's multiple guys or guys who can create easier shots for everyone else. I mean, just the minutes thing last year, eighth in total minutes for Tyrese Maxley. Forget how hard he had to play when he was on the court, just the amount that he was playing. He missed a lot of time too. He was first in minutes per game by a mile. It's crazy. So yeah, that's got to go down too. Nick Nurse, I gave you a little bit of support at the beginning of this pod, that's got to go down, man. That's got to go way down. That's crazy. Eighth in total minutes and he missed, what, 12 games last year, played 38 minutes a game to lead the NBA last year. We got to zoom out a little bit, but those things should be easier. Nick Nurse might say, you guys were all killing me last year. Well, I was trying to win some games. I was kind of coaching for my job. What do you want me to do? Take my best player off the court in the regular season? Well, now you have some options. Yeah, that can't happen again this year. And if it does, we can criticize him. But hopefully, it doesn't happen with the minutes there. A very exciting season coming up for Tyrese Maxey. Okay, number eight. One bold prediction, Rich, that you haven't seen anywhere else about this 76ers team. Now, this can't be win total. This can't be seeding. This can't be playoff finish because we're going to do that in a minute, all of us. So one bold prediction. It can be about anything. Get as nerdy as you want. Don't worry if you're like, I don't know if this is bold enough. It's okay. Just give me one prediction. One thing you're feeling about the team that you feel like is might not be mainstream at this point in time. Yeah, that one is a little hard. I guess the thing that I would say is that it's the opposite of what people are talking about. I think Vijay Edgecombe is going to be absolutely fine this year. I think people say he's a second year player. That's a guy that needs to shoot more, right? Because again, he did show a lot last year. He did have the ball in his hands more than we expected last year. I think he is in the absolutely perfect scenario for him. Learning from LeBron, learning from Jalen Brown. As we talked about, they seem to be good friends already. I think this is the perfect scenario for Vijay Edgecombe. He will average right around the same amount of points as last year, and he'll just do it in opportunistic ways. He'll do it by when Joelle is out of the game. Guess what? All right, I can get the 20 plus points per game in that one, on the nights that he doesn't play. On the nights that all these guys do play, like think about all of the great winning plays that Edgecombe made at the end of games last season. Even in the games where he struggled, like you're like, man, he was kind of terrible for two hours here. And then at the end of that Warriors game, boom, guess who gets that crazy offensive rebound that there's no way he should have gotten? It's him, he's got the motor. I think he's going to be able to channel that motor that he has, that ability to just continually play with energy in a way that will be just like wonderfully effective for the Sixers. Yeah, like, is he the ideal off-ball three-point shooter for this team at this point? Probably not yet, but I think the looks are going to be so good that he's going to shoot a decent percentage. I think he's going to get to the high thirties like on that number. So there has been some questions about VJ Edgecombe. Is he in the right spot? Would he rather be sort of more on an up-and-coming team where he's getting more pick and roll on ball reps? Nope, he's in the perfect spot. He is going to be the perfect sort of fifth piece for this team. Can scale his game up, can scale his game down, can win with defense, can win with offense. I think he's in store for a great year. I love it. And his approval rating, I think when the three of us do that conversation at some point, I mean, it's going to be through the roof. I just love that it feels like he's built for this. You know, when you saw him in the playoffs the first time in the playoffs in big games last year, he is not scared. He's ready. Like you mentioned, he can overcome mistakes. It's not going to be perfect. He's not a perfect player. But I think this role is so great for him. Like you said, where it just kind of depends on, all right, what does the situation call for tonight? What does the situation call for in this quarter? The next eight minutes, what does the situation call for? Who's healthy? Who's not healthy? What do we need? Do we need defense? Do we need energy? You could just, even last year, the energy level of the team, I remember Cliff and I were talking about this early in the season, it's like the energy level of the team feels so different when he's on the court and when he's not on the court. And that's such a great trait that's not always gonna be captured by stats or anything else, but when you watch the team over and over again, you can just kind of feel it. All right, here we go, baby. Win total, prediction time. Cliff, get on the mic here. I'll give you some of the numbers. The Sixers are plus 1,000 to win the title. They're tied with the New York Knicks behind only OKC and San Antonio, who are heavy favorites. They are plus 400 to come out of the east behind only the Knicks. Their over under for wins is 49 and a half. However, there is some skepticism in the air among the basketball, what's in the basketball zeitgeist? Am I using that correctly? I have no idea. John Hollinger of the Athletic has them as the 7C, 46 and 36. ESPN's Basketball Power Index says 47 and a half wins. Bill Simmons and Zach Lowe both take the under. 