McCaffery

The Sixers are going somewhere. The Philadelphia sports complex remains the perfect spot for a new, basketball-first arena.

But if Harris someday is photographed in a clumsy-fitting hardhat jabbing a ceremonial platinum-plated shovel into Camden, Chester, Bensalem or King of Prussia mud, just remember that week when Subaru Park was open and the Philadelphia complex was not.

••• The truncated college football season is nearing completion. For Temple, it ended when a final game against visiting Cincinnati was cancelled amid health concerns.

Not that it will ever come from the coaches, but there will be some popular push to dismiss whatever happened this virus-stricken season as irrelevant. That’s not just at Temple, but everyplace.

Temple finished 1-6. That was unfortunate for the Owls. But in those very same seven games, other teams went 6-1. Amazing how that math works.

If a particular team had injuries, virus spreads or travel horrors well outside even the 2020 norm, its players and coaches deserve some added tolerance.

But to grant blanket amnesty for losing would be to diminish the accomplishments of the teams that did win games and bowl bids and championships. So don’t.

••• The Atlanta Braves will pay Drew Smyly $11 million to pitch this season. Beg pardon? The Atlanta Whats are giving how much to who to do what and when?

Drew Smyly? The 31-year-old left-hander who has gone 4-8 in 26 starts in the last two years?

The Braves typically have a handle on what will work. But that’s a combined $26 million they have set aside for Smyly and 37-year-old Charlie Morton. And for the same money, less maybe, Trevor Bauer will accept work.

The Phillies just fished Caleb Cotham out of the Cincinnati coaching pool to be their pitching coach. And didn’t Bauer recently acknowledge Cotham after accepting the 2020 Cy Young Award?

With the Phillies laying employees off, obligated to finance a long-term J.T. Realmuto contract and trapped in a stadium complex that could be padlocked at any time, they are no longer in stupid-money mode. But Bauer has said he will only sign a one-year contract, anyway.

If Cotham can help add Bauer to a rotation with Aaron Nola, Zack Wheeler and Zach Eflin, he will show that there is more than one way a pitching coach can yield improvement.