Still trying to figure out if the LeBron James thing is real. We talk about LeBron the point guard, what order the starting lineup will be announced, what chance they have to win the title, and Mike has some backup center trade targets.

Get the new Ricky shirts here!

The Rights To Ricky Sanchez is presented by Draft Kings

Anthony Degli Obizzi is the official Financial Planner of The Ricky, text RICKY to 484-471-4873 to set up a conversation

LL Pavorsky Jewelers is where Rights To Ricky Sanchez listeners go and get engaged.

Become a MortgageCS Ricky VIP at mortgagecs.com/ricky

Surfside Iced Tea and Vodka is the official canned cocktail of The Ricky

The Sixers traded for Jaylen Brown and signed LeBron. People seem excited, so it felt like a good shirt time. Two from Abbie (same theme), one from Tanner. You can get them right now for pre-order at Shibe Vintgage Sports.

First, from Abbie, two shirts that show our obvious and long term support for the push-off move on offense. It’s always been a legal move. We’ve always been into it here. Here’s “Push Off Power.”

And then, Mike got a suggestion to celebrate the Sixers big signing with a nod to Process history. Here’s “He’s Never Coming Over.”

Let me be the 500,000th person now to say: I never thought this day would actually come. I wrote some bullshit last Tuesday about LeBron James taking till January to sign with a team because I thought it would be funny and why not. I didn’t think that was a terribly likely outcome, but I thought it was much more likely than the news dropping 72 hours later that LeBron would be signing to the Philadelphia 76ers — our Philadelphia 76ers, the same franchise that did all that crazy nonsense Mike talked about on Friday’s podcast, in roughly the same era — for two years and $8 million. “I wonder what these words will sound like coming out of my mouth,” I thought to myself as I walked into the other room of my apartment to tell my appropriately incredulous girlfriend Lisa about the news on Friday morning. They didn’t sound right, I’ll tell you that much.

For many years, Sixers fans have debated whether or not we are still in the Process Era, whether The Process ended with Sam Hinkie’s ousting or whether The Process is still ongoing as long as Joel Embiid is on the team. What the signing of LeBron makes clear to me — LeBron James, that is, signed by the Philadelphia 76ers — is that we are done with the Process (Noun) era and have now moved into the Process (Verb) era. The Process is no longer something that is happening to us, but something that we are going to have to be doing ourselves, continuously, all the time, possibly forever. It might take that long to accept, believe and truly understand that LeBron James is on this team, chose to be on this team, chose being on this team over being on literally any of the other teams. There aren’t enough Augusts in the world for us to wrap our heads around that. Not for me anyway.

It’s been 48 hours and two grafs now, so at this point I guess I should probably say for the record: I didn’t want this. It’s how I started my last article, so not like I’ve been particularly coy about it, but I don’t expect anyone to remember that or really anything else that happened before Friday morning. But yeah, despite the LeBron-to-Philly mania of the last couple days, despite Jason and Mike both thinking a couple messages from them had a chance to snap me out of an existential quandary nearly 20 years in the making, this is still something I’m having a pretty tough time with. Considering the reception Spike is currently getting for his own skepticism, I expect this will not be received warmly by the Ricky faithful. There’ll probably be at least one r/RightsToRickySanchez thread trying to get me fired. It’s fair. I considered skipping writing about the topic altogether, not wanting to harsh anyone’s good time or make myself any kind of online main character. But ducking this forever would be cowardly, even for me. So I waited two days, and now here I am. I didn’t want LeBron James to sign with the Sixers.

Why not? It barely even feels worth writing about, to be honest. Many years ago, when I was really getting back into basketball in the mid-late ‘00s after not watching for a long time, I found some stuff he did on and off the court annoying or unrelatable, and I started rooting against him. At the time, it was fun for me. It gave me a reason to care more about various games and playoff series that the Sixers weren’t involved in (and some that they were). It made me a more passionate, more invested NBA fan. I wrote about it a lot. It had nothing to do with him as a player or as a person; he was easily the best player I’d ever watched (not really remembering Jordan’s heyday) and he seemed like a generally OK human being. But he wasn’t my guy. I would have rather had the other guy win. That’s dumb, maybe, but it’s also sports. Sports are dumb. We take interests that are largely arbitrary over events that are basically without objective consequence and build emotions and personal stakes around them that make their outcomes feel something like life or death. That’s the whole thing.

Over the years I’ve become a little less irritated with LeBron, mostly because the entire league doesn’t quite revolve around him like it used to, and because it’s hard not to get at least a tiny bit sentimental about star players when they get closer to the end of things than to the beginning. I have to appreciate that he’s (still!) even older than I am, not many players I can say that about these days. I may have even rooted for him in a couple games of that Lakers-Rockets series last year, just because he felt like a semi-legitimate underdog in a way I finally found somewhat charming. I’m also just not as life-or-death about the larger NBA in general these days; I feel things a lot less explosively than I did when I was going through my version of NBA fandom puberty 15-20 years ago. There are plenty of teams LeBron could have signed with this offseason where I probably would’ve ended up wishing him well-ish.

And even now, I can objectively acknowledge that him coming to the Sixers is a cool and certainly a hilarious thing. It’s a massive get for the city of Philadelphia to now be the center of the NBA universe, and a huge get for Sixers fans to have one offseason where the buzz around the team may actually, finally be nearly as loud as it is for the Birds. Local indie rock paragons reporting Sixers-related announcements being made over the loudspeaker at ACME? I love that shit. It’s fantastic. And we’re gonna get a whole offseason of this, of Philadelphia at its absolute Philadelphia-est, tilting the entire axis of the NBA world in the meantime. Brian Windhorst is probably gonna be unleashing his cheesesteak power rankings within a couple months. It’s gonna be garish and stupid and hysterical and absolutely beautiful. As dozens of folks on my timeline the last couple days have pointed out, it’s the kind of shit you wish Dan McQuade was around for, which is just about the biggest compliment you can give a Philly sports happening.

For me? It’s definitely not the end of the world, or of my Sixers fandom, but it’s a little bit of a bummer, yeah. I don’t really sports-hate LeBron the same way anymore, but I just never wanted his thing to be our thing. I never felt like our thing needed him. Our thing was already epic enough, with enough massive personalities and totemic league figures and dramatic swings and occasionally traumatizing results. I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t have changed anything about it over the last decade, but I at least always felt good that win or lose or total collapse, it was entirely ours. As many other players and coaches and execs passed through over the years, from James Harden to J.J. Redick to Doc Rivers to Ben Simmons to the Colangelos, at the end of the day, The Process was first and foremost the story of Sam Hinkie, and of Joel Embiid, and of us, all of us who’d been there since the Andrew Bynum trade, if not far earlier. But the story with LeBron is always LeBron — it has been for the last 23 years, anyway, so I assume it probably will be here too. He’s the first guy we’ve had who’s bigger than The Process. It hurts me a little to have to give that up.

Don’t worry, I can hear you all at home — those of you who haven’t already closed this out to start typing angrily, anyway — Yeah, but what about winning? You remember WINNING? Isn’t that supposed to be what it’s actually about? Don’t you want that to be included in the Sixers’ story somewhere? Sure. I like winning. Winning feels good; better than losing, I’d tend to agree. And our chances at winning are undoubtedly better with LeBron on the court than with those minutes going to Justin Edwards or Johni Broome. I don’t know if it makes us title or even conference favorites, exactly; that’s not a debate for this week regardless. But being good at basketball and helping his team be good at basketball is a field in which LeBron has done quite extensive work over the past 23 years. I do not for a second doubt his ability to do so here.