49 and a half wins. Joe House, who told everyone that the Sixers are gonna land LeBron James. He goes on a very popular podcast and he says, the Sixers are my pick. And he says, you know, it's a great spot for him because the golf and the food in Philadelphia is top notch. He's gonna love Philadelphia. He says, I'm taking the over by the hype on the 76ers. All right, Cliff, what do you got? Give me a final record, give me a seed and give me a playoff finish for the 2026, 2027, 76ers. Okay, I think your 2026, 2027, Philadelphia 76ers are bound to win 55 games this season. Whoa, way over 55. This is a lot. This is a lot. This is a lot. And the reason why I'm saying this is because the mere fact that you're going to have Tyrese Maxey, VJ Edgecombe, and likely Jalen Brown for, if healthy, they're playing 70 plus games a season. That trio right there alone can win you just a ton of games when a beat on LeBron feel like taking their little breaks. LeBron feels like going for the West Coast for two weeks to recover and then he'll come back on his helicopter. He'll want to be back in the city for a little bit. Joelle is going to need to rest up for a little bit as well. But I feel like a 55 win, Sixers team. It feels likely here. And I think they'll be second place in the East. I do like the Knicks actually just being just continuity, the retention rate on their roster. They did lose Mitchell Robinson, which is going to be pretty interesting to see what happens with that. You're seeing that they replaced him with Andre Drummond. And Drummond looks a little bit more motivated in the preseason. So he looks, his body looks a little bit different with the Knicks. So that's why the celebrations drum after those threes. OK, watch them this year. Don't be getting into trouble. Yes, that's going to be interesting to see. Also, sneaky big news, non-big news is Carl Anthony Townes is not having his contract extension. We'll see how that factors in to the rest of the season for the Knicks. You know, contracts get real iffy, especially with a guy that got traded for contract purposes before into a team like that and helping them win a championship. So that might get funny a little bit during the year. But I mean, as far as the roster goes, I mean, bringing back the majority of your roster, that's always a plus. You got the continuity. You guys know each other in and out. I feel like you'll see the Knicks be the first seed in the East. However, I think come playoff time, the Sixers have LeBron freaking James in the playoffs with Joel Embiid, Vijay Edgecomb, Jalen Brown, and Tyrese Maxey as a closeout five unit. Nothing better than that in Eastern Conference. I say the Sixers will win the East. They make it to the NBA Finals. But then San Antonio Spurs, they want to run it back. They were embarrassed last year. Wembee Revenge Tour Part 2. He says, I got to avenge this loss. And I'm going to take it out on a different East Coast team. Philly, I'm sorry. You're going to have to be the victims of this wrath. And I think the San Antonio Spurs with their revamp roster will win the 2026-2027 NBA Championship. All right. That's my prediction. You don't have to apologize, Cliff. I think 55 wins and a trip to the finals. Most Sixers fans are signing up for that this year. Wow, Rich, I don't know. I'm sweating here. I got goosebumps. Cliff giving me that kind of prediction. All right. Rich Hofmann, Broad Street Bulletin. You are up. What do you got? Yeah. I think Adam Silver would certainly sign up for a LeBron Wembe finals. That would be exciting. He gets the Knicks one year and then he gets that passing of the torch in the next year. That would be pretty good. So I am optimistic, not quite as optimistic as Cliff is. I am going to say 50. I like round numbers, 50 on the dot with a 50 and 32 record. I think that will be good enough because the East guys, I think, is going to be incredibly bunched. I think it's going to be one of those things where the last week of the season, all of these teams, it's in play to be the two seed, but it's also in play to be the eight seed depending on how a couple of games go. Feels like the Sixers, despite dealing with all the injuries, have been in the mix a couple of times the past few years. They've had some tough tiebreaker luck where they got thrown in the playoffs both years where they actually had the record to get there. I think this year, they get the luck. They have the better players, they get the luck. Maybe they start from ahead so they know what they have to do in that final week. I say 50 and 32 gets you home court advantage. It gets you the fourth seed in the Eastern Conference. They play the first round and I think it is an epic series. I think they play the Toronto Raptors in the first round and they avenge. They've already avenged the Raptors in one series, but now they avenge Kawhi Leonard and the Raptors in the first round in an epic series. I love it. Epic, amazing series. Sixers finally win that. They get the game seven this time and then they win that one. Then who do they find in the one seed? Not the New York Knicks. The New York Knicks are going to be very good, but I don't think they're going to be balls to the wall, like regular season, just continually playing well. They're going to play the Boston Celtics in the second round, guys. You think the Celtics