Embiid's MRI Results Are Coming

We all know what's going to happen, right?

The Opening Tip

Hello & Happy Thursday- It's the Corner Three!

ROAD TRIP!

Come with us to Los Angeles in March for the most cursed Finals preview of all time, Sixers vs. Clippers. The trip will be sick, it always is. A few hundred Ricky lunatics taking over the west coast. Reserve your spot here.

Oh Yeah, The Sixers

Trying...

To remain positive but my blood pressure and anxiety sky rocket with every MRI and ankle tweak but anywho, atleast we're getting some Springer and KJ Martin minutes.

Let's Do Some Things I've Been Thinking

Health is Wealth
Incredibly simplistic but this season more than ever it's really hitting home. This team is second to only one when fully healthy and that's just it, they haven't been that healthy aside from a few weeks at a time. The all-star break will be welcomed for all I'm sure. I'm also sure Daryl Morey will use the broadest of approaches in evaluating just where the personnel needs stand as next Thursday's deadline inches closer and closer. 

Youngbul Minutes
As an ode to me and Mike and partly out of necessity, Nick Nurse giving the young dudes some actual burn is great. Not saying it'll mean anything come April and May and hopefully June but how many times have we scoffed at the idea of throwing a young dude in the playoff fire because he logged a total of 10 minutes all regular season. Times like these are for experimentation and seeing what you have and when you can use it. 

Busy Deadline
I think absolute chaos will ensue and I think it'll start with whatever the Lakers and LeGM decide they want to do to update that roster. Will be interesting to see what dominoes fall after that.

Pat Bev no matter what
Remember it, write it down, do whatever, but it's our guy over everything.

Doc has returned
Fuck Doc Rivers.

Spike's Corner... We All Know What's Coming

Every week, Spike or Mike will write a column here about something they care about. This week is Spike's turn, and he's talking about Joel's knee.

I am writing this at 4:25am on Thursday morning, unaware of whatever test results we will hear regarding the status of Joel Embiid’s knee. I think we all know what’s coming, the script writers are consistent if nothing else. 

Joel will have a bigger-than-minor but smaller-than-season-ending injury that will leave him with the choice of surgery or ‘rest and then surgery in the offseason.’ He will obviously choose the latter, and we won’t see him for a month. We will breathe a sigh of relief, and pay attention to any online web resource that says you’re totally fine after this sort of thing. We even know about one guy who came back in less than three weeks. 

Once he comes back, he will look good for Joel Embiid, but definitely not 100%. But that’s ok, because nobody is 100% this time of year, everybody’s dealing with something. We do notice though that he grabs at it a bunch of times per game (especially when the game isn’t going as planned). They’ll settle in as the 4 or 5 seed, and it actually will break perfect for us that the Knicks passed us into the three seed because it gives us a much better matchup with _____ in the first round. And even though the Celtics wait in the second round, they choke in the playoffs all the time, and who even knows if Porzingis will be healthy.

If all of this seems familiar enough to you, I don’t need to tell you how it ends. It’s bad, and probably one of two or three different ways, all ending in the same version of unsettling despair heading into the offseason, but who knows what Daryl will pull out of his hat, right?

All that is to say, I wouldn’t want to do it with any other star in the NBA. Imperfect, never healthy, dodging good players on the road, I will take my chances with all of those issues with Joel Embiid. I would rather see this through, hoping it all comes together one year with him, than moving on for any reason and trying to do it with someone else. 

Joel Embiid is really what this entire era of Sixers basketball is about. He is truly the only meaningful piece on the Process Ship Of Theseus, and it is very clearly the same ship if he’s there. Winning without him would feel at best disingenuous, and at worst like we cheated him and ourselves. For all of this to be worth it, the final climbing to the top of the mountain must be with him, limping the entire way there if we need to. And failing with him would at least feel like we all failed together. 

I think of it like a sports marriage (shout out James Harden). Yes, Joel Embiid has a bunch of flaws that seem to be much bigger than anything else I can imagine when things are going poorly. They drive us crazy. But ultimately, he has accepted us for who we are, which is more than we can say about must. He has chosen to stick with us, even though we leave towels all over the floor constantly. And while we’ve been together so long that we drive each other crazy once in a while, we were made to go through this journey together. Deep down, we love the guy. And we know he feels the same way. And on top of that, we’re all too old to be single at this point, and nobody needs another app. 

So when I put my head in my hands, and say “he’s just never gonna be healthy,” I will let it pass. I will ignore your emails to ‘just move on’ because I don’t deep down you don’t mean it. We’re all in this together. Joel Embiid is my guy. He’s your guy. 

Nobody else wants to deal with any of our shit anyway.

Peace, Love and Process

Fix yourself a drink and fire up the trade machine

-Zo