That said, there’s still context to all of this, right? There’s a reason why the Sixers’ first-round series win against Boston last season and their first-round series win against the Nets three years earlier didn’t feel the same, even though they ultimately brought us equally close to actually winning a championship? There’s a reason why we look back fondly at some Sixers regular-season campaigns where they won under 20 games and shudder at the memory of some where they won 50-plus? There’s a reason why even if some of us know in our heads it might be the best thing long-term for the team to get off Joel Embiid’s contract, we still believe in our hearts that we should do whatever it takes to ride it out with him until the very very end? Not all wins, even the biggest wins, are created equal. If our long-overdue winning comes primarily as the closing chapter of the LeBron James story... it’s just not gonna be the same thing.

But look: I’m not going to insist I know how I’m going to feel if and when we do start winning with LeBron. Maybe winning with him feels good enough that the rest of it just sorta disintegrates into the ether for me. I expect that after writing this, if I express positive feelings about the LeBron-led Sixers in the months to come, I’ll get a flood of comments from folks about how I was wrong and they were right and told you so. But I’m not saying anything about what this will be. It could be great, both on the court and for me personally. I hope it will be.

And there are parts of it that are already making me gooey inside to think about. LeBron grabbing a rebound in traffic and then outletting to a streaking VJ for a massive thunderdunk. Joel drawing a double in the post and then throwing some showy, Jokic-ish high-low pass over his shoulder to LeBron at the basket for an easy two. LeBron feeding Maxey in the two-man game for an open movement three and then tousling his hair as Maxey’s smile stretches from Broad Street to Sacramento and the roof blows off the not-Wells Fargo Center and Kate and Alaa strangle each other out of excitement. There’ll probably be some not-so-giddy moments too, hurt egos and uncomfortable compromises and losses that really feel like they should have been wins. But there will be moments of absolute basketball nirvana to be had, no doubt, for us and for the guys on the court who’ve suffered the most for us. I promise I am not so hard-hearted as to not get joy out of the prospect.

What’s more, the part of me that is having the easiest time coming to terms with this is the part of me that has already accepted that the way I did want this story to end — with Joel Embiid unequivocally leading the Sixers to a championship — was not going to happen. We won one playoff series last year and it seemed to take absolutely every last drop of energy, character and determination that Joel and the rest of the team had to do it; the idea of them being able to do that and then do it again three more times during the same postseason felt far-fetched at a minimum. Jaylen Brown would’ve helped, but who knows how much; I certainly hadn’t penciled the Sixers in even as Eastern Conference Finalists at any point. So it stings a little less to close the book on that possibility knowing it was already about 96% shut anyway.

Maybe this actually sounds like me coming around to the signing, like Mike and Jason and everyone else are winning me over already. If so, that’s fine. There’s a reason this article is titled “Working My Way Through the LeBron Signing” and not “Condemning the LeBron Signing From Beyond the Grave.” I’m still figuring out my own feelings here, and it’s going to take a real long time for me to get through the whole thing; maybe longer than LeBron even has left in his NBA career. It’s obviously a no-brainer move for the Sixers and a humongous win for all of Philadelphia sports, nobody could credibly argue otherwise. It’s just not something I can drop all my emotional baggage over and be fucking pumped about right away.

My Nets fan co-worker told me on Friday, “If you can’t get excited about the greatest player in the sport’s history playing for your team in any stage of his career, I don’t know what to tell you.” I told him I wasn’t asking for him or anyone else to tell me anything. I’m not looking for sympathy or commiseration. I’m not looking to be convinced or to convince anyone about anything LeBron-related. I’m just trying to wrap my arms around the craziest, wackiest, most emotionally confusing thing that has ever happened to my team or to me as a sports fan and figure out what the hell it means for them and for me — mostly for me — moving forward. For nearly 20 years I rooted against LeBron James; now his (sports) success and my (sports) happiness are inextricably entwined. I’ll figure it out, but it’s going to take an adjustment a whole lot bigger than I can make in 48 hours or 48 days or maybe 48 months. If you can’t allow me that, I guess I don’t know what to tell you either.

Subscribe now

Andrew Unterberger writes for The Rights To Ricky Sanchez, as part of the ‘If Not, Pick Will Convey as Two Second-Rounders’ section of the site. You can follow Andrew on Twitter @AUGetoffmygold and can also read him at Billboard.

We discuss the album ‘Around The World In A Day’ by Prince and the new song “My Body Isn’t Ready” by Sombr.

*This episode was recorded on Sunday, July 12 2026

For all of Mutlu’s tour dates and tickets visit⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.mutlusounds.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠

To suggest an album, leave a comment or visit us at ⁠⁠⁠https//www.carllandryrecordclub.com⁠⁠⁠

The intro music is “I Should Let You Know” by Marian Hill.

This is Carl Landry Record Club episode #195

Never thought we’d write that title.

The Rights To Ricky Sanchez is presented by Draft Kings

Get 20% off Verb Energy bars with code RTRS and the VERB starter pack at https://verbenergy.com/ricky

Get 20% off any Body Bio order with the code in the podcast.

Surfside Iced Tea and Vodka is the official canned cocktail of The Ricky

Bet with DK Sportsbook: Gambling Problem? Call one eight hundred GAMBLER, one eight hundred MY RESET. Connecticut: call eight eight eight seven eight nine seven seven seven seven, visit CCPG dot org. On behalf of Boot Hill Casino in Kansas. Bet tax pass-through may apply in Illinois. Twenty one plus. Void in Canada. Event contract trading with DraftKings Predictions involves risk of loss. Availability varies. Predictions offer void in New York. Bet to get Bonus bets that expire in seven days. Trade to get Predictions Dollars that expire in one year. Fifty dollars in rewards issued every seven days via click to claim for fourteen days. One non-withdrawable reward redeemable. Nationwide based on Sportsbook, Predictions, and Free-to-Play Sports Contest availability. Varies by State. Terms at d k n g dot c o slash offer. Limited time offer.

HOLY S**T, THE SIXERS ACTUALLY SIGNED LEBRON JAMES.

I’m still in a state of shock and trying to wrap my head around the fact that the greatest player of the modern era is choosing to join the Sixers of his own free will. The Sixers. The Philadelphia 76ers. A team that has turned into more of a meme than anything and whose greatest accomplishment since Allen Iverson is a first-round playoff series win over the Celtics before being promptly swept in the second round. This is the team LeBron James is looking to ring-chase with?

For a player who is so actively aware of his legacy and public image to join this team and risk his final NBA snapshot becoming the equivalent of Michael Jordan in a Wizards jersey is mind-boggling to me. Like Jaylen Brown, I don’t think this all will fully register until I see him walk out in a Sixers jersey for the first time.

But now that he’s here… it’s impossible (well almost impossible, c’mon Spike and AU) not to be incredibly excited. A starting lineup of Tyrese Maxey, VJ Edgecombe, Jaylen Brown, LeBron, and Joel Embiid is immediately the most talented in the entire NBA on paper (even if some others may still surpass them with cohesion, à la the reigning champion New York Knicks). It also moves Dean Wade from somehow being a critical starter on this team to a player who can focus on contributing off the bench, leaving us with solid depth between Wade, Anfernee Simons, Labaron Philon, and Dominick Barlow. Nick Nurse will have his work cut out for him fitting together this many high-usage stars, but LeBron adds so much that the Sixers have been missing out on.

