Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
All Sixers ‘stars’ aligning for all the right reasons
PHILADELPHIA >> The best Sixers team Doc Rivers has coached has two certain Hall of Famers, a max-contract forward, a pricey free agent and a developing NBA star.
The best Sixers team Doc Rivers has coached has a strong MVP candidate and a veteran backup unit.
The best Sixers team Doc Rivers has coached has a good chance to win a world championship and a better chance to win the Eastern Conference.
And the best Sixers team Doc Rivers has coached has one — just one — All-Star, and no AllStar Game starters. How does that happen? Because the best Sixers team Doc Rivers has coached has no players obsessed with being an AllStar, but instead is flush with star-level players making sacrifices to win.
“It’s hard to get veterans to buy in,” Rivers said. “It really is. That’s the whole key, in any sport — or at least in football and basketball — because I know those coaches the best. They will tell you that if you don’t have the buy-in, you could have all the talent you want and you’re not winning.”
Give or take an adornment picked up around the Thursday trade deadline, the Sixers have all the talent they want. They have Joel Embiid, who should be the MVP but is not willing to stalk that if it means not continuing to impress as a passing big man. They have James Harden, who has been the MVP, but has
thrived in his role not just as a shooter but a facilitator. They have Tobias Harris, who once did crave an All-Star Game invite yet has tamed that desire to become a fundamentally sound, team-first value. Tyrese Maxey may be an All-Star someday, but he relinquished his status as a starter when Rivers felt he was at his most valuable springing from the bench. And despite barely being good for one made shot a night for his $11 million annual fee, P.J. Tucker remains useful because he personifies basketball selflessness.
All are stars in their own way. But all have so bought into what Rivers is asking: That, together, they are their own kind of All-Star team.
“You could be great at X’s and O’s, you’re not winning,” Rivers said. “You could be great at everything; you’re not winning. When you get guys like Tobias Harris on our team to buy into his role, it’s important. Tobias could be somewhere else, scoring more points and doing more things. But he’s decided
he wants to win.”
The Sixers are trending old. Harden, 33, and Tucker, 37, are near the end of their careers. Harris has hit the Big 3-0. Embiid is only 28, but has a medical file fat enough to be used as a jump-over-it slam-dunk contest prop. Yet they have found each other at the right time, in the right place. For that, Rivers has declared this team the best of the three he has coached in Philadelphia — and his first two combined to win 100 games.
“This team, I think, is better,” Rivers said. “It’s better equipped for the playoffs. I think we have toughness for the playoffs. We’re not as young. I think we have less holes. Every team has holes. Joel is two years down the road with me and the staff. Adding James to the mix and adding Tyrese to the mix, I just think we’re a better basketball team.”
There are just 24 AllStars, a dozen per conference, and there are at least twice as many NBA players who would not be out of place in the Feb. 19 game. But in the East, Boston (with Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown), Milwaukee (Giannis Antetokounmpo, Jrue Holiday) and Brooklyn (Kevin Durant and the now-traded Kyrie Irving) have two All-Stars apiece, so it’s not that there is a muffled agreement to spread the spots around.
Rivers has proposed that the top 24 players, regardless of conference, should be chosen. Since the ultimate rosters mix players from the conferences anyway, it makes sense. If that were the system, what All-Star coach would not start Embiid? Maybe some other year. The Sixers had the right to expect Harden to be invited, and when he wasn’t, Rivers created a stir, expressing shock that the No. 2 team in the East was so ignored in the coaches’ voting.
But does anyone want to go to court to demand a spot in a 175-173 farce of a basketball game?
“I’ve always laughed when guys get traded to a team and there’s three stars, and the guy was the only star on the other team, and the talk is, ‘Well, his offense is down,’” Rivers said. “Yeah, it’s down because he is sharing the ball and he’s playing with three other guys who can score.”
Rivers’ voice might have resonated more had the Sixers made lengthier playoff runs in his first two seasons. But the Sixers likely will do that in the third, now that Rivers has all the necessary stars determined to win when it matters.