Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Embiid, Brown put no limit on 76ers
PHILADELPHIA » In the earliest stages of their process, then in its gloomiest hours, and even through a 52-win explosion of basketball excellence, the 76ers declined to engage in one vital debate.
When will it all culminate in a championship?
Sam Hinkie, whose idea it was to trade professional dignity for high draft choices, was steadfast in refusing to share a timetable. “We’ll all know it,” he often stressed, “when we see it.” That was as convenient as it was arrogant as it was a hint that he wasn’t really certain his plan would work either. It was also about the only thing he could say, given it all. But he’s gone, and a different approach to roster building has developed, and the Sixers are becoming something of a national obsession.
Had their preseason chatter been taking literally, the Sixers already have achieved their 2017-2018 goal. Brett Brown said it in training camp, as did plenty of the players, as did Bryan Colangelo, as did common sense: Nothing short of the playoffs could be acceptable. So, the Sixers delivered. Good for them. But they did more than make the playoffs: They started to play well in the playoffs.
How well? This well, according to Joel Embiid: “A lot of people say that we have a bright future. But I think our time is now.”
More than his assortment of inside moves, his ability to stretch, his rimprotection, his midnight jogs or his itchy twitterfinger, it is just such an attitude that has thrust Embiid onto the A-list of alltime, Philadelphia-athlete popularity, with Allen Iverson and Charles Barkley and Chase Utley and Carson Wentz and the others. Never, not once, has Embiid acted as if the Sixers should settle for being something less than excellent. Just last season, the first one of decent basketball the Sixers had uncorked for too long, that was Embiid in a Brooklyn locker room entertaining the New York press with claims that his team was ready to make the playoffs. At that time, the record wasn’t favorable. Embiid’s confidence, though, was infectious enough to inspire an examination of the remaining schedule, some quick calculations and a conclusion that, well, it was possible. A 15-win January would thrust that notion into the mainstream.
Embiid’s latest declaration came a day before the Sixers would try to bump Miami out of Round 1, after practice in Camden. And while it was in character, it was amplified by Brown, who was anything but nostalgic for a less ambitious timetable.
“I’m sure I am biased,” Brown said. “But I feel, as I look at the playoffs and I look at our team, that we have as much room for growth as anybody. I think we have more room for growth.
“I look at that as a real exciting opportunity. You sort of go through college and now here we are in grad school, if you will. And we have a chance to learn a lot more. And we need to.”
Growth, the Sixers have achieved. Attention from the rest of the NBA, they have earned. But when is enough growth enough growth? And when does it mean, as Embiid said, that the Sixers’ time has come?
“We have a pretty good chance,” Embiid said. “We have a special team.”
“I’ve been excited,” Embiid said, “to see how much we’ve grown.”
The Sixers have grown and the Eastern Conference has frayed, and some years that just happens. So when Brown was presenting his college-to-grad-school image, he was not implying that the diploma could come next year, or the one after that. He meant he already was ready to measure for the caps and the gowns.
“I’m talking about now,” Brown clarified Tuesday, before Game 5. “We were incredibly fortunate to win that last game. We were 13for-25 at the line. We had 27 turnovers, those sorts of outliers. We did have 17 offensive rebounds, which covered it. There are some incredible things that have to go your way to get out of that building with a win. But the good news is that, when I see this team, I feel there is team that has more chance for up-side than we do. I get really excited. The longer we survive and the longer we stay in this, I see that we can go to a high level of play, and I get really excited about that.”
Whenever the season ends, the Sixers will see contracts expire, salary cap space open and free-agents winking at them, and viceversa. That’s why 2018-2019 was loosely considered the target season for real championship contention, even when such chit-chat was considered taboo in the front office. Once or twice, the name LeBron James, a free-agentto-be, has even popped into Sixers conversation.
“We have a lot of great guys,” Embiid said, though not in direct connection with the James talk. “I don’t think we need anybody else.”
Once he saw that, he knew it.
Contact Jack McCaffery @jmccaffery@21stcenturymedia.com; follow him on Twitter @ JackMcCaffery EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. » The questions about tackle Ereck Flowers’ future with the New York Giants are increasing as the 2015 first-round draft pick was a noshow for the team’s first voluntary minicamp under new coach Pat Shurmur.
Players do not have to attend either the organized team activities or any minicamps.
Shurmur, however, let it be known in the offseason that he would appreciate it if they attended, with new systems on offensive and defense being installed and the team coming off a 3-13 season that cost former coach Ben McAdoo his job.
Flowers has skipped everything. There are now reports the Giants are shopping him in the days leading to the NFL draft, which starts Thursday.
The former Miami product has not lived up to expectations in his first two seasons at left tackle. That forced new general manager Dave Gettleman to go out and sign New England Patriots left tackle Nate Solder as a free agent, a move that would have forced Flowers to move to right tackle.
Flowers has not given any indication why he has stayed away.
“He’s not here, so there’s not really much to say,” Shurmur said.
“We understand that this is a program that is voluntary,” he said. “I tend to believe it is very necessary, but he’s not here. So, when he is here, we will start to talk about him.”
The Giants don’t have a lot of depth at tackle. Free agent Chad Wheeler played in 11 games with five starts as a rookie. Adam Bisnowaty started in his only game last season after being drafted in the sixth round.
If Flowers is traded, the Giants are going to have to draft a tackle or sign one as a free agent.
Odell Beckham Jr., who missed most of last season with a broken ankle, and defensive end Olivier Vernon were both at the minicamp. They skipped the minicamp a year ago.
COLLEGE BASKETBALL
Kansas made no written report of its athletics review