He brings elite skill to two of the main concerns the Sixers had remaining: rebounding (86th percentile DRB% last year) and playmaking (higher AST% than anyone on the Sixers last year). He brings another dominant transition threat to run alongside Maxey, Brown, and Edgecombe and help create an identity when Joel is off the floor — Maxey, Brown, and LeBron were three of the top four players last season in transition possessions per game. He brings even more free-throw generation — god I cannot wait for how mad everyone is going to be at the number of FT attempts Maxey, Brown, LeBron, and Joel will generate together. And most importantly, he knows how to win in the playoffs and can help to push the Sixers over the second-round line they’ve been toeing for the past two decades. (For those keeping track, LeBron has been to 12 conference finals and won 10 in comparison to the Sixers going to zero conference finals and winning zero over the same time period.)

There are going to be annoying aspects of this for sure. Every press conference for Brown and LeBron will be an opportunity for incriminating quotes. The fit is not perfect and will take some work for everyone to mesh. The starting lineup falls apart without the big guy, so we realistically need a better backup big (I still do not trust Adem Bona or Ariel Hukporti to start when Joel is out, which is going to inevitably happen). And the league-wide media will have the entirety of its focus on the Sixers — a prospect that terrifies me given the inevitable weird, Sixer-style obstacles that I’m sure will pop up.

But at this point, I don’t care. We just signed LeBron fucking James for a minimum contract. In the course of one offseason, Mike Gansey has flipped the Sixers from a team with no optionality into a team that has jumped into the top five in championship odds and has the entirety of the NBA world abuzz. If you told me at the start of the offseason that we would be able to effectively trade Paul George, two first-round picks, and two-second round picks for Jaylen Brown and LeBron James, I would have called you crazy. Now that we’re here — and before the Sixers more than likely figure out how to blow this all up in our faces — there’s only one thing left to say: See you on Broad St.

Subscribe now

It’s July 24th. August is here. Many say that August is their favorite time of the year for The Ricky.

If you’re new, August is the time of the year that The Ricky lets its hair down. Some guests that might not be Sixers or basketball centric. More Relationship Advice (if you need it), Jigsaws (if I think of them), re-litigating old debates, so on and so forth. We’re also going to re-watch the Boston series from the playoffs (Mike keeps saying we should all do this but I don’t know how to provide everyone with the games so they can watch them).

I did not think we could start August before LeBron signed, even though I don’t think there’s any chance he’s signing with the Sixers. Mike changed my mind on that one. I’m kind of adopting his way of looking at this; when he signs, he signs. If it’s here, we’ll deal with it.

So, with August, comes you. August is always better with Ricky Community ideas. If you have email questions (Sixers or non-Sixers), send them to rightstorickysanchez@gmail.com. If want to reach us by voicemail, it’s 833-LICKFACE (you, yes you can get your own eyeroll from Mike when I start playing a voicemail! It’s absolutely free!). I’d say to hit us on social media but we’re checking those less and less. So just email us or voicemail us.

To get myself into August mode, I’m going to simply tell you about the non-sports content that I’ve been consuming, and whether I like it or not.

The Pitt (TV Show). It’s ok. I tend to not be watching shows, or as many shows, as most people do. I’ve got to watch all of the Phillies/Sixers games, and I just like movies better. So Val and I are always watching one show, which we’ll watch once or twice a week, and she picked The Pitt.

Also worth noting, if I think a show starts to suck I never “stick with it.” I’ll give a show two bad episodes and then I’ll bail, no matter how many seasons I’ve watched. Recent bails include From and Your Friends and Neighbors (season two).

The Pitt is an emergency room drama that takes place at a Pittsburgh hospital, and each season takes place over one day.

It is a fine watch. It’s reasonably compelling.

I’d give two warnings if you plan on watching it. First, it’s pretty gross and graphic. I have to cover my eyes almost every episode (I don’t deal well with realistic gore). Second, the show goes out of its way to teach you a lesson like four times an episode. It’s too much. I do not need some hospital show asking me if I’m tolerant enough every episode. There’s a fun game you can play where you can predict what lesson one of the storylines will teach you when it first is introduced.

Gracie Abrams, Daughter From Hell (Music). I think it’s great.

Pretty bold for a pop album to be sixteen songs and 56 minutes but she pulls it off with flying colors. You could probably cut a song or two but tough to find an album nowadays that you wouldn’t say that for.

I don’t know if it’s just the way things go from a timeline perspective, but there has certainly been a bit of an influx of ‘90s alternative feel to current pop music over I’d say even the last half decade. You can absolutely hear it several times in this album. I think the most obvious one is the title track, “Daughter From Hell,” which could absolutely be a Smashing Pumpkins song.

Listening to the album is almost like laying with a comfortable blanket on a Spring Saturday when it’s about 65 degrees and you’re drifting off to take a nap. There are some really great songs here, but none of them knock you out of the vibe.

Aside from the singles, “Hit The Wall” and “Look At My Life,” I’d say the standouts to check out if you’re interested are “The Knife,” “Good Reason,” “Sober” and “Daughter From Hell.”

And, some movies I’ve watched…

I do keep an active Letterboxd but my reviews are pretty short. Really just a couple of thoughts and a rating so I can remember what I thought of them.

Evil Dead Burn. Really just so so. I love horror movies, I love this franchise, and I really liked Evil Dead Rise. But this one didn’t really work for me.

Evil Dead movies are best when there is a little bit of humor, but it’s difficult to balance because it should be terrifying too. I do think the first of the reboots had no humor, which made it tough to think of as an Evil Dead movie, but was still a very solid horror movie.

I thought it was just a little too dumb and silly.

Deep Water. Plane crash and shark attack movie that has a terrifying plane crash but gets pretty boring once it becomes a shark attack movie. It’s OK.

Ready Or Not 2. I thought it was boring. Liked the first one much better.

Lee Cronin’s The Mummy. I kind of loved this movie. I acknowledge it’s pretty terrible and you have to take so many leaps of faith to just stick with it past the first hour that it almost seems like it was on purpose. But the second half of the movie was amazing and definitely seems like it is part of the Evil Dead universe.

I want to reinforce that the movie is very stupid, but if you like horror movies you’ll probably say “I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but I enjoyed that” at the end.

Over Your Dead Body. My wife really liked it. I tolerated it.

Crime 101. Paint by numbers crime movie really but a perfect movie to stream at home.

Disclosure Day. I am not a Spielberg guy at all. I do not want my movies to have ridiculous happy endings and I don’t want a positive view on life. I want my filmmakers to be fucking miserable.

I am an alien guy though, and while I didn’t think this movie was great or anything, I didn’t hate it, and Emily Blunt was awesome. I had a pretty good time with it even though I had pretty good idea where it was going and it was generally unbelievable.

Backrooms. Enough has been written about it. I am glad it exists, I loved how weird it was, I only thought it was OK. Just not enough story for me. Kind of reminded me how I felt after Skinamarink or In a Violent Nature. Glad it was made, unlikely I’ll ever watch it again.

Team Ricky

• AU with one of his funniest and most true columns of all time.

• The Statman did a Statman look at Jaylen Brown.

Subscribe now

Summer League is over, so it’s August. But the Sixers are still in the LeBron sweepstakes, so can August begin? We break down the current LeBron update, and get to some pressing listener questions.

