Emergency Pod: LeBron To The Sixers!

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I thought a big part of Lebron making this decision would be a place where he felt comfortable, a place where he'd had a relationship before so that obviously a lot of roads leading to Miami and clearly with Cleveland but it's very easy now that we know well why would you want to make the bet with Cleveland if he's going to be off the ball with Mitchell and Harden there but it's like well look he's going to be off the ball in a lot of different situations and we'll get to the Philadelphia sharing of the basketball situation here as well. Now that we know that it isn't Miami I mean it's very simple to say hey it's probably not a place that's a fully completed roster and considering that Janice has to be on the ball which is great. I mean when he's on the ball he's one of the I think three best players in the world on top of his passing and the driving and the free throw attempts and all that kind of stuff but was that the best fit if the rest of the roster doesn't feel like they have enough shooting even if you were to look at say the basketball reference page of a lot of the players that are still on this heat roster and and bringing in hard way where it's like hey there's some guys that have made some threes of this team so maybe that's being a little overstated that they have no shooting. And if he hadn't gone to Philadelphia you'd be like hey do you really want to make like is the imbede playoff bet a better bet than the harden playoff bet defensively you probably have to figure out a way to hide him a little bit more although I think the league respects LeBron so much that they don't really attack him as much as they could or you would look at the Lakers roster he was on and say well we're gonna go after Austin Reeves or they're gonna go after Luca which may have been the case in Cleveland where they're like yeah they're gonna go after Hardiner they're gonna go after Jonathan Mitchell first before they're gonna go after LeBron's does really matter with the sixers you'd probably want to attack a smaller back court in Maxine B.J. Eggecomb if those are your starting five with imbede and Jaylen Brown before you want to attack LeBron anyway so there's a bunch of different basketball stuff that we can get to but I think I just kind of wanted to finish the thought on like maybe the reason he didn't want to go back to Cleveland is mess with the dream scenario on his return his part two in Cleveland winning a title for a city that was star for one but do you really I don't get it it's kind of the people that like knock Jordan for playing for the Wizards when I look at the Wizards years is further you know confirmation of how special of Larry was especially that second year with the Wizards and the numbers that he put up and how well he played even though there was no playout success I don't look at those as a knock on on Jordan at all so if LeBron come back to Cleveland and they don't get out of say the second round does it mean like the title in 2016 like no one can ever mess with that title I still think it's the toughest title any team has ever pulled off in my lifetime of watching the NBA so we can talk about the Philadelphia one ball part of this which I'm sure you're gonna hear a ton of but look LeBron is a master at pacing himself both not only in his career as he pushes the boundaries of longevity in this sport but he also paces himself really he threw out a basketball game I mean there are so many games that he's had with the Lakers where I'll look at him and he feels like he's taking entire eight minute sub pattern stretches off and he's completely fine deferring to somebody else he doesn't want to bring the ball up he hasn't brought up the ball in years I mean he can and he will randomly but he's not gonna be the primary ball handler on any team that he was gonna sign with and that's definitely not the case here with Philadelphia because Max you should have the ball a ton but LeBron I think through the regular season will do what he needs to do night in a night out and know that he's pacing himself for whatever hopes they have of a deep playoff run so yeah I know there's one ball I've looked at the usage rates for Maxi for for Chamberlain Brown for LeBron for imbede I mean these are monster usage numbers for these players I'm trying to put all four of them together but we're talking about LeBron James here somebody who probably doesn't want the ball as much as you may think at least for the six months in those 82 games and is smart enough to know how he needs to fit in because he's just such a brilliant basketball mind that it's not like he's not going to know what to do when imbede's getting double I mean if we really want to paint the most optimistic brush on this and maybe that's what LeBron did where he said okay best case scenario of any of these potential landing spots like best case if everything went right and Philly isn't that the best chance at this and it probably is now look I think Minnesota would have made a lot more sense or San Antonio I think Minnesota like desperately needed him I think San Antonio would love to have somebody like him organizing their late playoff game possessions there's a million possessions from the finals that I wish the spurs could have a do over on and LeBron would have been terrific with that is probably not the right fit probably didn't want to live in San Antonio maybe didn't want to live in Minnesota maybe loves the idea that his family can be this close to New York City and that's all that really matters that he's going to be pretty close to well playing in the top two media markets technically though not necessarily in Philadelphia you get the point so if we're looking at this optimistically maybe LeBron is going like what if though the imbede part of this thing works out and as far as like Jalen Brown's numbers last year was an anomaly those numbers were going to happen if he came back and was with Boston playing with Tatum so as great as Jalen Brown's individual season was you can't look at his usage you can't look at his shot attempts you can't look at the points and expect that that was going to happen even had he stayed in Boston