I am not trying to cope about the Sixers trading away Jared McCain, I am truly living with the grief (anger).
Every time he has a good game, as I will do for the next decade, I tweet something about how good it was and say something sarcastic about how the Sixers couldn’t possibly have found minutes for him. After he led the Thunder in scoring (again) in a win (again), you have examples here, here, and here. As I’ve said before, I’m never going to let this go.
When I send out these posts, there are several coping responses I get, and all of them are bullshit. There is however, one coping response that nobody has sent me, that is not bullshit, and would be the one thing that could possibly save this for GM Spreadsheet and Rock N’ Roll Coach. Before we get to that though, some of the bullshit:
1. “He only does this in garbage time against bad teams!” - BULLSHIT! Sorry, this is bullshit. Did he score 26 against the Nets and lead the team in scoring in a win again? Yes. Do the Nets suck? Yes. But he also played well and hit big shots in crunch time against the Nuggets and Timberwolves. Also, for what it’s worth, we barely beat the Nets! We could have used him.
2. “He’s not going to play during the playoffs for them!” - BULLSHIT! First of all, I’m not sure about that. Second of all, I don’t give a shit! They’re the deepest team in the league, so what? During a game this week our backcourt was Cam Payne and Kyle Lowry. What the fuck! No disrespect to either of those guys, love ‘em both, but one of them didn’t think he’d even be playing this year and is playing with a spare tire around his waist, and the other guy was literally in Serbia a month ago.
3. “He’s too small and doesn’t play defense!” - BULLSHIT! Is he some longer super-athlete who is going to win Defensive Player of The Year? No. He’s also not Muggsy Bogues. He’s 6’2”, he’s got a strong lower half, he’s smart, he works hard and he’s got good hands. I’m not saying he needed to start next to Tyrese Maxey; I’m thrilled with Edgecombe being that guy. But if you’re doubting that McCain’s defense can’t get to a spot where he can play real minutes on a contender, you would be wrong to do so, as he’s doing it now.
Here’s the one nobody says to me that might be the only coping mechanism that might work: “The Rockets are only three games out of the play-in and we have their pick.” Now you’re cooking with a little bit of gas.
When we first got the Rockets pick, we all assumed it would be in the mid-20s. It may very well be. But the Rockets are certainly not a team that seems particularly stable, has been leaking a little bit of oil — and what if they leaked a little too much oil, fell into the play-in, and lost? There’s not what I’d call a large chance of that happening. It’s not even a coin flip. It’s probably below a puncher’s chance. But it’s possible, and whatever percentage it is, it could be the only chance our friends Dr. Data and Coach Jamz have of escaping being tormented by us forever for this trade.
Begging
Still raising money for homeless dogs and cats here. Many people have been incredibly generous. The list is too long for me to write out. But we’re still like $3,000 out of the top spot and when we raise money for stuff I always want us to be the best at it.
Team Ricky
I, personally, have not cared about the NCAA Tournament in many, many years. As an aside, it did actually used to be much better, the teams were much better, and this not just some Gen X cope. It might be fine now, but it used to be much better. In any case… Since the Sixers have a pick (hey maybe two!) in this year’s draft, Beckett wrote a good piece about the players in the tournament for you to keep an eye on from a Sixers perspective.
AU will eventually have his day in Ricky court to defend this anti-tanking post he wrote earlier this week. Mike and I hardly ever agree, but when we do it’s when we want to yell at AU for something. The best thing about this piece is you can feel how much AU feels it in the piece, he knew he had to write it.
Team Non-Ricky
I am actually watching last night’s Sixers win over the Kings as I write this, and Justin Edwards is draining bucket after bucket. Mike and I generally disagree on Edwards (I truly believe this is a case of Mike being locked into his pre-draft assessment of Edwards). Sixers Adam wrote a good little ditty about the game Edwards had.
Just a solid post from our guy Kelly Oubre of photos of him.
I really can’t believe the NBA is going to expand and add two more teams while a third of the league, literally a third of the league is so bad that they’re trying to lose to get better players. It really seems like current NBA owners are trying to cash every check before their world starts crumbling in about seven years. The streaming deals were very nice but they’ll never happen again, a few of them have already sold, and now they want to add two more teams so they can get an easy check from the two new ownership groups. The NBA does not need two more teams! Move the Pelicans, move the Clippers or something, they do not need two more teams.
I think Daryl may have a bad case of hyperarrogance-itis via curve-fitting with his LLM modeling.
Grimes > McCain