The Rights To Ricky Sanchez is presented by Draft Kings

Briggs Auction is the official auction of The Ricky at briggsauction.com

Anthony Degli Obizzi is the official Financial Planner of The Ricky, text RICKY to 484-471-4873 to set up a conversation

LL Pavorsky Jewelers is where Rights To Ricky Sanchez listeners go and get engaged.

Surfside Iced Tea and Vodka is the official canned cocktail of The Ricky

I don’t want LeBron James to come to the Sixers. I honestly can’t remember if this is something I’ve ever talked about before on the Ricky or something I’ve talked about so much over the years that people are sick to death of hearing me go on about it — I think the last time LeBron-to-Philly was a quasi-plausible thing I had either just started at RTRS or was wrapping up my time at The 700 Level (shoutout Enrico Campitelli). But I’ve never been a LeBron guy and would very much like to never know what it’s like to have him on the Sixers. Probably not quite willing to go Spike-far and say that I don’t think I could root for the Sixers with him on them; I’m guessing I could find a way. But all things being equal it’s a firm No Thanks from me. Not a basketball decision at all; peak LeBron is undoubtedly the greatest player I’ve ever watched and he’s still very good in 2026. Having him on my team just isn’t an experience I’ve ever been interested in.

And like Spike, I don’t think it’s too likely it’ll happen. Don’t want to get too deep into that here; suffice to say I think LeBron is ultimately more interested in comfort than winning at this point in his career — as he probably should be, at least as I probably would be — and I don’t see the Philly situation as particularly comfortable for him. But who knows, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe he loves the situation here, maybe Tyrese Maxey is his Klutch soulmate and VJ Edgecombe is like a third son to him and he’s already learning to two-finger-tap guitar solo from Nick Nurse. At this point I think what everyone wants more than anything is just for him to make a decision already, to go to Philly or Miami or Cleveland or Golden State or to none of those places, to stop dragging this thing out and just put his name to a contract so the rest of the league can move on with their business.

Well, everyone except me, anyway. I think he should drag this thing out even further, probably until January or so. I think it’s funnier that way.

I guess this is where Spike and I start to diverge on the matter. Spike appears to be getting driven slowly — probably not really that slowly — insane by all the LeBron Watch stuff, and seems desperate for the situation to reach resolution. I sympathize; if I were the co-host of a twice-a-week Sixers podcast that demanded I break down every clumsily dropped breadcrumb or awkwardly planted easter egg left by LeBron or his various associates over weeks of interviews and podcasts and seemingly unnecessary media appearances, I would also want this shit to be done with but quick. But, well, I’m not. All I really have to put up with is the well-meaning folks over at Sixers Bluesky who are deadset on convincing themselves that this is a real thing that could happen. I can basically handle them. Hell, they could be right.

But it is funny to me to watch everyone, including both my fellow haters and the supporters of LeBron to Philly 2026, be brought to madness by his indecision. It’s funny to watch the other teams who might otherwise still be wheeling and dealing this summer caught frozen in inaction by waiting for this one smugly smiling final domino to fall. It’s funny to watch the Shams Charanias and Brian Windhorsts of the world flail as they attempt to continue to break news on relevant developments of LeBron’s free agency, when there’s only really one relevant development about it still left to break, which none of them yet have. And it’s incredibly funny to have Dave Silver himself complain about how long LeBron’s taking, because he can’t figure out how to stack the Christmas schedule without yet knowing what team this guy is going to play for. It’s just fantastic stuff all around.

I strongly doubt this was LeBron’s main intent, or even one of his side intents, but this whole thing is kinda functioning as a biting satire of the NBA machine in general, that the entire thing can be nearly ground to a halt by one soon-to-be-42-year-old’s undying love of being courted at the Free Agency ball. Not that this isn’t a real thing — a guy who averaged 21-6-7 last year on decent efficiency potentially signing with an NBA team for the veteran’s minimum is obviously a story, and a big one. But the fact that it’s taking up quite so much of the oxygen shows just how much LeBron has dominated all aspects of basketball discourse over the past two decades and change, and how poorly the league has done in cultivating newer, younger stars to drive anywhere near equivalent levels of interest in the meantime. In reality, I don’t think any of these teams being discussed (including ours) are going to win the championship or not based on whether or not LeBron goes there. But just going by the league frenzy around it, you’d think this was still MVP LeBron in 2010 revealing his The Decision for the first time. Father Time: perhaps not undefeated after all.

A handful of folks — maybe even Spike and Mike? — have raised the possibility of LeBron not only dragging this out the rest of the summer, but actually waiting a couple months into the season to make his free agency call. And to that I say: Sure, why not? Makes sense. LeBron certainly seems to love this part of his league centrality as much as he loves actually playing star-level basketball at this point, and the longer he waits to start with the latter, the easier it’ll be for him to do it anyway. If money’s not a major issue for him here — #NoMr305 — why not wait to see what these teams are actually gonna be like next year? If Philly’s really in consideration, why not wait to see if Joel Embiid stays healthy, if VJ Edgecombe is ready to take the leap, if Jaylen Brown isn’t actually an enemy plant? Are Giannis and Bam gonna gel in Miami? Is Jimmy Butler still gonna be an elite basketball player and/or trade chip for Golden State? Will James Harden.... well, James Harden is always gonna be James Harden, but I’m sure there’s some other shit for him to figure out for Cleveland. Why not take as long as possible with it?

I think he should. Partly because it makes sense for him, but mostly because I think it’ll be funny for the rest of us. Those of us who aren’t really that invested in this at the end of the day, anyway. I don’t want LeBron to come here, but I do have to again agree with Spike that perhaps the only funnier thing in the world than him spending weeks burying Sixers references in his interviews like he’s Taylor Swift sending fans on a liner-notes scavenger hunt only to not sign with the Sixers, would be for LeBron to actually sign with the Sixers, at any point, for any reason. The idea of LeBron holding up a Sixers jersey with JAMES 76 on the back (of course he’d choose No. 76) while standing next to a constipatedly smiling Josh Harris... it’s almost too funny to contemplate. LeBron James, on the Sixers. The Philadelphia 76ers. Sam Hinkie’s and Joel Embiid’s Philadelphia 76ers. Straight-up ROFLCOPTER.

And if he does it in January or February? Even better. I’d still probably rather he go elsewhere, but the idea of us spending half a season with the best, most attention-hungry player of the 21st century on the team at the end of his career is almost too hilarious to pass up. By then maybe we could use the infusion of energy, interest and/or content anyway. The Sixers are 18-14 to start the season, with Tyrese in a bit of a funk, Jaylen’s efficiency dropping and Joel only playing one out of every three games? Oh, well, at least the best player since MJ is now somehow suddenly on the team. It seems like the ideal situation for all involved, honestly. So don’t listen to the fans, the media pundits, and particularly not the fucking NBA commissioner trying to tell you to just put an end to this already, LeBron. You just wait until you’re good and ready, and the rest of the league will have to wallow in the mess it’s made over the course of your entire career in the interim. After all, you’ve earned this. We all have.

Subscribe now

Andrew Unterberger writes for The Rights To Ricky Sanchez, as part of the ‘If Not, Pick Will Convey as Two Second-Rounders’ section of the site. You can follow Andrew on Twitter @AUGetoffmygold and can also read him at Billboard.

The LeBron free-agency continues, and the Sixers continue to be mentioned as a possibility. We talk about the tea leaves and LeBron’s most recent “Trust The Process” moment. Then the Athletic’s Jay King joins us to talk about Jaylen Brown in Boston, where it went wrong, why they made the trade, and how he thinks he’ll fit in Philadelphia.

