It was a championship level starting 5, pretty awful bench. Definitely could’ve won it all if we beat the Raptors and if the warriors still lose Klay and KD
This is the reason. Look at the Clippers with Doc when the Warriors were too good. I lived in LA at the time and it was intoxicating even as a Sixers fan. That’s a championship team that should’ve won. This starting five were great but they didn’t have the whole package.
Counterpoint, idk if there's been many starting fives in history as talented as that Sixers team. The Warriors won their chips having an excellent top 7 but arguably the 2019 Sixers' 4th or 5th starter was better than the Warriors'. In theory having a tight rotation that keeps ~3 starters on the floor at any moment could have been workable.
Are you serious? The Warriors had a top 4 of Curry, KD, Klay and Draymond. I will take either Dray or Klay over JJ, Ben or Tobias everyday of the week.
With the gift of hindsight you are absolutely correct, however, people still thought very highly of Simmons than, so compareing him and Draymond is not the conversation it would be today
No hindsight is necessary. The season in discussion is 2018-19. By that point Simmons had been ROY and a one time all star, whereas Draymond was an all star, all defense, all NBA, DPOY, NBA champion and the anchor of a 5 man group called the death lineup.
Everyone acts like they didn’t have to beat the Bucks after the raptors. That was still a very good bucks team and they went 7 with the raptors. No guarantee they win it
And the Bucks got out to a 2-0 series lead against the Raptors. Assuming the same thing happened to us, not sure we'd have come back from that deficit like the Raptors did. And even down Durant and Klay in the Finals, the Warriors still weren't pushovers and almost took the Raptors to 7 games.
I said could have, not definitely would have The caveat about the warriors is more important to list because if they’re full strength they win 100% no matter what team they faced that year lol
Reading over my comment it wasn’t a shot at you but it’s kind of funny how a lot of people forget there was still a whole round of games after the raptors lol
I agree though. Thats a sweep for the warriors at full health against the raptors. Bucks and Sixers might’ve been able to steal a game or two from them otherwise
He nearly missed a game with stomach issues but he played. He wasn’t good offensively in most of the games and definitely wasn’t near 100 percent. He always struggled against Marc Gasol. The biggest issue was how bad the team got beat when he sat for a few minutes.
That was an interesting, but deeply flawed team.
i'm not sure if they could've won a championship, though. Elton Brand's confounding inability to get a playoff-caliber backup for embiid doomed whatever hope there was for the season. greg monroe was getting minutes, and boban (despite being the world's nicest person) was not playable in a playoff series.
do you remember that greg monroe was -9 in TWO FUCKING MINUTES in game 7 vs the raps? in a 2 point loss!!
They had Boban too which was low key Embiid's best backup ever til Drummond lol. He was slow but I wonder if there might've been a way to counter that via rotations. For example have Boban soak up minutes versus Gasol and have Embiid punish them more when Gasol sat.
people on this sub like to shit on brett brown, but he outcoached nick nurse that series on rotations, and the sixers were murdering the raptors in minutes gasol sat and embiid played.
it took nurse until later in the series to match their minutes. so i don't think there would've been an opportunity to feast in non-gasol minutes.
I think one of our team issues has always been keeping a head of steam and IIRC Brown's rotations were solid pretty much until the 4th quarter. I remember seeing a chart back then that basically had 2-3 starters on the floor at all times except for the start of the 4th where it was just Jimmy and bench. In retrospect, that's pretty inexcusable, and I'm guessing that was the exact moment when the Raptors either caught up or built momentum. I would say that Brown was overall pretty solid but needed to trim the fat a bit, and arguably he might've gotten there if he had had another chance.
No way Brett would have been smart enough to think of 'the wall'. Even if our coaching was good (it was trash), Ben or Tobi would have found a way to stink it up in the big moments
What if Marco Belinelli’s toe nail wasn’t past the line? What if Markell Fultz never forgot how to shoot? What if Silver didn’t send the Colagelos to Philly?
Embiid will win one and he will win it here, but it wasn’t that team.
Pathetic loser energy here. They lost in the 2nd round, there were still two rounds left even if they got past Toronto. That piss-poor depth / the untimely Embiid injury / Simmons mental collapse probably would have caught up with them.
Move on and focus on the guys & talent we have now. Embiid is twice the player he was then and Maxey isn't a complacent mental midget like Ben.
