Ricky Roundtable: The Sixers Without Ben Simmons (Just This Season, Calm Down)
Ricky Roundtable: The Sixers Without Ben Simmons (Just This Season, Calm Down)
Is all hope lost?
Adam Aaronson, whose legal name is Sixers Adam (@SixersAdam on Twitter), covers the Sixers for The Rights To Ricky Sanchez. He has been legally banned from covering the team in person, and when that ban was set to be lifted, Covid-19 struck. He believes cantaloupe is the best food in existence, and is brought to you by the Official Realtor of The Process, Adam Ksebe.
We all knew disaster was going to strike.
Ben Simmons’ knee injury suffered last week, a subluxation of his knee that requires surgery which will likely take him out for the remainder of the season and playoffs, was a crushing blow to a Sixers team hoping to make a surprise push deep into the playoffs.
A handful of us at Team Ricky put our heads together to answer some pressing questions facing the Sixers as a result of Ben’s injury.
(we did this roundtable under the assumption Joel Embiid will return for the playoffs. - ed.)
Question #1: It feels as if no matter what, there is always some dark cloud hanging over us all. And it’s usually not even a surprise anymore. With that being said, did the news of Ben Simmons needing knee surgery still surprise you even a little bit?
Sixers Adam: Seeing the word “surgery” will always cause alarms, but it seemed like we were headed towards a significant absence, especially after what happened with his back in February.
Mike O’Connor: The surgery itself yes, but as soon as the subluxation news came out, I figured he was out for the season. After the Sixers royally screwed up the handling of Simmons’ back injury in February, I figured there’s no shot they would have rushed him back from this one.
Spike Eskin: Nothing bad surprises me!
It's funny, I have this perception of him, like we all do, as an iron man of sorts. He does play a ton of minutes and seems very well conditioned. That said, he's had two major injuries, the broken foot in his first season and the back injury this season. A non-contact knee injury can happen to anyone, but this should be a good reminder that just because it seems like a player can go 40 minutes a game, doesn't mean he should.
Andrew Unterburger: Eh. Once it's been established that the news is bad with the Sixers, it's hard to still be surprised by the degree of badness. Actually, since I first found out about this via an out-of-context "welp" from MOC over Slack on Saturday, I guess it was kind of surprising that the news wasn't worse, or at least different -- I assumed that Joel was out now too (LOL), or that Furkan's arm had fallen off, or maybe that Matisse's YouTube channel had been taken over by right-wing extremists.
Abbie Huertas: lol. no.
Question #2: The Sixers started Al Horford in Ben’s place during his first game out. Should Horford remain the fifth starter? If not, who should it be?
SA: I’m fine with Horford being the fifth guy for now, but under the condition that he has a quick hook if things don’t go well. Brett Brown should not hesitate to make a change based on performance or an awkward matchup. I have always theorized that starting lineup consistency is overrated, and I’d like to see the Sixers be open-minded, especially given the many specialists they have on their bench.
MOC: I’m going to give the lame cop out answer and say they should keep it fluid based on matchup. If they’re playing Boston and need perimeter defenders, give me Matisse. If they’re going against Toronto’s incredible defense and need playmaking, give me Burks. If they need the physicality defensively to match up with Milwaukee, I suppose I could endure watching Horford in the starting lineup. Lame answer I know, but all of their options are extremely flawed and I don’t think any stand out.
SE: Horford has looked pretty good with Embiid, honestly. He's the best of the bunch defensively, and has been a willing shooter. Most of the conversation has been around starting Burks or Thybulle, but I think either would be a mistake. If it wasn't Horford, I'd start Korkmaz.
AU: Not that it really matters given that the Sixers seem to have thrown in the towel for the rest of restart season, but at least until the playoffs, I'd stick with Horf. Not the popular choice I know, but frustrating interior misses (and some lackluster two-way stretches against Indiana) aside, he's actually been quite good in the Bubble so far -- arguably more effective than Joel against Orlando, even. Given the dearth of playmaking in the Sixers' starting five without Ben, I think his passing and general offensive fluency is needed for this team to have a chance of putting points on the board, and Al + Jo together without Ben have demonstrated they can be a pretty effective combo.
The playoffs, obviously, may take some adjusting. I don't know who in this starting five guards Jayson Tatum or Jimmy Butler in a playoff series with Ben out -- Tobias and J-Rich could maybe survive for stretches, but I don't think either works full-time, particularly not on Tatum. We may need to get some more minutes for Matisse Thybulle, rookie learning curve and all, to try to make an impact. Or I dunno, do we have any other big, athletic potential wing stoppers on this team? Is Alex Poythress still hanging in the back somewhere?
AH: i think it should be whoever is up to the challenge. :)
Question #3: Joel Embiid is about to have just as much of an offensive burden as he possibly could. How much confidence do you have in Embiid being able to shoulder such a large workload?