Follow Jay on Twitter @ByJayKing.

The Rights To Ricky Sanchez is presented by Draft Kings

Get 20% off any Body Bio order with the code in the podcast

Become a MortgageCS Ricky VIP at mortgagecs.com/ricky

Surfside Iced Tea and Vodka is the official canned cocktail of The Ricky

Bet with DK Sportsbook: Gambling Problem? Call one eight hundred GAMBLER, one eight hundred MY RESET. Connecticut: call eight eight eight seven eight nine seven seven seven seven, visit CCPG dot org. On behalf of Boot Hill Casino in Kansas. Bet tax pass-through may apply in Illinois. Twenty one plus. Void in Canada. Event contract trading with DraftKings Predictions involves risk of loss. Availability varies. Bet to get Bonus bets that expire in seven days. Trade to get fifty dollars in Predictions Dollars that expire in one year, issued every seven days via click to claim for twenty-one days. One non-withdrawable reward redeemable. Predictions offer void in New York. Ends July 19th. Terms at d k n g dot c o slash audio.

Thank goodness we’re all having a sane and rational conversation about Jaylen Brown and analytics…

As has been rehashed a bajillion times in the last few weeks, the Sixers have set the NBA world ablaze with their stunning trade of Paul George and several draft picks for Jaylen Brown. However, that firestorm has reached a boiling point with several reports about analytics coming out that claim Brown was the seventh-most-important player on the Celtics or that he isn’t a top-50 player in the NBA.

Let’s start with the obvious: those statements are ridiculous and a clear case of someone using numbers without any level of context whatsoever — a.k.a. someone being bad at analytics. Understanding the context around data is what an analytical professional is supposed to do. It would be very easy for me to create a model that spits out Brown as the seventh-most-important player on the Celtics, but if I saw that as the model output, I would question the model’s overall capabilities to rank players, instead of Jaylen Brown’s capabilities to play basketball. There are plenty of people bad at their job who get a platform, and we simply do not have to listen to them (for instance, Stephen A. Smith on NBA Draft night).

There are obviously numbers that show up worse for Brown than for other players, and we will get into those shortly, but the important theme to remember when analyzing these numbers is that they are comparing him to other star talents. There are extremely few players in the world capable of even attempting to carry the usage load that Brown has shown capable of carrying — only Luka Doncic (36.8%) and Giannis Antetokounmpo (35.8%) had a higher usage rate than Brown (35.1%) last season — let alone doing so as the only star player on a 56-win team that earned the second seed in the East. And therefore that’s the benchmark he is compared to as a player. You can’t look at Baylor Scheierman or Neemias Queta and claim they’re more important to the Celtics than Brown just because they were spoon-fed easy assisted looks through the Joe Mazzulla system and capitalized with high efficiency on the limited volume of shots they had to take. It’s nonsensical.

Now that that’s out of the way, we can get to the point of the analytics themselves and see how he compares to those other top 20ish players in the league. Once again, for the media personalities in the back, nothing you see here is to say he’s not a top 20 player in the league at minimum. It’s simply attempting to differentiate at the finest margins among the best of the best.

Brown’s greatest strengths are as a volume scorer, where he put up 28.7 PPG last season (fourth in the NBA). He was the outlet for the Celtics when someone had to go get a bucket, and he took a noticeable jump in both volume and efficiency with Jayson Tatum out for most of the year due to injury. However, while he put up a ton of points, the efficiency was just average, as Brown had a 57.4% TS% (literally 50th percentile for a wing in the NBA) on that volume. When compared to the best of the best — like Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (67.0% TS%), Stephen Curry (64.8%), Kawhi Leonard (63.3%), Doncic (61.8%), Anthony Edwards (61.7%), and even Donovan Mitchell (61.7%) — it’s easy to see that Brown’s just a touch behind.

In addition, at the highest level, your impact as a player is not just about how many points you score and how efficiently, but also how well you keep the offense functioning overall. Brown is a strong scorer for himself — but the team numbers are where the analytics start to come into play more noticeably.

The primary issue is his struggles with ball security. Brown ranks in the 1st percentile among small forwards in the NBA in scoring turnover percentage (10.3% sTOV%), which measures the volume of turnovers committed while attempting to score (non-passing turnovers). Even beyond just small forwards, the numbers are nearly twice as bad as those of other offensive engines like Jalen Brunson (4.1% sTOV%), SGA (4.4%), Doncic (5.0%), and our own Tyrese Maxey (5.0%), and represent Brown’s difficulty with keeping the ball under control. This is a clear gap in his perception as an offensive engine — even worse than struggling to get teammates involved in a possession offensively is losing the possession altogether.

But Brown’s most widely discussed analytical numbers over the last few weeks have been his on/off splits. Over the last four seasons, the Celtics have had a worse net efficiency with Brown on the floor than on the bench. A lot of this was previously explained away by the fact that he was staggering minutes with Jayson Tatum, but this year without Tatum available — where Brown once again had a negative on/off (-5.5 points per 100 possessions) — has thrown a wrench into that argument. How on earth could the numbers frame him as a consistently negative player as a Finals MVP and near First-Team All-NBA selection?

As with all analytics, the most critical step in evaluating numbers is to understand the context from which they are coming. In Brown’s case, some of the explanation can likely come from the just fine scoring efficiency and subpar turnover suppression mentioned above, but his context is also unique and could explain a lot of the lack of impact.

Mazzulla has put together a terrific environment for team success, especially for role players, with quick drive-and-kick actions, tons of catch-and-shoot threes, and assisted rim attempts. Brown’s strengths are the exact opposite of the quick decision-making, ball movement, and extremely high volume from three that make a player elite within that system. Remove Brown from that equation, and you can make up for a drop-off in talent through an increase in scheme fit. In addition, Brown is typically matched up against the opposing team’s starters. The bench unit for the Celtics gets to come in and destroy opponents’ benches, an area where Boston has had a clear advantage for years.

Are a few of these numbers a bit concerning? Sure! Does any of this mean that you can’t win with Jaylen Brown on your team? No, obviously not! The moral of the story here is that analytics are great to find the areas that you may need to work around with a player to help them find success, but this is clearly a player you can work around because the Celtics won a championship with Brown as a top-two player and Finals MVP. He might be a little overpaid for what he offers as a player, but it doesn’t matter at the end of the day if you win. So often in these nuanced discussions, people are initially talking about whether a player is overrated or underrated, and it turns into a discussion of whether that player is good or bad. We’ve reached that point in the Jaylen Brown analytics discussion, and it’s exhausting.

The good news for everyone is that the Sixers are a great environment to find out the truth of the matter. Nick Nurse’s system of Just-Iso-And-Go-Get-A-Bucket Ball is about as far from Mazzulla’s quick ball movement reliance as you can get. The weakness of Brown’s playmaking, while real, will have less of an impact here on everyone else. In addition, Brown will get the opportunity to play with a (theoretically) lower offensive load next to Maxey, Joel Embiid, and VJ Edgecombe. When he’s not forced to create everything on his own, he might be able to find more efficiency and have the energy to put more effort into the little things that make a star player truly elite.

But still, bottom line: Either the on/off analytics ghosts follow him down I-95 or they don’t. We’re finally going to find out.

Subscribe now

Everyone seems to think the Sixers are LeBron’s short list. So what’s going to happen? Also, the Summer League Sixers get slaughtered by the Rockets, and what is going on with Joel Embiid and Jaylen Brown?