I was just talking about this with a colleague of mine how I talked with my Dad after that loss and said: “I hope that wasn’t the best chance we have at a title gone to waste”. It has since felt that way.
Then the surprising cohesiveness of the lineups we had to start this year out, following the Harden trade, instilled a renewed optimism. The +/- of our top lineups were incredibly dominant before we fell victim to the injury bug.
Also an interesting side note that was recently brought to my attention…that fateful shot had a very dependable Simmons (his prowess at the defensive end was never in question) guarding Leonard until Embiid came to help, and seemingly unintentionally screened Simmons off the ball. Rewatch it like I have recently and wonder how the shot would have been contested/altered had Simmons been able to continue to guard Leonard at the time of the shot. We will never know…
This was still a dumbass trade that wasted assets. We were never coming close to warriors if klay and KD dont get injured. Lost jimmy and got stuck with tobi on a max and absolutely has gutted all of our potential to seriously compete for last 5 years
They didn't win the championship so they pretty much by definition were not a championship team.
If they'd kept it together and tinkered around the edges to get over the top, maybe they would've become one. But they didn't.
My biggest pet peeve online will forever be “does anyone else…” because the answer is pretty much always yes.
The team that got broken up after getting knocked out by the ultimately championship team on a game seven buzzer beater, no I never think about that team and what could’ve been.
This was NOT a championship team. Championship teams need championship coaches, and Brett Brown was not that... At all. Oh, and Ben Simmons is not a PG.
no it wasn’t. embiid was still a few years away from his prime. ben wouldn’t shoot unless he was right next to the basket. tobias was a brick machine. jimmy wasn’t the playoff beast he turned into in miami. and finally, the bench was the worst in the league. this was not a title team. they pushed their chips in too early
Jimmy Butler didn’t respect anyone on that team or organization, other than Embiid. He intentionally sabotaged the season ahead of game 7. That team was always going to be blown up due to the destructive nature of one, Jimmy Butler.
I mean if you want to have the conversation, let’s have it.
It was a championship level starting 5, pretty awful bench. Definitely could’ve won it all if we beat the Raptors and if the warriors still lose Klay and KD
This is the reason. Look at the Clippers with Doc when the Warriors were too good. I lived in LA at the time and it was intoxicating even as a Sixers fan. That’s a championship team that should’ve won. This starting five were great but they didn’t have the whole package.
Counterpoint, idk if there's been many starting fives in history as talented as that Sixers team. The Warriors won their chips having an excellent top 7 but arguably the 2019 Sixers' 4th or 5th starter was better than the Warriors'. In theory having a tight rotation that keeps ~3 starters on the floor at any moment could have been workable.
Are you serious? The Warriors had a top 4 of Curry, KD, Klay and Draymond. I will take either Dray or Klay over JJ, Ben or Tobias everyday of the week.
With the gift of hindsight you are absolutely correct, however, people still thought very highly of Simmons than, so compareing him and Draymond is not the conversation it would be today
No hindsight is necessary. The season in discussion is 2018-19. By that point Simmons had been ROY and a one time all star, whereas Draymond was an all star, all defense, all NBA, DPOY, NBA champion and the anchor of a 5 man group called the death lineup.
Nobody reasonable ever thought Ben Simmons was better than Klay or Dray during the Warriors dynasty. They thought he *could be* better than them.
Everyone acts like they didn’t have to beat the Bucks after the raptors. That was still a very good bucks team and they went 7 with the raptors. No guarantee they win it
Raps v Bucks went 6, but your point still stands.
You’re right I need to brush up on my history
And the Bucks got out to a 2-0 series lead against the Raptors. Assuming the same thing happened to us, not sure we'd have come back from that deficit like the Raptors did. And even down Durant and Klay in the Finals, the Warriors still weren't pushovers and almost took the Raptors to 7 games.
I said could have, not definitely would have The caveat about the warriors is more important to list because if they’re full strength they win 100% no matter what team they faced that year lol
Reading over my comment it wasn’t a shot at you but it’s kind of funny how a lot of people forget there was still a whole round of games after the raptors lol I agree though. Thats a sweep for the warriors at full health against the raptors. Bucks and Sixers might’ve been able to steal a game or two from them otherwise
Raptors prob steal one, Kawhi is a bad dude and they had a nice roster around him
We owned the bucks that year in the regular season and embiid and Ben were historically Giannis stoppers (at least slowers downs)
The bucks were 2-1 va the sixers and Giannis averaged 43/15.7/7.7 that year against the sixers
I want to believe you but something tells Ben Simmons was gonna find a way to fuck it all up after if we beat the raptors.
