Tag: Gary Harris

Three Michigan State Basketball alumni to play in NBA Bubble restart

There are currently three Michigan State players set to play in the NBA’s Bubble restart at Disney.

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After about a week of scrimmages, the NBA season is poised to full restart on Thursday, July 30th from the NBA Bubble at Walt Disney World in Florida, and there are three Michigan State Basketball alumni set to play in the upcoming games.

There are six Spartans currently on NBA rosters, but there are only 22 teams attending the Bubble’s limited season and play-in tournament, which means that three players will not be attending the Bubble. Those players are Draymond Green of the Golden State Warriors, Miles Bridges of the Charlotte Hornets, and Denzel Valentine of the Chicago Bulls.

The players who will be in the Bubble are:

  • G Bryn Forbes, San Antonio Spurs
  • G Gary Harris, Denver Nuggets
  • PF/C Jaren Jackson Jr., Memphis Grizzlies

Bryn Forbes and Jaren Jackson will both be in action on Friday while Gary Harris and the Denver Nuggets will have their first game on Saturday.

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Joel Embiid ranks second on Bleacher Report’s top 15 centers list

Sixers star Joel Embiid has been one of the top centers in the league the past two seasons.

Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid probably has the most to prove of any All-Star in the Orlando bubble.

It’s not about the lack of rings, but more so the absence of a long playoff run. In two playoff appearances, Embiid has not gone past the second round. Still, he is recognized by many as one of the best at his position.

Bleacher Report’s Andy Bailey and Dan Favale released their top 15 centers Friday, and Embiid slotted in at No. 2, right behind Denver Nuggets star Nikola Jokic. The debate between Embiid and Jokic isn’t new, with Jokic being more dynamic on offense and Embiid being a better defender.

This season, Embiid has continued to dominate in the low post. At the beginning of the video above, he squared up to the basket well and created space to score against Boston Celtics big man Daniel Theis. According to NBA.com stats, Embiid has led the league in points on post-ups (7.4) this season.

Along with his low-post dominance, Embiid has maintained his reputation for being a good interior defender. He has posted a defensive rating of 101.4 this season, and he has averaged 1.3 blocks a game.

As a playmaking center, Jokic is the better passer. Both players can score at about the same level, and neither is significantly better than the other at rebounding.

With Embiid and Jokic being the focal points of their respective offenses, it  comes down to personal preference in choosing who is better.

Jokic is the hub, but the Nuggets are nearly a by-committee offense, with Will Barton, Jamal Murray, Paul Millsap, Jerami Grant and Gary Harris all being viable scoring options.

The Sixers’ offense isn’t as efficient because of their lack of quality spacing. It feeds more on Embiid’s success, and if Embiid doesn’t play well, the rest of the team generally falters.

The Sixers will play their first seeding game Aug. 1 against the Indiana Pacers, with tipoff set for 7 p.m. ET.

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2014 NBA re-draft: Sixers select Zach LaVine with Joel Embiid off the board

In this 2014 re-draft, the Philadelphia 76ers don’t get the chance to draft Joel Embiid and end up selecting Zach LaVine.

The 2014 NBA Draft was a special one for the Philadelphia 76ers. After a tough 2013-14 season to kick off their Process, they ended up selecting Kansas big man Joel Embiid with the third overall pick.

The big man essentially fell into their laps after an injury scared away the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Milwaukee Bucks at picks 1 and 2. After missing two full seasons due to foot injuries, Embiid has since blossomed into one of the dominant players in the league regardless of position and has positioned the Sixers as legitimate title contenders for the foreseeable future.

It is that individual and team success that suggests that he would be the top overall pick if the Cavaliers could re-do things. In a re-draft done by Bleacher Report, that is exactly the case as Embiid went to Cleveland with the first overall pick which led to the Sixers selecting UCLA leaper Zach LaVine.

B/R on LaVine:

A cluster of capable-but-flawed-in-some-way starters land in the next tier, and Zach LaVine leads it for his powerful offensive punch.

Only Joel Embiid and Andrew Wiggins average more career points than LaVine’s 17.7, and LaVine betters Wiggins as a distributor and a shooter at every level.