The Rights To Ricky Sanchez is presented by Draft Kings

Adam Ksebe is the official realtor of The Ricky at 302-864-8643 or

https://www.buyindelaware.com

Get 20% off Verb Energy bars with code RTRS and the VERB starter pack at https://verbenergy.com/ricky

Kornblau Law is the official law firm of the process

Surfside Iced Tea and Vodka is the official canned cocktail of The Ricky

I remember there being some tweet that went semi-viral on NBA Twitter, probably around 2019, that pictured a Sixers fan being at a future championship parade and saying to themselves: “I wonder what Robert Covington is up to.” You can tell it’s from 2019, both by Cov still being The One That Got Away and by the idea that a Sixers march down Broad Street was still a future that we were inexorably headed towards. But the implication, of course, was that us Process-era Sixers fans were so obsessed both with Our Guys and with flaming the front office for letting them go, that we would rather stew in anger and bitterness over what was no longer than to enjoy what actually was.

Well, that’s basically me this summer. Under the new fearless leadership of Mike GANSEYYYYYYY this offseason, the Sixers have pulled off the most shocking heist of perhaps the entire NBA decade — on the heister’s side, not the heistee, if you can believe it — scored a couple long-coveted, well-fitting free agents, and drafted a fun first-round guard who might be leading the Sixers to the first winning Summer League record of my lifetime. They’re even still in the hunt to host the greatest basketball player of the 21st century’s farewell tour. But all I can really think about is: I wonder what Kelly Oubre Jr.’s up to.

I mean, I sorta know: He’s in (or at least slowly headed towards) Indiana, where he signed a two-year, $17-million contract earlier this month, a deal first announced before the Sixers’ flurry of mega-activity. The news of him leaving was upsetting but not shocking; the Sixers long appeared to be headed in a different direction, one in which we had too many other guys to prioritize and/or guys who weren’t going anywhere regardless to likely make Oubre happy. I wished the final numbers had been a little bigger, just to make it a little less of a debate — if the question was whether we’d rather have Dean Wade for four years, $39 million or Oubre for two and $17, I certainly know what my answer would be — but it was fine, sort of. He was gone. Oh I. Oh I.

It set in gradually but unmistakably just how much I was already starting to miss Kelly. It’s hard to go three seasons on the Sixers and leave without having any particularly bad memories associated with you. Even some of our franchise legends — indeed, even our much-beloved two-timer Robert Covington — have big moments of marked underperformance on their resume, and/or things we always wanted them to learn to start doing but never did, and/or things they said or did or wanted that clearly meant it was never gonna happen for them here long-term. And the three years that Oubre was here for were by no means golden ones for the Sixers; had we not pulled off the upset of upsets in the first round last season, it would’ve inarguably been the most ignominious period in franchise history since before this whole thing started.

Still, it’s tough to think of Kelly and not only think of good times. Him hitting a three from the corner and blowing a kiss to the opposite bench. Him drawing an offensive foul and giving a big ol’ “FIRST DOWWWWN!” hand-chop in the other direction to the roaring home crowd. Him getting called for a defensive foul and rolling his eyes and doing the “flop” motion at an uninterested ref. Him swinging on the rim for a half-second too long while mean-mugging at the photographers for prosperity. Him learning how to pass just in time to give Mike a glimmer of last-second hope for his five-assist games pre-season prediction. Him putting up 30 and 12 at home against the Grizzlies the same night Cam Payne posted 32 and 10, to save the Sixers’ regular season and give Spike his biggest Sixersgasm of the year. Him turning all of Philadelphia into a vigilant neighborhood watch by getting hit by a car, then... maybe not who knows. And of course — of course of course — him forever dubbing the entire refereeing industry as bitch-made, going back multiple generations. It’s just amazing he was able to get so much personality, so much singularity, so many eternal moments into just three otherwise largely unremarkable seasons of Sixers basketball.

Was there Bad Kelly stuff in between all of those? I guess? I mean there must’ve been, right — otherwise he’d probably still be here? His three-point percentage was always a little low. His positional awkwardness as a 3/4 tweener could make him a tough fit in certain lineups. He never helped us a ton on the glass or as a secondary playmaker. When he wasn’t locked in, he could sometimes be really not locked in. But man... it is so easy for me to get frustrated with the Sixers on both a team and individual level. Joel Embiid is very easily my favorite basketball player of all time and if you asked me for a top 10 list of things he does that drives me nuts, I’d probably try to sneak in an 11th and 12th as honorable mentions. But Kelly... I don’t really feel any of it. It’s there, I guess, but I have to really struggle to think of any of it, and I can only kinda pretend to actually be mad about most of it. I mean look at that face. Who could stay mad at Kelly Oubre Jr.?

Maybe I wouldn’t be spending so much emotional energy this summer pining after Kelly if I hadn’t spent the last decade rooting against Jaylen Brown — and most of the last two decades rooting against LeBron James. I can recognize the great things they will or would do for the Sixers and acknowledge on an objective level that it’s fucking batshit crazy insane that we actually got the former and have even the slimmest of chances to land the latter, but does that mean I’m actively excited at the prospect of rooting for either on the Sixers? Not particularly. Labaron Philon Jr. will almost certainly be an easier sell on me once I totally lock into Summer League mode, but with the Phillies suddenly finding themselves in a real division race (and about to host All-Star festivities) and the World Cup hanging over everything, it’s been a little slower-going for me to get there this year. Then maybe Anfernee Simons in the preseason? Or maybe Jaylen will offer enough Boston subtweets over his livestreams that he’ll actually endear himself to me? Maybe Covington out of retirement for round three??

We’ll see, I suppose. In the meantime, I’m scouting Indiana as a League Pass second squad this year. They’re fun, right? They’re the one team Knicks fans hate as much as we now hate the Knicks? They haven’t beaten the Sixers in the playoffs since the Iverson era? They’ve still got T.J.? If Kelly’s there, I’m there. If the Sixers do end up having a championship parade, I’ll give him a lift. We don’t wanna risk him riding his bike around the parade route anyway.

Subscribe now

Andrew Unterberger writes for The Rights To Ricky Sanchez, as part of the ‘If Not, Pick Will Convey as Two Second-Rounders’ section of the site. You can follow Andrew on Twitter @AUGetoffmygold and can also read him at Billboard.

Mike is off hosting duties as Spike is back to discuss the sizzling Summer League Sixers, whether or not he wants LeBron James to choose the Sixers, and how his thoughts have developed on the Jaylen Brown trade.

The Rights To Ricky Sanchez is presented by Draft Kings

Anthony Degli Obizzi is the official Financial Planner of The Ricky, text RICKY to 484-471-4873 to set up a conversation

Become a MortgageCS Ricky VIP at mortgagecs.com/ricky

Surfside Iced Tea and Vodka is the official canned cocktail of The Ricky

New DraftKings customers, sign up with code RTRS spend five bucks to get two hundred in rewards within 21 days. That’s code RTRS. In Partnership with DraftKings. The Crown Is Yours. Bet with DK Sportsbook: Gambling Problem? Call one eight hundred GAMBLER, one eight hundred MY RESET. Connecticut: call eight eight eight seven eight nine seven seven seven seven, visit CCPG dot org. On behalf of Boot Hill Casino in Kansas. Bet tax pass-through may apply in Illinois. Twenty one plus. Void in Canada. Event contract trading with DraftKings Predictions involves risk of loss. Availability varies. Bet to get Bonus bets that expire in seven days. Trade to get fifty dollars in Predictions Dollars that expire in one year, issued every seven days via click to claim for twenty-one days. One non-withdrawable reward redeemable. Predictions offer void in New York. Ends July 19th. Terms at d k n g dot c o slash audio.