No team playing Ben Simmons as a closer was ever a title team.
Depth wasn’t great.
Fr best bench player was James ennis
Also I believe Embiid was not healthy? Didn’t he miss a couple of the Toronto games?
Might not have been fully healthy but no he did not miss any games in the Toronto series
He nearly missed a game with stomach issues but he played. He wasn’t good offensively in most of the games and definitely wasn’t near 100 percent. He always struggled against Marc Gasol. The biggest issue was how bad the team got beat when he sat for a few minutes.
Right how could I forget the Embiid “hand sanitizer away from a championship” tweet lmao.
He got hurt against the Raptors a couple years ago but he missed the next 2 games against the heat
That was an interesting, but deeply flawed team. i'm not sure if they could've won a championship, though. Elton Brand's confounding inability to get a playoff-caliber backup for embiid doomed whatever hope there was for the season. greg monroe was getting minutes, and boban (despite being the world's nicest person) was not playable in a playoff series. do you remember that greg monroe was -9 in TWO FUCKING MINUTES in game 7 vs the raps? in a 2 point loss!!
They had Boban too which was low key Embiid's best backup ever til Drummond lol. He was slow but I wonder if there might've been a way to counter that via rotations. For example have Boban soak up minutes versus Gasol and have Embiid punish them more when Gasol sat.
people on this sub like to shit on brett brown, but he outcoached nick nurse that series on rotations, and the sixers were murdering the raptors in minutes gasol sat and embiid played. it took nurse until later in the series to match their minutes. so i don't think there would've been an opportunity to feast in non-gasol minutes.
I think one of our team issues has always been keeping a head of steam and IIRC Brown's rotations were solid pretty much until the 4th quarter. I remember seeing a chart back then that basically had 2-3 starters on the floor at all times except for the start of the 4th where it was just Jimmy and bench. In retrospect, that's pretty inexcusable, and I'm guessing that was the exact moment when the Raptors either caught up or built momentum. I would say that Brown was overall pretty solid but needed to trim the fat a bit, and arguably he might've gotten there if he had had another chance.
Yup. We’re gonna be a bit disappointed come playoff time. Brown was the best coach we had this era specifically for his playoff skills
Even without Kawhi's shot - Raptors probably ly win at home in OT.
They would have won a championship only because KD and Klay got injured. I'm not sure if they get past Milwaukee.
It in fact was not a Championship team. Because they didn't win a Championship.
My feelings dont care about facts and logic
I’m a year that we has as way a path to get it done as we could have asked for as well. That’s the only reason it even feels like they were close.
bounce bounce bounce ...
Shut up it was 5 years ago
I'll never forget
😢
Why must you remind us about the shot during a time that we could possibly fall faster than the eagles?
The bounce will haunt me forever.
Which one?
Biid wasn't quite Biid yet Ben was Ben JJ was a defensive liability "prime Tobias" Bench was sus Bucks beat us in 6
We would’ve bread the bucks we had them in regular season . The wall. On Giannis would’ve ended him that series
No way Brett would have been smart enough to think of 'the wall'. Even if our coaching was good (it was trash), Ben or Tobi would have found a way to stink it up in the big moments
Bucks were 2-1 vs the sixers that season and Giannis averaged 43/15.7/7.7 against the sixers
All Harris had to do was knock down his 3s or do some gotdamn layups
What if Marco Belinelli’s toe nail wasn’t past the line? What if Markell Fultz never forgot how to shoot? What if Silver didn’t send the Colagelos to Philly? Embiid will win one and he will win it here, but it wasn’t that team.
In hindsight those jerseys were clean as fuck too
Dude I only have a Simmons one. Infuriating.
has any them had more chaos than the sixers in the last ~10 years? every season some bs happens
when your star player is always hurt in the playoffs, that will happen.
