What The Sixers Can Learn From The Phillies 🟥

The Opening Tip
 

Hello & Happy Almost Weekend - It's the Corner Three!

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THE OFFICIAL DRINK OF RED OCTOBER

Oh Yeah, The Sixers

What can the Sixers learn from the Phillies? 
(EVERYTHING! No but this is just a few things that have been on my mind. Also, completely different sports and roster constructions etc. lay off me and enjoy alright! Just tired of writing about H*rden)
 

Consistency - Front office, coaching staff, top of roster. It continues to matter

Accountability - If you're going to lose the same excruciating way each playoff year, atleast have the guts to look inward.

Toughness and Togetherness - The Phillies go down 5-0 and you get the feeling that they're probably going to win 6-5, because that's how they carry themselves, they're tough, nasty and always lean on one another when the road gets rough. See the first point.

Simplifying the game - Again, very high level, but the Phillies took the get guys who can throw strikes and guys who can hit the ball really fucking hard ethos and said voila. Sometimes (all the time) you just need guys who can do shit. The Sixers always find themselves on the short end of guys who can do both, score on one end and get a stop on the other. Too many liabilities, not enough luxuries. 

Keep the goal, the goal - The goal is a championship right? Then just say that. Stop talking in code and percentages and differentials. The goal is building the best damn championship contender you can, until it no longer isn't the goal. Make it easier on yourselves and everyone else, the only goal is a championship, done. 

The Star is the Star when it matters most - All those other points are moot when compared to this one really. Bryce Harper has given the Phillies his very best 99% of the time they needed it. The team and us as fans are still waiting for Joel Embiid's signature playoff moment, and after last year, some (myself included) are beginning to seriously question if it'll ever come while he's a Sixer. 

We hit our goal, so now we get a new goal. Bark In The Park is Saturday (rain or shine, see you there!) and we hit our $15,000 goal for Providence Animal Center. We now have no choice but to raise the goal to $20,000, a new record. Donate here.

Please also consider donating to the Trust The Pawcess team. This team was put together in memory and honor of Andrew Schock, a Ricky guy who was on our team, who passed away a few years ago after a six year fight with liver cancer. Sending love to Andrew's family and friends for this awesome tribute.

Mike's Corner... 'I've Decided To Become A Kelly Oubre Guy'

Every week Spike or Mike will give you something that's on their mind. It's Mike's week, and he's writing about Kelly Oubre.

I’m deciding to be a Kelly Oubre Guy.

More that I’m reupping my membership from his time in college, coming in the year after Embiid left to be the most intriguing prospect on a Perry Ellis & Frank Mason-led Jayhawks team. An athletic 2-way wing who got better as the season went on, with dynamic block & steal rates and a wildly low turnover rate, and who led the team in defensive rebounding the second half of the year. As a freshman wing! I believed!!

Then he went into a black hole untethered from space and time (the Washington Wizards organization) and I didn’t hear from him for a few years.

Now he’s back in my life. With a reputation as a chucker (earned), a distractible defender (earned), and an extremely unwilling passer (averaged 32mpg last season and he had over 3 assists exactly once all year). But he’s also the first appropriately-sized, appropriately-skilled, actually-undervalued-for-once wing the Sixers have had on their bench since…….

…….

Jumaine Jones?

Part of this I’m sure is the gravitational pull of our innate podcast balance, since Spike has staked his anti-Oubre position. But I have to think the motivation factor matters. I have to think playing for an actually good team for the 2nd time as a pro matters. He scored his 20 a night. It ended with him having absolutely no market and settling for a veteran’s minimum. 

He made open catch & shoot 3’s in the preseason home opener. I’ve seen enough! He will continue to get those opportunities, playing off of Embiid & Maxey. Coming off the bench and using his length & athleticism & beautiful eyes for 20 minutes a night should be the right-sized role for him. He can absolutely help this team, and this team can absolutely help him. 

After years of hoping unathletic shooters can learn to defend (they couldn’t), or defense-first athletes can learn to shoot (they didn’t), rolling out a guy like Kelly Oubre who *can shoot* and *can defend* is a novel idea. His weakness, like Andrew Wiggins before him, is knowing what he is, and how he can help a good team. Being the capable 3rd wing behind Tobias & PJ on a vet min should be the kick in the ass he needs to extend his career as Athletic James Ennis and get paid better money next year by a team that is not the Sixers. 

My year of looking the other way when he tries to be Anthony Edwards starts now.

Peace, Love and Process 6 More, Topper               

                                                           -Zo