with Tatum coming back as the number one option all those number one option possessions of Jalen Brown had all season long that was by necessity so him taking a step back statistically I don't like obviously was going to happen in Philadelphia and LeBron baby doesn't help those overall numbers but the one thing I'm envisioning here again that's where the healthy engaged imbede is what the fuck do you do when you're doubling imbede because you have a terrible defensive center matchup against him you're doubling imbede and he's looking around to a cutting LeBron a cutting Jalen Brown Maxine VJ offering spacing obviously VJ shooting had to get a little bit better or Maxie cutting off of that stuff you know I I don't think it's a great bet because of imbede's history here for the last few years I would think he and his trainer were going to prioritize losing weight to get through a season more than anything I don't care about how jack D is I don't care about how many muscles he has I don't care what his fat percentages I think him just being a slimmer player is the only way he turns this thing around because everything else is there I don't even know that he needs to work on anything else he's got probably the best touch of any big guy we've ever seen his passing is actually incredible I don't always love his comfort level late in a playoff game and you know look I do think that he's been so obsessed with the stats and getting the points that he stops playing hoops and looks to be fouled a little bit more which is his own problem and you know I've already done that rant a million times but if you're just looking at you know someone like LeBron coming in and going out there's not enough basketballs to go around I think LeBron adapts to that and at this stage of his life it's not like he needs 20 shots isn't the guy looking for his rookie max extension goal man I hope I make it to an all-star team and I'm getting my 20 80 games so I can get that big max deal even if all feels fake on a bad team. So I don't think you have to worry about that stuff as much. Again, look, it all hinges on him be whether or not this team can win a championship. I do think the best case on paper scenario sounds a lot better now that we know that he's landed on Philadelphia. You know, the other thing that, you know, Philly fans are getting shit for is like acting like they just signed prime LeBron. But if you got LeBron James for two years and eight million, you should be excited. Who gives a shit? We know that it isn't peak LeBron, but it's like you got LeBron James. And there's a value in that that goes beyond how little you're paying him based on what he's always making. But what do you pay a guy like this anyway? Like in this market with no teams cap space or teams cap space that he'd want to go to, it was always going to be a weird number anyway, right? But here's the thing that I would close on here is the mental part of the game is so important in how you think of yourselves as a team. And there's teams that tell you all the right things in training camp. I mean, get ready for it. Buckle up NFL. Every one of these teams are going to get the head coach out there in front of the people at their first mini-camp being like, you know, we actually had seven one score losses is like, no shit. Every team in the NFL basically averages like seven one score losses every season. You can double check that number, but I'm pretty close because I got so sick of hearing it. I'm like, isn't the whole point of this league that it's like always one score? So then you have some dog shit NFL team and the coach gets out there and training camp July. And it's like, yeah, you know, we had all these one score lives. You know, bounce here bounce there. It's like, I don't know. You guys might still stunk might still stink. So to the point of like talking yourself into it and anybody that's ever kind of played sports, you know, there's there's always that moment where we're like, are we going to lose? And it sucks, right? Versus when you walk into a gym and you're like, we're going to kill these guys. And sure, you can be overconfident and then, you know, you can get into that whole thing of being too confident. And that's what cost you a game. But there is a big, big difference like when a team can turn a corner mentally going like we've transitioned from hoping to win to expecting to win. And with this sixers group, which is certainly changed characters around and be multiple times now since what 2018 when we started like thinking they really had something. LeBron in your uniform in Philadelphia changes the build up to next year from oh, you know, like we hope it look, I still have the same reservations that any of you sane NBA fans would have like, I'm not sitting here stamping a number one seat on them. I don't even know. I mean, could they be the three seed? Could they be the four seed? I mean, health will play a big part of that versus the health of everybody else in a stacked east. But like, let's look at it this way. The wizards are one of like the 11 teams in the east that are going like we're expecting some things. Okay. But it's it's a weird group with a bunch of young players and a number one pick coming in with Anthony Davis. It doesn't want to be their tray young who's there with that absurd contract. And it's like, you guys can say all the right things. But do you really believe it? LeBron in Philadelphia, I would guess makes you believe it if you're maxi if you're VJ. Obviously, I'm a little worried about VJ's opportunities with Jalen Brown and what he's already done. And maybe an accountability thing that's been talked about with imbede with having Jalen Brown there. Well, now with LeBron, like forget it. LeBron is not going to want you wasting his time. So forget getting him for four million a pop here. Forget getting him this late in his career. And what does that really mean? He's still played so well at this age that you really it changes your mindset as a basketball team doesn't guarantee anything. But I granted when those guys break camp and get together and they're like holy shit. He's really here. That's the biggest value of this kind of acquisition. And that's why Sixers fans should be [BLANK_AUDIO]