get the one seed? I do. I think they are regular season. That's a regular season team, Cliff. And you're going to like this because they're a regular season team. They lose to the Sixers in six in the playoffs. That's what happens, right? They did get the two seed last year, right? Yeah. All those threes, all that offensive rebounding, offensive execution, more firepower, more sustainable ways to score. Sixers get through that round, and then they do face the New York Knicks in the Eastern Conference Finals. And I think, unfortunately, by this point, the Knicks have gotten all of the contract issues out of the way, all of the championship hangover issues, and the Sixers play a much better series than last year, but they lose Game 7 at Madison Square North. Okay, Sixers, 50 wins, get to the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time in, what, 26 years, but they fall short against the Knicks. All right, I think this is going to be a great season. I think they are going to be a fun, very good regular season team, even if Joel Embiid misses time. I think this is going to be the most fun Sixers season since 2000, 2001. I think the city and the fan base is going to be into it. I think the Sixers are going to be more relevant than they've been since that season, more relevant than they've been in 25 years, just in terms of interest. Are you talking to people about this team? Are you trying to go down to the game? Man, the tickets are expensive, but you know what? It's a random Tuesday. As I always say, it's a random Tuesday in January. And you're like, man, I can't wait to watch the Sixers play the Orlando Magic tonight. This is going to be a two and a half hours well spent. I think they're going to win 52 games. So I'm between both of you. I think, you know, usually I was looking at the past few years. That means between the two and the four seed. I'm with Rich. His little bunch there, and they're going to get the luck this year. They're going to be the two seed. Yes. They're going to make it out of the second round for the first time during this era. I also have them losing to the Knicks in the Eastern Conference Finals, but you know what? I know people, everybody nationally is trying to paint it as, well, the championship are busted. I disagree. If they win 52 games and show me a good time, and maybe I'm a loser because I think like this, I don't think so. And they get to the conference finals and they fight, they battle the Knicks. Listen, the Knicks were a great team last year, specifically in the playoffs. I think you got to take the belt from them. I'm not saying they can't do it. They can do it. I didn't want to put the Kapadia curse on them. I didn't want to jinx the Sixers and say they're going to win the championship. So I said I'm just going to settle for Eastern Conference Finals. They lose, but it ends up being a fantastic season. So there you go. We're all over 50 wins. We're all out of the second round. Cliff's a little disappointed in me. He's looking at me like father looking at his son. I'm not disappointed. I'm not disappointed. I'm not disappointed. Look, y'all being fair and unbiased. I like it. There you go. I'm hoping for more. I'm hoping for more. I think more is in play, which is very exciting. All right, that was a lot of fun. The other half of it too, like Cliff said too, if they make the finals and they run into Wemby or OKC, like that's where you can't say championship or bust, right? However, I do think they match up slightly better with OKC. All right, we're not getting into the matchup. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We can't get ahead of ourselves, Cliff. We got a long season. Yeah, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. It's like they can attack Hart and Stein and you'll be fine. Yeah, yeah, Rich. Yeah, literally, we were at the we were Irvin Saloon or whatever. We just talk about the games and exes and those and stuff like that. And I was just like, yeah, like, you don't like this matchup. I like this matchup. Yeah, no. Yeah, it's funny. Yeah, we're not going to do that. Yeah. There's plenty of season ahead. Yeah. Next week, we'll get into how they can attack the OKC Thunder in the finals. But we will give that some time here. All right, Rich Hoffman, check him out. That was a lot of fun. Broad Street Bulletin. He's going to be back with us in about, what, 60 hours or so. Talk a little. Eagles, Panthers, postgame pod. We'll have that for you. Tanner. Sunday night. Thank you to Tanner time, producer. Tanner time. Cliff Augustin. I'm Sheil Kapadia. We'll talk to you next time on The Ringer's Philly Special. Thank you. 18 plus and present in DC or Wyoming. Gambling problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER, or 1-800-MY-RESET. Call 1-888-789-7777, or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut, or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplinema.org, or call 800-327-5050 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts, or call 1-877-8HOPE-NY, or text HOPE-NY in New York for Louisiana. Call 1-877-770-7867. This episode is brought to you by EA Sports FC27. Welcome to the world's game. FC27 is introducing the grounds where the streets meet the stadium. Connect with friends, GoPro, and express yourself, on or off the pitch. Play FC27 with the Ultimate Edition September 18th. Learn more at ea.com. Rated E for everyone. Includes in-game purchases, including random items. 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