LaVine’s production hasn’t generated much team success to date, but that might say more about his supporting cast than him. He’s one of only nine players to average 23 points, four assists and four rebounds both this season and last, and he’s the group’s only player to not yet make an All-Star appearance.

He could stand to improve as a defender and to increase the difference between his assists (4.2) and turnovers (3.4), and he’ll never be the best player on a good team. But he has a special combination of explosiveness and shootiing touch, and that has fueled his rise as a point-producing machine.

On top of having the third overall pick, the Sixers did hold the 10th pick in 2014. They selected Elfrid Payton and flipped him to the Orlando Magic in order to acquire Dario Saric with the 12th pick. Much like Embiid, the Sixers had to wait on Saric as well as he waited to come over to the NBA while continuing to play overseas.

In this case, the re-draft gave the Sixers Gary Harris:

For all the thievery in this draft, Gary Harris was involved in one of draft night’s biggest heights. Somehow, the Denver Nuggets managed to turn Doug McDermott and Anthony Randolph into Harris, Jusuf Nurkic and a second-round swap in an exchange with the Chicago Bulls.

Harris became a regular starter as a sophomore, and he’s been both a double-digit scorer and a dogged defender ever since.

When his three-ball falls with regularity—40.5 percent over his third and fourth seasons—he’s on a short list of the Association’s top three-and-D contributors. His offense is in a two-year decline, but he did enter this season’s hiatus ranked 11th overall and tops among shooting guards in ESPN’s defensive real plus-minus.

Things would have looked much, much different if this happened to go down. For one, maybe the Sixers don’t get the number 1 overall pick in 2016 and be able to draft Ben Simmons. Maybe they have just enough success and win just enough games to where their tanking plan does not exactly work to fruition.

A world without Embiid and Simmons is a world Sixers fans probably don’t even want to consider. [lawrence-related id=30521,30510,30501]

Sixers defeat Nuggets 97-92 to win 13th straight home game

The Sixers got their third straight win against the Denver Nuggets on Tuesday.

Joel Embiid had another marquee matchup with Nikola Jokic on Tuesday night, but this time Embiid got the better of him.

Embiid scored a team-high 22 points in the Philadelphia 76ers’ 97-92 win over the Denver Nuggets. With the win, the Sixers are now 13-0 at home and have the best home record in the NBA. The win also helped the Sixers earn their best home start since the 1966-67 season, according to Basketball Reference; Philly got 22 straight home wins to begin that season.

Heading into the fourth quarter, the Sixers were up 83-76. The Nuggets had fed off the quality play of Jokic, Gary Harris and Will Barton. Jokic had a team-high nine points in the third quarter.

In the fourth quarter, Embiid wasn’t much of a factor from a scoring standpoint, finishing with four points. But he grabbed four rebounds, and tallied one steal and an assist.

Jokic finished with 15 points on 53.8% shooting from the field, and he also had 11 assists and seven rebounds.

It wasn’t a premier performance from Embiid. But his game-sealing two free throws helped create enough cushion for the Sixers to win the game.

The last time these two teams played was on Nov. 8, and the Nuggets won 100-97. Jokic had the better outing, scoring 26 points, grabbing 10 rebounds and tallying six assists. Embiid had 19 points and 15 rebounds, shooting 35.3% from the field.

The Sixers’ pace fluctuated throughout the game. Philly played its best when it was gaining stops and getting out in transition. The Sixers rank 12th in fastbreak points (13.8). On Tuesday, they scored 19 fastbreak points, tying their fifth-highest mark of the season.

Along with Embiid’s play, the Sixers showed how their ability to move the ball helps them have an above average offense. Ben Simmons had a team-high seven assists, and the Sixers had 24 as a team.

Still, those passes didn’t necessarily equate to buckets. The Sixers shot 41.6% from the field and 33.3% from deep.

What was most troubling for the Sixers was how their offense stalled late in the game. With 4:09 left, Tobias Harris made a jumper to increase the Sixers’ lead to 95-89. But after that bucket, the Sixers didn’t score again until Embiid sank a free throw with about 15 seconds left.

As the Sixers come off this third straight win, they will prepare to play the Boston Celtics in Boston on Thursday night. The Celtics are currently 17-5, and they’re ranked second in the Eastern Conference.

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