The LeBron James Sixers thing is happening again. A short eight years since Malvern-Gate and Brett Brown and whoever else flew to Los Angeles to not meet with LeBron or even Rich Paul, it’s happening again.

I was hoping this whole story would be over before I’d really have to talk about it. But it’s been a week, and it’s not dead yet, so here we are. I just have to make myself clear.

I will have a very hard time rooting for the 76ers if LeBron James is on the team.

I am just being honest. If you’ve been with us for a while, this is not surprising to you as it’s not a new opinion. I felt the same way in 2018 or whenever someone would dream about it.

I am not denying that LeBron is one of the all-time greats or that he’d make the Sixers better. I don’t want to get into the basketball of it all.

I’m not saying he’s a bad guy. I don’t know him and have nothing personal against him. I just simply can’t stand him, especially at this point of his career. I just wish he’d sort of fade off into the sunset, and he refuses. Insisting that he is merely one more record I’ve never heard of away from convincing all of us he’s better than Jordan (he’s not).

This would, of course, be great for content. The Ricky would become more popular, more people would listen to our radio show, etc.. Maybe we’d get a few more LeBron lies out of it. “Yeah, I’ve always been a huge fan of Skinny Joey.”

But all Sixers content would all be about LeBron, as it is wherever he goes, whenever he goes there. I find it annoying and distasteful. I’ve found this entire Decision III or whatever number it is particularly irritating.

I do not think he’s going to the Sixers, at all, as I’ve said before. I don’t buy any of the arguments that people make as nearly strong enough for me to imagine LeBron spending his final year (or one of them), in Philadelphia, making $50 million less per year than three guys on the team, watching Jaylen Brown dribble into long fadeaway twos and Embiid decide at the last minute whether he feels like playing. I don’t think it really represents his best shot to win, and I don’t think the narrative arc is nearly as strong as Cleveland or Miami. I think ultimately the Sixers are in the conversation because it makes Tyrese Maxey look great, and Rich Paul is his agent.

What’s more, how does this work if he does choose Philadelphia? I will only know for sure if it happens. But I imagine it’ll just be like a supercharged version of when Ben Simmons was here. Except that it will be so supercharged that it will be difficult for me to put my happy face on for the sake of everyone who listens to the pod and cheers for the Sixers. It will be torture for me and I’m probably not going to be able to cover it up.

I’m sorry in advance.

Team Ricky

• It seems like I miss one week of podcasts and Mike is apologizing to everyone because of an opinion he had? I’ve got to get back (be back Sunday).

• Where is everyone else? Maybe time for some food lists.

Team Non-Ricky

I haven’t really consumed much/any sports stuff over the last week. So here are some things I did consume that I enjoyed.

• I re-read Otessa Moshfegh’s book Eileen. I really liked it this time. My favorite book of hers is “My Year Of Rest And Relaxation.” I read Elieen after that one and only thought it was ok, but enjoyed it much more this time. I generally have trouble reading fiction, but I find her style, which is particularly descriptive (like Chuck Palahniuk) to work for me.

• I half-listened to and half-read Dave Portnoy’s new book Cancel Me If You Can. I liked it. I’ve never consumed very much Barstool content but how he built the thing is definitely interesting.

• I watched Lee Cronin’s The Mummy. What a fucking wild ride that is. If you’re a horror fan, give it a go. You gotta get to the second half of the thing to make it worth it, when it really gets unhinged.

  

  Subscribe now

Mike is joined by Shamus Clancy to discuss Labaron Philon and the Summer League Sixers, iced oat cortados, the hunt for LeBron James, Shamus’ thoughts on the Jaylen Brown trade, and Adam Aron tweeting then deleting Taylor Swift’s wedding.

The Rights To Ricky Sanchez is presented by Draft Kings

Surfside Iced Tea and Vodka is the official canned cocktail of The Ricky

Briggs Auction is the official auction of The Ricky at briggsauction.com

Get 20% off Verb Energy bars with code RTRS and the VERB starter pack at https://verbenergy.com/ricky

On this episode of The Carl, we discuss the album ‘Automatic For The People’ by R.E.M. and the new song “Round Of Applause At The End Of The World” by Wild Pink.

To suggest an album hit the link below.

*This episode was recorded on Sunday, June 28 2026

For all of Mutlu’s tour dates and tickets visit⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.mutlusounds.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠

The intro music is “I Should Let You Know” by Marian Hill.

This is Carl Landry Record Club episode #194

After sleeping on it, Mike has had a change of heart. He comes to you all today to take the steps towards healing, reconciliation, and a more positive path forward. He is joined by Brandon Gowton and Roy Burton to rehash the Jaylen Brown trade, JB’s post trade livestream, where Embiid fits in, signing Anfernee Simons, the importance of colonoscopies, and the potential arrival of LeBron James.

Thanks to Brandon Lee Gowton, Bleeding Green Nation, and Roy Burton, freelance contributor for PHLY, for joining the pod today.

The Rights To Ricky Sanchez is presented by Draft Kings

Surfside Iced Tea and Vodka is the official canned cocktail of The Ricky

LL Pavorsky Jewelers is where Rights To Ricky Sanchez listeners go and get engaged.

Kornblau Law is the official law firm of the process

Just a normal week, huh!? You can say this about the Sixers, they never win anything, but they certainly always want to give the podcast something to talk about.

When we did the emergency pod on Tuesday night after the trade, the timing was sort of weird. It wasn’t exactly when the trade happened, so I wasn’t able to present my immediate emotional reaction. It also was only like an hour after it happened, so I hadn’t fully digested it. I was trying to figure it out on the fly.

With the time I’ve had, I’ve settled on a few things.

I’m Very Glad They Made The Trade

Jaylen Brown is really good, a Finals MVP just two years ago, and plays hard and often. The idea that we’ll get to watch him in his prime for the next few years (I assume) rather than Paul George seems sort of like a miracle. I’m excited to watch him as a Sixer.

We (I) can get precious about the draft picks end of it sometimes, of course. But two first round picks seems more than fair. You can think of first round picks as future players (as Mike likes to) or as currency (to go exchange it for something of value). And just like currency, you can always get more of it. The league just gives it to you after every year that passes.

Also, I’ve never like hated Jaylen Brown they way I couldn’t stand say, Al Horford.

They Need to Find a Way to Move More Quickly on Joel Embiid

They’ve got to find a trade for Joel.

I say this knowing it’s going to upset a large portion of the fan base. I love Joel Embiid. I’m sorry we’re at this place.

By trading the future picks for a 30-year-old Jaylen Brown, they have doubled down on right now and Tyrese Maxey’s prime as well. You can not win a title with a $60+ million super max sitting on the bench for half of the games and unable to play every game in the playoffs. It just won’t work in the 2026 version of the NBA.

It would be hard enough to build out a roster with Brown and Embiid’s salary together (only one of the players with a Top 18 NBA salary was even playing in the Finals), much less when one of them doesn’t play enough. And to top it off, Embiid isn’t some role player or “fits anywhere” wing. When Embiid is playing, it all revolves around him.

