After the playoffs were over and Lebron left for Los Angeles everyone began creating this narrative that the Celtics and Sixers are the only 2 teams in the East. Everyone is excited about the renewed Sixers-Celtics rivalry, including me. Both teams have young stars poised to dominate this league, both teams have good coaches, and both teams have rabid fanbases. It should be fun whenever we play, but the Sixers are getting ahead of themselves.
Yes Ben, you do need to get past the Celtics. You also need to get past the Raptors and the Bucks. There was a lot of hullabaloo about the Raptors getting swept by the Cavs, which I get, but the Sixers didn’t do much better and caught significantly less flak from the general public. The Raptors got swept by the 2nd best player ever, the Sixers lost in 5 games to a team missing their 2 best players. Now the Raptors traded in DeRozan and Poeltl for Kawhi and Danny Green. Who did the Sixers get? Wilson Chandler and Mike Muscala. It was an underwhelming offseason for the Sixers who were supposed to be in contention for all the stars hitting the market. In my eyes the Sixers definitely aren’t better than the Raptors if Kawhi is back to being Kawhi.
Now as far as comparing the Sixers and Bucks goes I am much more optimistic about the Bucks than most people. I don’t think it’s without reason though. The real acquisition that matters for the Bucks was the hiring of Mike Budenholzer. He took the Hawks to a 1 seed and 60 wins in a conference that contains Lebron James. That team relied on Jeff Teague and Kyle Korver as some of its main guys. He did have Millsap and Horford, but now he has Giannis and Middleton. Sometimes I still wake up in the middle of the night thinking about Khris Middleton wopping threes in Celtics’ players faces. He is a god damn killer and maybe the most underrated player in the league. Bud now gets to work with that, Brogdon, Bledsoe, and oh yeah Giannis. That is an extremely talented core that should have done more in the East last year. The reason they didn’t do more was their coaching. Jason Kidd and Joe Prunty were extremely incompetent and made bonehead move after bonehead move. They are getting replaced by one of the better coaches in Budenholzer. I have faith in him to put Giannis and this team in a position to succeed. They have the right players to be very good on defense and now they have a coach whose specialty is offense and should get things clicking on that end. I know I just got on the Sixers for only making minor moves but that’s because they were supposed to make bigger moves. The Bucks have made some minor moves that should really help their depth. They already have their top 5 guy in Giannis, they just needed to build around him and that’s what they did. They signed Brook Lopez and Ilyasova to help space the floor and they also got some good, young 2-way players in DiVincenzo and Pat Connaughton. The DiVincenzo pick was a tad high in my opinion but he should still be a good depth add along with Connaughton. This is shaping up to be a solid group of guys that Bud can work with and take to the top of this Eastern Conference. I expect a big leap from them and for Giannis to win MVP.
Listen I know Sixers fans will get up in arms about this. Believe it or not I actually like your team despite the fanbase being a bunch of mouth-breathers, but there are just some really good teams at the top of the East. I am still concerned about the Sixers’ injury issues. Simmons seems pretty durable after the initial injury but you never know. I was as high on Fultz as anyone but he is still a massive question mark. And then obviously we have Embiid who is unfortunately always a moment away from a bad injury. I’m not rooting for these guys to get hurt but you have to acknowledge the risk there. It’s the thing that makes the Sixers’ range so wide. Things could end up going to shit or they could be really good and I could be wrong. But there are just too many things I listed above that make me weary of calling them second fiddle.
The Wise Guy 