VOTE NOW: Should Spike watch the Sixers? 🏀
The Opening Tip
Hello & Happy Almost Weekend - It's the Corner Three!
Oh Yeah, The Sixers
WELP... a mere week and and some change away from training camp and it looks increasingly likely that they're actually going to do this. The Sixers going to conduct camp with the expectation that a guy who went on a international go fuck yourself tour aimed at a particular Sixers President of Basketball Ops whom he once loved and admired, will care enough to show up and be professional when he has never in his career, done so when faced with a playing situation he no longer desires to be in.
Maybe it'll work this time though!
This Week's Top 10 (Ways that the 2023-24 Season Could End for the Sixers)
10. A new and improved bacteria disease shuts down the world
09. The Monstars come back for Space Jam 3
08. The Players grow tired of Nick Nurse playing his guitar solos at shootaround and stage a walkout
07. Nick Nurse plays starters 44 minutes a night and their knees turn to saw dust
06. 2nd Round Exit with flare this time
05. 1st Round loss to the Magic (Fultz Redux)
04. 1st Round loss to my Detroit Pistons
03. 2nd Round loss to the Bucks
02. ECF Sweep by the Celtics
01. 2nd Round loss followed quickly by the Jo Embiid trade request
Spike's Corner... Let Me Watch The Sixers
Every week Spike or Mike will give you something that's on their mind. It's Spike's week, and he's asking to go back on his promise.
First: please join our Bark In The Park team or donate at the link. It's been an especially difficult year for animal shelters with many pandemic adoptions being returned or even worse, abandoned. We are trying to get to $15,000 for Providence Animal Center. Donate or join: https://bit.ly/RickyBARK
If you had asked me a few months ago if I had a way to skip watching this year's Sixers, and still be able to do the podcast, I would have paid you to give me the secret to this. At this point in our journey, watching the team, during the regular season especially, in a lot of ways is the worst part of the process.
But today I am asking for your permission to go back on my promise to not watch. Today I'm also telling you that you need me.
As you may remember, several weeks ago, annoyed at the prospect of James Harden's return, I swore I would not watch the team if Harden was in a Sixers uniform. As we close in on training camp and the preseason, it seems at least possible, and actually likely, that Harden suits up for at least part of the season with the team. Quite fairly and understandably, Mike is holding me to my promise.
First let me reassure you, I don't want to watch James Harden on the Sixers. We've been through so much over the last 10 years, that Harden pulling a Tony In Blue Chips against Miami in 2022 and then again against Boston in 2023 seems like not such a big deal. "Haha, remember when James Harden tried to lose so he could get the coach fired and go home?" What I'm telling you here is that it was a big deal, I remember it, and I will never forget it. If his performance happened for a normal basketball team there would be books written about how bad he was. I'm not saying what he did was was on purpose, but I'm not saying it wasn't on purpose, and if it wasn't on purpose, that's almost more concerning. The idea of watching him play for the Sixers makes me want to throw up.
The fact is, you and I need me to watch James Harden on the Sixers.
We've got a Mike right now that we've never seen before. Striking Mike I'll call him. Full of energy and ideas. He's reading the prep sheet. He's coming up with ideas before the show goes live. He's sending CJ trades to bring up and surprise me. He seems awake most of the time. But eventually this strike is going to end, the season is going to start, and you're going to need me to balance the scales.
While it is fairly perceived that Mike is the "basketball guy" between the two of us, I need you to remember some things that Mike has said and done over the last several years that I was there to push back on.
* Mike believed in Jonah Bolden for a really long time.
* Mike said Zhaire Smith would play meaningful minutes in the playoffs.
* Mike said that Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid would be a successful pairing long after it was clear they would not.
* Mike said Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid had a 50% chance of winning a title together after it was clear they did not.
* Mike spent an entire season unable to criticize Ben Simmons because he was getting paid to write a TV show about him.
* Mike was initially refusing to do a podcast after Sam Hinkie resigned.
* He won't admit it, but he overrated Matisse Thybulle for far too long.
* Mike said Hollis Thompson would be better than Khris Middleton.
* Mike said last night that Kelly Oubre, who was unsigned in mid-September even though he scored 20 points a game, and stole James Harden's girlfriend, was a 'great signing.'
* I was right about Christian Wood. He's a loser.
This isn't to point out that Mike is bad, I love Mike. He's great. He's right a lot too. But the point is I need to watch the games so I can tell you when he's full of shit. I can't just guess on this. I need to be there to protect you from him, to protect you from yourselves. We cannot let Mike have free reign to tell you what's happening in the basketball games without guardrails.
Mike is obviously more of a basketball guy than me. I don't coach my wife's team, and I'd never have come up with the 1-2-1 zone. But Mike's also far too emotional to be your only source of Sixers information on the podcast. I don't want to watch the Sixers. I hate them. I need to watch the Sixers, because I love you.
Vote here on whether I should.
Peace, Love and Process On the Way to 3-0
-Zo