Also, don’t act like the fact that Shams noted that Brown reached out to Maxey and Edgecombe, and did not do that with Embiid, isn’t notable. Don’t act like Brown calling Maxey and Edgecombe on his Twitch stream, but not Embiid, isn’t notable.

The Knicks weren’t just the best team in the playoffs this year, they were the healthiest. I was mostly resigned to letting the Embiid years play out, rather than spending draft capital to do it. I don’t think you can wait it out anymore. I don’t think now is the time for half measures. Not to mention, I’m just not sure we need three players thinking they’re the No. 1 option.

The Sixers need a deeper roster, a rim protecting center (or a true stretch three, or both) they can count on to play every game, and to not waste the prime years of Brown and Maxey.

I Am, Of Course, A Little Terrified of Trading With the Celtics

The Celtics are a well run organization who have been in the Finals twice over the last decade and won one. They lost their coach to some weird controversy and just had the next Coach Of The Year sitting on their bench. Their other coach just decided to be their GM and somehow is great at it. They already took advantage of the Sixers almost ten years ago with the Fultz/Tatum trade. There are a lot of reasons to be scared here.

While I think the Sixers did the right thing, I am just going to stop short of the people saying they “fleeced” the Celtics. That doesn’t add up to me. No matter what price the Sixers paid, they still offered more than everyone else.

The Celtics mismanagement of the situation is of course the reason for a lot of this I’d guess. But it doesn’t change the fact that the player we just traded for was available for every team, and every team either decided to pass on the opportunity or offer less than us.

Perhaps it’s because I’m damaged emotionally from the last 13 years. But I’m sleeping with one eye open on this one.

The Year of the YouTube Big Board

The Sixers took Labaron Philon Jr. in the draft, who was #2 on this year’s YouTube Big Board. It was a big win for the YTBB.

But the signing of Anfernee Simons might be an even bigger one. The die-hards know that Simons was one of the original “what are you talking about?!” YTBB stars from years ago. Both Mike and our draft expert guest were taken aback when Simons was in my Top 10. I’m thrilled that he’s a Sixer.

The last time a new POBO tried to pander to us we ended up with TLC and Furk though, so I guess be careful what you wish for.

No LeBron

No, I don’t want LeBron.

Also no, I don’t think LeBron is spending the last year of his career in Philly watching Brown dribble the air out of the ball and Joel showing up at 6:45 for a 7:30 game deciding at the last minute if he wants to play. Yes, even if Maxey has the same agent.

Team Ricky

• Here are Beckett’s initial thoughts on the trade. He’ll have a detailed Stat-Man type analysis next week.

• Here’s the draft night pod.

• Here’s AU going long on turning 40.

Team Non-Ricky

• Here’s KOC’s trade reaction pod (it’s a good one).

  

  Subscribe now

Mike Gansey’s not asleep anymore…

In a stunning move yesterday with a rival who has never, not once, gotten the better of us in a trade, the Sixers dealt Paul George, two first-round picks, and two second-round picks to Boston for disgruntled Celtics star Jaylen Brown. I don’t even know where to start.

I guess the most important item of note — and one that probably shouldn’t be lost debating the finer points here — is that Jaylen Brown is good at basketball. Brown is coming off a season where he had 28.7 PPG, 6.9 RPG, and 5.1 APG, placed 6th in MVP voting, and earned Second-Team All-NBA honors, just barely missing the last First-Team slot to Cade Cunningham. As I’m sure you’re aware, he’s also a Finals MVP and proven performer both in and out of the playoffs, who has unfortunately shown the proof of that against the Sixers on more occasions than I’d like to recall. People can get hung up on the analytics side of the Brown debate (stay tuned for a deeper breakdown here next week) and lose track of the overall fact that he has been a consistent top-two contributor to one of the best teams in basketball for the last decade.

Almost more importantly than all of that, though, is his durability. He’s never played fewer than 57 games in a season — a number that Paul George has only hit once since the 2018-19 season in OKC — and has been hovering right around 70 games played per year in four of the last five seasons. We’ve been begging for years to be able to stay afloat with Joel Embiid off the court, and Gansey just acquired a player with a proven track record of helping his team do exactly that, having just carried the Celtics to the two-seed in the East without Jayson Tatum. This is humongous for Joel and especially Tyrese Maxey, who has been forced to shoulder almost the entirety of the team’s offensive load for the last couple of years, leading the league in minutes and carrying most of the scoring responsibility.

We have plenty of time to talk about the fit and play style, but the primary takeaway from this trade should be that the Sixers have gotten far more talented on the whole.

All that said, I was initially much more shocked than actually excited by the trade when my phone initially blew up at 6:17 PM yesterday. First, there was absolutely no hint that a move like this was coming. Second, dealing with the Celtics in the Process era has always been a traumatizing experience, with the Fultz and Horford experiences taking up a heavy load of mental bandwidth. Third, and most critically, however, is that it’s just so weird to take a core player from a rivalry team that I’ve hated with a passion for the last 10 years.

The locker room will also be interesting, to say the least — we are just two months removed from Jaylen Brown calling Joel Embiid a flopper after their intense seven-game playoff series. It’s the same feeling I’d have as if the Eagles suddenly traded for Dak Prescott from the Cowboys. Am I supposed to like this guy now? I just spent almost a decade of my life focused on finding ways to hate him, and now he’s on my team? It’s a rewiring of my brain chemistry, and my emotions don’t quite know how to handle it.

Even beyond the emotional side of it, the roster math still has me a little confused. The Sixers still need at minimum one more contributor in the frontcourt, ideally someone who can hold up in the playoffs (LeBron James on the minimum anyone?). As currently constructed, they’re still relying on Adem Bona and Ariel Hukporti as their only centers — both of whom I believe are solid backups, but also aren’t players I trust to combine for 48 minutes in a night when Joel Embiid is inevitably out.

However, after today’s Anfernee Simons signing for two years and $12.3 million, they are running into a bit of a math problem with only $4.3 million remaining under the hard cap. They conveniently have a $4.2 million trade exception thanks to Jared McCain, but the options are limited, and they have only one open roster spot remaining. None of that changes the calculus on the trade itself — it just means the front office can’t be finished. I know this drill all too well: get excited about a big move, then watch ownership stop just short of closing the gap that actually needed closing.

But even accounting for the lack of depth, this is still the most aggressive the Sixers have been since the Jimmy Butler and James Harden trades. We’ve spent every season dreaming about the newest possible target we could add to the team to maybe, just maybe, make a run if things broke right… only for the front office and ownership to trade away talent for purely tax-ducking purposes once we reached the deadline. Gansey is coming in and going for it with a move that has shaken the league to its core; that has to count for something.

I love it the most for Embiid’s sake though, with the Sixers not just letting the big guy’s last few seasons of (sorta) health waste away into oblivion. We’ve spent the last two years focused on finding the fun in the little things, without any real contender to put our full effort behind. It would have been far too easy to mentally check out over the next few seasons while we waited for the Embiid and PG contracts to clear up cap space again. The team was a little too good to actually target a tank again (nor would the new lottery system allow it), but wasn’t good enough to make us really believe it could go anywhere, as the Knicks so aptly showed in this year’s playoffs. Now we are all forced back on board the train, whether we like it or not, and can finally put our full-hearted effort towards winning games again.

Will it work? Who knows! In fact, probably not! It doesn’t work for most teams, and especially not when that team is the Sixers! But it’ll be fun regardless and provides a real draw to a season that I, for one, can’t wait to get sucked into. Just give me some time to process the emotions first.

Subscribe now