Fuck It, Let's Kick the Can
We gotta take another shot at doing this thing right.
Andrew Unterberger is a famous writer who invented the nickname 'Sauce Castillo' and is now writing 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.Â
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If this Sixers season is proving one thing, it's that a Philly fanbase and a pretty good, sometimes great, often unwatchable and always strange team is a tough pairing. Depending on who you talk to -- really, depending on when you talk to them -- the 2021-'22 Sixers are either a near-contender built around an MVP that's just one or two players away from figuring out the whole puzzle or a jagged mess of a team consisting solely of slow-thinking, slow-moving edge pieces. Is the real crime for this team punting on a year of Joel Embiid's prime, or is it believing that Tyrese Haliburton and Harrison Barnes could be the answers to any and all remaining questions? Does it matter what we do with Ben Simmons when we still have Tobias Harris at a near-max deal and Doc Rivers as coach? Is Jalen Hurts really the future of the franchise? Yes, sure, maybe, who knows, probably not, wake us up when February 10th ends.
I don't pretend to be any different or better. I thought the Sixers would be about a 46-36 team this year, but I've been very able to talk myself into them actually being way better or much worse depending on how the most recent week/game/quarter has gone. It all still about averages to believing in them remaining about a 46-36 team, but the seeds of doubt on both sides are there and sprouting with the slightest watering. I've had spells of hoping the Sixers holding on to Ben Simmons for literal years to come -- Daryl Morey's version of carving "4 REAL" into his arm -- and I've had moments of saying whatever, just trade him for whichever sub-seven-footer on the Pacers scored 30 most recently and let's move on with our lives. I am legitimately unsure what the best play is; talk to me forcefully for 10 minutes from either position or anywhere in between and I'll have to concede that you're probably right.
At least until this past week. Nothing's really changed with the team or the cloud of uncertainty hanging over them, but the James Harden smoke -- see it billowing out there from just over the hillside, children -- basically has me convinced: It's time to kick the can again, at least until next summer. We gotta take another shot at doing this thing right.
Understand that this is not to say that I believe with every fiber of my body, or even a convincing majority of fibers, that the chance for us to get Harden is real. Spike says it's more than just idle gossip; he's not often wrong about these things so I'll take his word. But do I believe that there's an actual likelihood of James Harden to both leave Brooklyn and set up shop 90 miles south? Not particularly. Would I put the odds at 25 percent, 10 percent, however much a Spotify stream is worth percent? I dunno man; it's impossible to tell how real any of this stuff ever is, but people much smarter and more wired in than I don't scoff when it's brought up (including by Spike and Mike). So to steal from a Hannibal Burress bit, the percent chances are probably somewhere around the total number of projects Meek Mill has released; you don't know what that number is, but you know it's probably more than 8 and less than 30.
It's an easy fantasy to buy into -- hell, we already bought into it in full almost exactly a year ago. Harden might not fix everything for the Sixers, but then again, maybe he would: Even on the wrong side of 30, he's still a one-man offensive engine who would at once be both the best scorer and the best passer Embiid has ever played with, without causing any uncomfortable positional or personality overlap. His numbers are a little down this year but coming up again, and the thought of him and Joel in some evolved system of Moreyball, running the two-man game against the Celtics or Raptors and drawing fouls until the entire opposing roster is in the penalty box... I mean, it feels kinda right. It feels like the answer.
But then again, it also feels like the answer to 20-some other teams, likely including the one Harden is currently on (who might win the championship this year and/or any of the next 3-5 years if they stay together). The Process Faithful have been burned holding out for a hero before -- again, including this very hero -- and even a 30% chance of Harden coming here still leaves us waving goodbye from the airport terminal seven out of 10 times. Betting on it actually happening this time is essentially putting smart money on heartbreak.
Of course, swinging for the fences every time when the pitcher might not ever give you anything clean over the plate isn't a particularly sustainable strategy; eventually you gotta just try to get on base and keep the line moving. Fair, and I do see something in the Mike-approved strategy of dealing for tradeable pieces that help a little now while still keeping options open for a bigger move down the line. That may have to be the solution eventually anyway; Simmons isn't exactly appreciating in value while spending the better part of a whole season away from the game. Holding onto Simmons in the potentially vain hopes that you can get a A-list return for him rather than figuring out how to make it work with a couple B-listers is, in its own way, sorta cowardly.
And I'll admit it: I'm absolutely a coward with this stuff. I accepted it was time for it to happen, but I didn't really want to trade Simmons for Harden before the deadline last year. Hell, I didn't even want to trade Markelle Fultz -- already a year into his shooting amnesia -- for a pre-Toronto Kawhi Leonard four summers ago. I am almost always in favor of checking to the dealer, of keeping outs available, of holding a decent stack of chips in reserve just in case. I'm not particularly proud of it, and in moments I've even wished for some Manic Pixie Dream GM to shake me out of my complacent slumber with their wild, risk-taking, nut-up-or-shut-up ways. But I've generally accepted that this is who I am: Sometimes I'm OK just staying in the game till the end rather than going for the glory early and risking leaving with nothing.
That's one way to look at it, certainly. But the other way is... well, we've come this far already, haven't we? If Doug Collins and Tony DiLeo were still stewarding the Sixers, we'd probably have traded Ben on draft night for Tim Hardaway Jr. and Jalen Brunson; we'd win 50-some games during the regular season, declare victory more often than a pop star's PR team, and then get bounced once again in the second round of the playoffs. The Process was supposed to be all about not accepting compromise, about seeing your vision through to the end no matter how rocky the road gets on the way there, about good enough never being fucking good enough. Would Sam Hinkie trade Ben Simmons for John Collins?
It's possible, I guess. Nobody can do this shit forever and though the clock might not exactly be ticking with Ben -- historic flaws and all, he's still a 25-year-old who's under contract for three more years after this one, who's been an All-Star in three of his five pro seasons and who finished second in Defensive Player of the Year voting just last year -- we can't be so casual as to not even set an alarm for the morning. Eventually this will come to a head, the ownership (or Joel) will demand some kind of action, and even some of the unimpressive options now might seem like Le Bec-Fin compared to the reheated leftovers we end up having to settle for. Even Hinkie would have to acknowledge that eventually.
But that pressure isn't there right now -- not really. Even the pro-trade fans don't really expect this team to contend this season, and Joel seems in no particular rush, particularly as long as he's healthy, stringing together fun individual streaks and entering the "entering the MVP conversation" conversation. Tyrese Maxey is steadily improving to the point where "future star" still feels optimistic but not quite delusional. Tobias' contract looks in contention for league-worst, but he's the only really bad deal on our books; basically everyone else is at good, tradeable value. It's not a young team, necessarily, but it's not a particularly old team either. The Nets pretty much have to win today, because for them, there might not be a tomorrow. The Sixers might not have all the time in the world anymore, but we can at least still see to the end of the week.
To me, it all adds up to holding to Daryl's original philosophy with the Ben trade: targeting a legit All-Star-caliber guy who fits the team's needs and timeline, and waiting on the line until one becomes properly available. Maybe that's James Harden -- would be really nice not to go 0-2 there -- but maybe it's not. In any event, it's probably someone that's not going to magically fall into our lap between now and Feb. 10. So yeah, in the meantime, let's wind up that right leg and give that can a big Arryn Siposs-after-the-first-quarter-type boot in the hopes that the stars align for us to get the real deal next summer. It may be cowardly, but at least it's unquestionably Process.