The best part of Sixers mailbag season is here, from the writer's perspective. With the trade deadline behind us and the draft too far away to get into discussions in earnest, we can focus on what's directly in front of Philadelphia. It's not something we often get to do, and it is delightful when we all get to zero in on playoff basketball.
So fake trades and hypotheticals will have to wait for another day. A few of you had questions that are at the heart of several upcoming stories I'll be working on, so apologies to those of you whose questions didn't make the cut. You're all still special in my book.
When you discuss prospects, in basketball circles a lot of people like to use the term "swing skill," or the part of someone's game that will determine whether a player is able to reach their theoretical ceiling. For a lot of players, this is strictly tied to their ability to shoot, but defensive chops, ballhandling, and other various skills can pop up here.
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I like to think of Redick as Philadelphia's swing player. This version of the Sixers is capable of hitting great heights even without Redick at his best, but they can't approach their ceiling if his shooting falters.
This is not to say Redick has no value if his shots aren't going down. There is something to be said for his constant activity through thick and thin, which forces opposing guards to run through a slalom of screens to keep up with him. He may miss the first four shots, but teams are still going to respect him when the fifth is about to go up, and he uses that against the opponent when running the two-man game with either Joel Embiid or Ben Simmons.
There's also a bit of disconnect between what we see when Redick has to guard a mismatch and what the numbers say about his ability to fit within a productive unit. Yes, he is absolutely susceptible to being torched in the wrong matchup, and I think Brett Brown will have to think long and hard about leaning on someone like James Ennis more in crunch-time scenarios come playoff time. But I think there's something to be said for Redick simply being in the right place more often than not. Defending in the spread-out version of the NBA is mostly about holding onto the rope and knowing where you have to plug holes. Redick certainly does that.
I think there should be some serious dialogue about where Redick fits in moving forward, because if the Sixers are investing max money in a handful of guys, the Sixers need to be leaning into their strengths and not necessarily running a lot of important sets through an aging shooter. But for now, he's of critical importance to the team.
I think this ends up being shorthand for a lot of different ailments, and the Sixers do have an identity to some degree. Under Brown, they've always wanted to be a team that shares the ball, plays with tempo & purpose, and makes their living on defense. But the failure to do the latter this year is a big part of why many people are skeptical of their chances to beat other elite Eastern Conference teams in the playoffs.
If you don't have defensive toughness to fall back on when the shots aren't dropping, you're not going to last very long in the playoffs. The question is really whether Philadelphia's defensive slip this year can be chalked up to instability and saving some for the playoffs, or whether they are structurally doomed to fail.
In general, I don't think it's possible to have a firm identity when a team is assembled on the fly like the Sixers. Other teams they're going up against have years of collective experience together and have learned how to react to adversity and good times alike. They don't have years of playoff battles to guide them forward, just a small handful of regular season games together. It's not necessarily criticism so much as it is an acknowledgment of how difficult it is to build a championship-caliber unit.
I'd say this is just about a lock at this point. The Celtics are too far back, the Sixers own the tiebreaker over the Pacers, and Philly's schedule is a cakewalk to close the year. If they let the No. 3 seed slip, they will have had a disastrous close to the season.
Everyone can see when the Sixers do and don't have urgency, I think. If you look at how badly they wanted their recent win over the Boston Celtics and compare that effort to some of their performances against non-playoff teams, the difference is night and day. The head coach has even admitted there is a "canyon" between wins like that and the loss to Atlanta.
Here's the other thing that I think has gone undersold this year — the Sixers are now a team that opponents up and down the standings are going to be fired up for. Last season, they were still somewhat of a novelty act, a team hovered around .500 for a lot of the season before finally clicking down the stretch. Their best players were a rookie and a center with elite talent but still in the early stages of his basketball lifespan.
These days, they are impossible to ignore. They added a player with a decorated individual resume in Butler, a scorer in the midst of a career year, and have seen Embiid make the leap to a guy who will be a fixture in MVP discussions for as long as he can stay healthy. They have been a fixture on national television, and even if it seems silly, there is a little extra juice for players when they know they'll be on ESPN, ABC, or TNT for the whole country to see.
The Sixers have serious playoff aspirations, which has been their focus all season. For teams like the Hawks or Cavs, a regular-season win over a team like the Sixers can be the highlight of a long and grueling season.
That doesn't mean Sixers fans (or media types like me, obviously) should just accept losses or excuse them away. Their compete level has needed to be more consistent. But they're still heading into the playoffs with what will assuredly be 50+ wins and the No. 3 seed, and that will be their ultimate proving ground, not random losses to the likes of Orlando in March.
To reiterate the last answer, I do think there is a gap between their effort in games they feel "matter" and ordinary games on the schedule. It is human nature to let your guard down and conserve your energy for the moments you feel you need it most.
Outside of that, it's complicated. I think every Philadelphia star has had to adjust to the idea of being just one part of a star-studded unit instead of the man as they've been accustomed to being for most of their basketball lives. Every player responds to this differently. There have been nights where Butler, for example, isn't getting the touches he's used to getting, and that prompts him to drift through the game on the defensive end. We've seen examples of that phenomenon with every major Sixers player this season.
I don't see that as some deep personal failing — I think that's understandable and relatively common, in fact. In football, nobody wants to be the wide receiver who is asked to "stretch the field" over and over again without getting opportunities to catch the ball or make plays. Asking guys to do the dirty work is part of sports and part of life, but you have to make them feel like a person who is actively involved in your gameplan, not just a tool to make life easier for other people.
If the Sixers want to make noise in the playoffs, though, they need everyone to be invested on both ends regardless of whether they get two or 200 touches on a given night.
As a guy who was a card-carrying Foles skeptic right up until he came out slinging in the Super Bowl, I can't imagine a scenario where anyone can surpass the playoff legacy of the first quarterback to lead the Eagles to the Super Bowl. The guy is a certified legend in this town and I simply think the Eagles matter more than the Sixers do in Philly, for better or worse.
If Embiid goes on an absolute rampage through the playoffs and the Sixers knock off the Warriors in a dramatic, drawn-out series where he outduels the most talented team of all time? Maybe there's a conversation. But even then, I think all the factors that made the Super Bowl run special — the historical weight, the unexpectedness, outdueling the NFL's all-time best coach/QB combo — make it a tough act to top ever, let alone this year.
The Sixers are welcome to prove me wrong, though.
I think bench guard is generally a position you can feel confident about upgrading with draft picks. This is about numbers and (lack of) scarcity as much as anything — there are more draftable players hovering in the 5-foot-11—6-foot-3 range of the height scale than there are around Embiid's part of the skyline.
That comes with the caveat that you're not going to get some flawless guard prospect at the back of the first round or the top of the second round. But the Sixers' guards are so limited that I don't think you necessarily have to hit a massive home run. A nice single or a double would get the job done.
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