Let's Chill With This Offseason

There's one more thing the Sixers have to do, and it's probably the most important and most challenging step of all: They've gotta stop.

Andrew Unterberger is a famous writer who invented the nickname 'Sauce Castillo' and 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. 

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I'm not used to the Sixers doing what I asked them to do. I asked them not to trade Nerlens Noel at the 2017 trade deadline; they dealt him for a fake first-round pick and a future Pizzagater who never even played here. I asked them to either lose the Hawks series in six games or win it in seven; they lost it in a spirit-crushing, nearly summer-ruining seven. And every offseason before this one I asked them to be chill, and they ended up being weird. That's fine, mostly -- sports teams actually doing what you want all the time would probably end up being a cruel fate anyway, like one of those Twilight Zone episodes where the guy realizes he's actually in hell because he always catches his inside straight playing poker or whatever. 

Still, this offseason has been a refreshing change of pace so far: The Sixers have done pretty much everything I've wanted. I asked them to trade their first-round pick on draft night; they sent it to Memphis for De'Anthony Melton. I asked them to finally try running it back for real, and so far that’s just what they're doing: Rather than upending their team's core for the fourth straight offseason -- fifth if you count the Butler trade that happened weeks into the 2018-'19 season -- they're just added complementary players around the margins, fortifying rather than reinventing. They're even (reportedly, supposedly, hopefully) on the verge of re-signing James Harden to an extremely short-term deal, though (almost) everyone was asking for that one so I won't claim too much credit there. 

It's almost perfect, really. But there's one more thing the Sixers have to do, and it's probably the most important and most challenging step of all: They've gotta stop.

As is increasingly the case with the NBA every offseason -- and as appears to be the wont of its viewing audience -- this summer has quickly devolved into chaos. A butterfly flaps its wings in China and Kevin Durant asks for a trade in Brooklyn; before you know it, half of Basketball Twitter is using the trade machine to pry loose any star player not completely nailed down. The people are no longer sated by Dejounte Murray and Rudy Gobert unexpectedly changing teams within a week of one another, nor even by Brian Windhorst putting on the most electric display of NBA showmanship since Vince Carter made Kenny Smith and Michael Keaton see God at the 2000 Slam Dunk Contest. The people demand slop, consistently and ceaselessly, and the league seems more or less willing to supply it.

Now we have Donovan Mitchell. Woj reports that the Jazz aren't not picking up the phone when called about Officer Donovan's availability, which I guess in 2022speak means he is officially available for the highest bidder and inexorably on his way out of Salt Lake. It's a temptation, and it's not one Sixers Twitter appears interested in resisting -- perhaps more out of routine than genuine desire at this point, as landing Mitchell would almost undoubtedly mean losing Tyrese Maxey, and I sincerely hope no Process Trusters out there are actually calling to send our dirt-cheap, rapidly improving 21-year-old franchise jewel for an Enemy of the Process on a max contract who doesn't play defense and can't get any farther in the playoffs than we can.

I don't love any of this. The Sixers are finally right where I want them for an offseason, and we keep getting mentioned -- by betting parlors, by questionably sourced reporters, by our own people -- in conjunction with core-shaking players looking for a new love, even though none of them really make that much sense as trade targets (in terms of what they'd give us and/or what it would take for us to get them). There's not much indication of Daryl Morey getting firmly in the mix for any of these dudes yet; maybe he's still too busy doing the Wolverine Crush meme thing with an old photo of Eric Gordon. But these things move far too quickly for comfort, and I never know when I'm going to wake up and find the roster has switched formats from Hot AC to Classic Alternative.

Last week, I tweeted something about how Isaiah Joe needed to get at least a month as the Sixers' starting three next year, no matter how poorly it started or how detrimental it ultimately proved to the team's regular season. A surprising number of folks were willing to engage me on this point: Some said I was reading far too much into Summer League play and they were right, some said I hadn't given enough consideration to Joe being undersized to consistently play the three at the pro level and they were also right, some thought I should delete my Twitter account altogether and while that seemed a little extreme to me they may have had a point too. It was a questionable and hastily delivered take that should not have been taken that seriously by anyone (even though I still believe it in my heart to be good and right and true).

I don't bring up my Swiss cheese Isaiah Joe take to defend or debate it, only to say that this is the kind of nonsense I want to be engaging in at this point in the offseason. This is the time for Summer League crushes, for prospect scouting and/or slandering, for lineup suggestions/demands, for a lot of theoretical hokum that cannot yet be definitively proven or disproven for at least a couple of months still anyway. Do we still really need the looming threat of a big trade turning our world upside down every week? It's summer, ferchrissake. Grab a cold one and let's just chill by the lake and talk about possible lineups with P.J. Tucker as the small-ball five for a minute.

I mean, I get it, of course. Sports are 95% distraction from real-world terror and fury at this point anyway, and the more we get to contemplate seemingly earth-shaking trades for Kevin Durant or Kyrie Irving or Donovan Mitchell, the less room we have for actually earth-shaking developments in Roe v. Wade, the Uvalde shooting, monkeypox, the 2024 presidential election (only 28 months away!) and so on and so on. And yeah, we might get a month into this season and realize that Running It Back was not the cure-all solution I blindly hoped it to be, and that another big move is still needed to avoid Joel Embiid's 27th second-round exit in 28 seasons. But the calm of actually quitting while we're ahead is a peace we've rarely if ever known as Sixers fans, and I want to know what it feels like. It's the last thing I'll ask for this offseason, and it should be by far the easiest to indulge: Just walk away from the table (and close that Twitter tab), Daryl.