SA: Obviously with the caveat that this is pending good health, I’m a lot more confident in Embiid than I thought I would have been. His passing ability and recognition of double-teams in Orlando has been a revelation — he has shown flashes of those skills before, but this is the first time he’s put it all together as a passer for an extended period. With more space to operate in the low post, it’s not hard to imagine him flourishing offensively.
MOC: Actually, quite a bit, assuming his health is okay. I think Embiid is locked in right now, and he’s about to have more spacing than he’s had all year. We all are well aware of the conflicting styles the Sixers try to play to cater to both Simmons and Embiid — run and gun for Simmons, slow pace and post-ups for Embiid. I think that now, with Embiid playing his first extended stretch of games without Simmons since his rookie year, the Sixers can really lean into the latter style and go all in on maximizing Embiid.
SE: I'm not that confident. He relies so much on post touches and getting fouled, I just think the wear and tear of that will take its toll. He just has to work so hard for his points, and I'm not sure that'll work out for an extended period of time.
AU: For as long as he's able to be out there, I think the big man will put up some pretty serious numbers. But I do think a lot of the load will also fall to Tobais Harris to be more of a volume scorer, a role which he's been sporadically (if not quite consistently) effective at playing so far this Bubble Restart. The question is if an offense built around those two guys, largely working in isolation, can be effective enough to score at a needed efficiency in the playoffs -- and I'd have my doubts there.
AH: filling these answers in after the fact is very funny to me.
Question #4: Fill in the blank: other than Joel Embiid and Tobias Harris, the Sixers more than ever need _______ to step up.
SA: I’m expecting all of my teammates to pick Shake Milton, so I’m going to zig when they zag and say Josh Richardson. We saw in his offensive outburst against Portland just how exciting of a player he can be when he adds to his defense with a tangibly positive impact on the other end. With the Sixers now desperately in need of perimeter creation and starting a rookie point guard, Richardson heating up both as a spot-up shooter and slasher would be a boon for the Sixers.
MOC: Shake Milton. For whatever reason, the Simmons-Milton lineups weren’t as good as we hoped through the first few games. Shake felt a bit useless off the ball, and never found his rhythm with Simmons in terms of balancing out who is initiating the offense. If the Sixers have any hope of regaining any momentum, a big part of it has to be Shake looking more like he did during his breakout stretch. Going back to playing full time point guard should help.
SE: I'm just not sure there's anyone on the roster I can look at besides Horford and say, "yeah, I'm confident this player can play at a high level for a full series." I'm not even at all confident that Horford can do it. I'd love another Shake Milton February/March surge, or a Furkan Korkmaz hot shooting streak, but if I'm living in reality, it's got to be Horford.
AU: Would obviously be nice for Josh Richardson to continue shooting the lights out like he did against Portland, but honestly, the answer might be Brett Brown. The Sixers are going to have to figure a lot of shit out in a pretty limited amount of time -- even less now that Joel is limping and everyone else is getting rest days -- and Brett's gonna need to be pretty fearless with his tinkering. Him recognizing what is and isn't working, and tweaking our rotation and game plan accordingly, might be the difference between us being competitive and us being a pushover in the postseason.
AH: franklin.
Question #5: Finally, what are your expectations for the Simmons-less Sixers in the playoffs?
SA: Before Ben went down, I thought this team had about a 60/40 chance of making it out of the first round and, generously, a puncher’s chance of winning in round two. I still think a first round victory is very possible, but any hopes of moving beyond that have become futile.
MOC: The same as it was before the Simmons injury — a first round exit after a hard fought series with Boston or Miami. This team has no juice.
SE: Honestly my expectations haven't changed very much. Before the injury I thought it was very realistic they'd lose in the first round, but most likely they'd lose in the second round with a small chance of making the conference finals. The only difference now is I don't think they have any chance of making the conference Finals, and a higher chance of losing in the first round.
It's also easy for us to forget that the Simmons we saw in the three Bubble games, was not the Simmons from the first scrimmage.
AU: Depends a little on Joel's health and the first-round matchup, but can't say I'm terribly optimistic in any scenario at the moment. No matter who the Sixers play, they'll be going into the series with a matchup disadvantage in at least three positions. If right, Embiid should be able to make mincemeat of Daniel Theis or Myles Turner, but does that make up for the size of the deficit we'll be at going with Shake Milton, Josh Richardson and Al Horford against Kemba Walker, Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum or Malcolm Brogdon, Victor Oladipo and T.J. Warren? It's gonna take an all-world performance from Jo to make it happen -- and I very much look forward to seeing if he can pull it off, but I wouldn't necessarily feel great betting on it.
AH: expectations are lower than none.
What a fitting final answer!