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Apr 30Liked by Andrew Unterberger

"Spike has long stipulated that it being The Year doesn't have to be about championships or even series victories, but instead in our best players for once actually running through the finish line, in feeling we got everything from them that they could possibly give."

The Sixers, including Embiid and Maxey -- for whatever reason -- look like they're at the finish line of a marathon after having only trained for a 10K. And if the playoffs are truly going to be compared to a marathon, they're only at the 10K marker. And they're already showing desperation as well as physical and mental exhaustion (making a ton of unforced errors, swinging homerun passes, Embiid picking up Brunson full court). The team has entered survival mode and is meandering down the roadway simply putting one foot after the other like a drunken sailor. And it's only mile 6.

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How many Embiid Shirley Temples did you drink before typing out this ridiculously fawning column about JoJo? It’s clear with you and the hosts of this podcast that what happens on the court is basically immaterial. You guys are all just firmly in this camp of…and YOU wrote it…”Holy shit how lucky are we to have Joel Embiid on our team.” In that universe, winning basketball games doesn’t matter. You just like having this particular player in a Sixers uniform. You guys are all entitled to feel that way. But then it’s not a podcast or a column about real basketball – or real Sixers fandom. It’s an Embiid fan site. You guys twist yourselves into pretzels trying to explain how the latest failures by Embiid on the court are really not failures, but moral victories…steps in the right direction…and mostly, the fault of other people not named Embiid. This latest column is a perfect example of all of it. You’re worried about Embiid saving HIS season tonight!

And this is just three days after you sent me your last Embiid fanboy column declaring that “Embiid is different and the year is officially back on.” Yeah, that headline didn’t age well. Ten days before that, and about ten days before Morey’s big trade deadline acquisition was benched by Nurse in game 4, you proclaimed that “Daryl was right” and his “big bets” all paid off. Well, except for the little detail that his biggest bet (Hield) was a healthy scratch from the most critical game of our season.

I am sure you want to come in hard with “takey” sounding headlines for your columns, but dude…tone it down. You are way out over your skis. You’re looking like an unserious person with these recent titles to your columns. Take the temperature of the room every now and then. Now is not the time for a column trying to convince Sixers fans that Embiid has had a “great” series against the Knicks. We’re about to lose in the first round of the playoffs to a division rival and with our team (the one Morey built) at essentially full strength. And you’re here telling us (essentially) to focus on how cool it is to watch Embiid open a game by scoring the game’s first eight points (in an eventual loss) in our Sixers jersey. You want us to root for Embiid to can some solid stats while losing the series so you can try to claim you were right by saying it’s not his fault we lost. This has gotten beyond stupid. It’s like Trump trying to convince us that his 80+ criminal charges are all made up and the real story is that Trump is the victim. That’s where you guys have gotten with asking us to not pay any attention to what we see on the court and just believe you that Embiid is actually a winner.

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I am sorry to have disappointed you Rob.

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