00:00The biggest leap actually expected by the books would be Philly, whose win total is 41 and a half off of a 24-win season.
00:09That's about 17 wins that, you know, 17, 18 wins that you'd be looking to add.
00:15The thing is, the still expectation in terms of number of wins is much lower than that of Atlanta or Orlando.
00:25For Philadelphia, they have now been in the news a little bit this past week.
00:31There was a Joel Embiid article I've seen a lot of people sing the praises for, just talking about everything that surrounds Joel Embiid being out there available and, you know, all of that.
00:42We also had a Paul George update who underwent a procedure on his knee, and they believe, you know, he can probably be healthy to start the season.
00:54But the most recent word was he'll be re-evaluated prior starting to training camp.
01:00The Sixers are one of the most confounding teams to me in the East.
01:06I know there are plenty who have hand-waved this group, and they feel as if there is no way they will ever put it together.
01:15And I understand where you are coming from.
01:17But if we are to all agree, Coach, about the openness of this conference due to the Halliburton injury, the Tatum injury, the Lillard injury, due to the uncertainty around Cleveland or the Knicks crossing the finish line, Detroit still being young, Orlando still being young.
01:35Philadelphia is relevant in this conversation, because if you look back to last season's odds, the top of the East were three teams far and away, Boston, New York, and Philadelphia.
01:50Well, that group, that Philly group is still intact, and yet their win total as a yes-no, will they be able to get over 500?
02:01What are your current feelings, J.Y., around this Sixers group?
02:05I think if you look at a team like the Clippers and say, we're going to give them the benefit of the doubt with guys that are injured a lot, then we need to do the same thing with the Sixers.
02:15And their win total is, what, nine less?
02:18Yeah.
02:18So when you look at it, at the end of the day, they had guys that were injured, right?
02:24I mean, listen, none of the three ended up the season playing, right?
02:30Between Maxie, Embiid, obviously, and, you know, P.J., and you could add Jared McCain, who was going to be rookie of the year before he got hurt.
02:39So by that, it kind of helped them, in a way, address certain things by going to get Quentin Grimes, which obviously they got to figure out how they're going to resign him.
02:49Obviously, you know, I think he's still a restricted free agent, but no one's got the money to pay him, so we fully expect him to be back with Philadelphia.
02:57And then you go get Vijay Etchcombe, who came out of the draft.
03:00I'm like, I rather would have taken Ace Bailey, and then he shut me up with a 28-point performance to begin the Rocky Mountain Summer League.
03:06So when you look at Philadelphia, and you say, okay, if we're going to do this with the Clippers, we have to do the same thing with the Philadelphia 76ers.
03:17So you put Tyrese, I mean, sorry, you put Tyrese Maxie at the point, right?
03:23Let's say everyone is healthy.
03:25You go three-guard lineup, and then you put Vijay Etchcombe with PG at the two and the three, right?
03:33Obviously, Joel Embiid is the pivot, and you can do a lot of different ways.
03:37You can go small, you can go big, you can put Kelly Oubre, you can go really, really small, go Jeremy Kane, go with a really small lineup.
03:44They have pieces.
03:47So to me, when you look at this win total of 41.5, part of the reason why it's so low is because of the fact that they have to play New York and, you know, Philadelphia and New York and Boston 10 times out of 82.
03:58But to me, if you really dig into this deeper, if you like the Knicks, and I think the Knicks are going to be good, it's either you take Boston or Philadelphia to go over their win total.
04:13Because I don't know if you can get them both over the finish line.
04:16To me, I'm going to take Philadelphia.
04:19I have a feeling we're going to get a really motivated Joel Embiid.
04:25Joel Embiid, let's be honest, shouldn't have played in the 2024 Olympics, should have been shut down and tried to play through it.
04:33He's been shut down.
04:34He's back.
04:35I think Maxey is a top 20 player in this league.
04:39I think Paul George as a, ready folks, third option is not terrible.
04:46I think it's a pretty good third option.
04:48Now, the fact that he shot only 35.8% from three is his second lowest total output in three-point shooting percentage since his rookie year.
04:56So he's got to shoot it better from three.
04:58I think he will because Embiid will take so much of the pressure off.
05:02But to me, it's the three young guards.
05:06It's Maxey, it's McCain, I thought you were young guards.
05:10It's Grimes, and it's Edgecombe.
05:12If they have their ability to knock down shots and play defense at the point of attack and prevent people from driving on them,
05:20I think this Philadelphia team goes over 41.5 wins.
05:24I think they comfortably make the playoffs.
05:26And then if I talked about Orlando being the third best team in the East,
05:31we should be looking at Philadelphia as healthy as worse, in my opinion, the fourth best team.
05:35We should have a good basis.
05:36We should be looking at the top left.
05:36We should have a good chance to take so much of it.
05:37We should have a bad chance to take so much of it.
