Sixers showing how to win without Simmons
If Doc Rivers has shown nothing else in his year-plus as the coach of the 76ers, it is that he can slip in a message to his players without making it obvious. He recently sent one that Ben Simmons should have heard as far away as Camden, where the former point guard has been spending his working hours.
“I go with the guys that are on the floor every day,” Rivers said. “That’s what I focus on. And we’ve done pretty well with that.”
It was a subtle, professional play, a breakaway dunk in every way. The Sixers are doing quite well, thanks much, without Ben Simmons. So Rivers made that public without making it a bold-faced headline.
With a 109-98 victory Thursday in Detroit, the Sixers had a five-game winning streak, a 7-2 record and a winning percentage of .778, good for the top spot in the Eastern Conference.
To little shock, they are winning with a point guard, Tyrese Maxey, who has all of Simmons’ abilities to finish around the rim while also being a willing outside shooter. They are doing it without Simmons clogging space that is best patrolled by Joel Embiid.And they are not missing Simmons’ defense because Matisse Thybulle continues to help win games with his length while having matured as an overall defender.
It is all working because for the first time in years the coach can coach without spending half of his day worrying about Simmons’ position or feelings. In recent years, as the Sixers tried to recover some dignity for their premature commitment to Simmons by characterizing him as a gamechanging drive-and-kick magician. Rivers’ team is still driving and kicking to Seth Curry, who is on a pace to be an All-Star.
More than 10 percent of the regular season already has passed and there hasn’t been one call — not from the press, not from the talkshow-sphere, not from the stands — to bring back Simmons and salvage a season. If anything, there have been occasional vulgar antiSimmons chants from the mezzanine level.
None of that is likely to increase Simmons’ value in trade, which is the Sixers’ end game. Then again, the market had already screamed in the offseason what Rivers subtly mentioned last week: No team, not a one, needs an overpaid, selfish nonshooter to win basketball games.
You lost, Ben.
Game over.
Not a fa, not a la, not a la-la-la-la. Capisce? Not one Christmas carol before the second week of December.
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As expected, the Phillies have stashed $3 million in Andrew McCutchen’s shirt pocket, paying his way into free agency. Since it would have cost $12 million more than that to employ him for another year, it was the only play. McCutchen’s declining defensive reliability, struggles against right-handed pitching and history of injury disqualify him as an everyday player for a contending team.
If the National League adopts the designated hitter for 2022, that will re-define the price for McCutchen. Either way, he is unlikely to return to the Phillies. Yet if the market stutters and he remains unsigned, the Phillies should be interested in a solid team leader coming off a season of 27 home runs and 80 RBIs at a responsible price.
Either that, or try it again with Luke Williams.
When one baseball player rocks a gold chain the size of fire hose, it is an interesting display of individualism. When 400 do it, it’s conformity.
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Here’s to ESPN for providing a glimpse this fall at how sports must be presented on TV for the next quarter century.
While Monday Night Football games are being televised on the network’s primary platform the usual way — with superfluous throw-downs to sideline reporters and blabbermouths blitzing ear drums with the standard football-speak — there are Peyton Manning and Eli Manning on another outlet riffing about the same game from their sofas.
Rather than spending a night reading the press notes, they casually predict the next play with confidence and criticize the last one without fear. For spice, they will zoom into conversations with guests from inside and outside of football. It’s all refreshingly spontaneous, even down to Eli rolling out a rude hand gesture.
The Mannings are informative without being insulting, humorous without trying too hard and deep in the original spirit of Monday Night Football, which was to be something other than what the viewers had just spent all day Sunday tolerating. The concept must grow.
Do hockey fans need to hear one more announcer screech, “Shot!” for the rest of their born days, or would it make for better television company if a couple of friendly experts just casually mentioned why the guy missed that shot by 11 yards?
No, it is not a case of whether the socalled Manningcast format will spread.
The only question is how soon it makes the current one extinct.
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I don’t get planting a basketball rim in a public street.