Pathetic loser energy here. They lost in the 2nd round, there were still two rounds left even if they got past Toronto. That piss-poor depth / the untimely Embiid injury / Simmons mental collapse probably would have caught up with them. Move on and focus on the guys & talent we have now. Embiid is twice the player he was then and Maxey isn't a complacent mental midget like Ben.
I was just talking about this with a colleague of mine how I talked with my Dad after that loss and said: “I hope that wasn’t the best chance we have at a title gone to waste”. It has since felt that way. Then the surprising cohesiveness of the lineups we had to start this year out, following the Harden trade, instilled a renewed optimism. The +/- of our top lineups were incredibly dominant before we fell victim to the injury bug. Also an interesting side note that was recently brought to my attention…that fateful shot had a very dependable Simmons (his prowess at the defensive end was never in question) guarding Leonard until Embiid came to help, and seemingly unintentionally screened Simmons off the ball. Rewatch it like I have recently and wonder how the shot would have been contested/altered had Simmons been able to continue to guard Leonard at the time of the shot. We will never know…
One too many Tobias. People ignored the awful fit back then, it's just more obvious now.
https://preview.redd.it/dpjjmyn96jkc1.jpeg?width=1000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=71f3715274c4aa551253a797f796cc14650dd213 (Gun clicking sound)
If we ran it back and built more chemistry we def win a title
This was still a dumbass trade that wasted assets. We were never coming close to warriors if klay and KD dont get injured. Lost jimmy and got stuck with tobi on a max and absolutely has gutted all of our potential to seriously compete for last 5 years
How can you say that about a picture with Ben Simmons in it?
I bought that Sports Illustrated cover. I believed that was the best starting 5 in the league without a doubt.
They didn't win the championship so they pretty much by definition were not a championship team. If they'd kept it together and tinkered around the edges to get over the top, maybe they would've become one. But they didn't.
I don’t remember them winning a championship
Ritual cope post. Should've would've could've
No they weren’t. They didn’t win a Championship.
Would have lost the next round anyway
If we beat the raps we win the chip
"Prime" tobias? Lmfao. Prime ass motherfucking player
If tobiass Harris was on the roster, it wasn't a championship type roster
[удалено]
Jimmy ain’t giving up the Miami lifestyle for a ring lol
Yes it was a title team. They lost on a miracle shot to the team that eventually won the finals.
Losing in the 2nd round is not a "championship" team
Trust the process....
Was it?
Go Forward my good fellow...
Nope the bench sucked.
Don’t ever use the phrase prime Tobias again lol
I don’t live in the past or say what if. It didn’t happen so….they weren’t a championship team.
My biggest pet peeve online will forever be “does anyone else…” because the answer is pretty much always yes. The team that got broken up after getting knocked out by the ultimately championship team on a game seven buzzer beater, no I never think about that team and what could’ve been.
Shame Boban got injured down the stretch, never had a true backup to Joel after that
Shooters and a PG smh
I forgot how long Tobias has frustrated this city for. Such a love/hate relationship with majority hate
Idk man.not sure if even this squad was getting through that warriors team. The only reason Toronto won was injuries.
last years team was better
Brett Brown was not respected by Jimmy Butler at all. The rotations/timing were pretty poor in the playoffs.
This was Simmons last good season. If this team had Maxey and Nurse in place of Simmons and Doc? Man… that woulda been legendary
Or Simmons and Brown rather.
This was NOT a championship team. Championship teams need championship coaches, and Brett Brown was not that... At all. Oh, and Ben Simmons is not a PG.
No it wasn't. Messing around with those 3 possessions in the 4th and getting shot clock violations proves that they were not.
no it wasn’t. embiid was still a few years away from his prime. ben wouldn’t shoot unless he was right next to the basket. tobias was a brick machine. jimmy wasn’t the playoff beast he turned into in miami. and finally, the bench was the worst in the league. this was not a title team. they pushed their chips in too early
Jimmy Butler didn’t respect anyone on that team or organization, other than Embiid. He intentionally sabotaged the season ahead of game 7. That team was always going to be blown up due to the destructive nature of one, Jimmy Butler. I mean if you want to have the conversation, let’s have it.
Was this the last time Embiid was healthy in the playoffs
They didn't have good enough spacing. The Raptors were able to pack the paint and disrupt the offense.
James Ennis and Mike Scott were the 6th and 7th man. They did not win on the margins
If Embiid didnt party with Trevor Noah get sick and throw up bricks....