Sports blog information from USA TODAY.
Here’s how NBA Twitter reacted to Ben Simmons’ return to Philadelphia with the Brooklyn Nets.
Ben Simmons flirted with a triple-double in his return to Philadelphia, finishing with 11 points, seven rebounds, and 11 assists.
His team, however, fell to the Joel Embiid-less 76ers 106-115.
As expected, Simmons got booed whenever he touched the ball by the Philly crowd, and during the game, he was trending on Twitter.
Here’s how NBA Twitter reacted to Joel Embiid’s unreal 59-point game against the Utah Jazz.
Joel Embiid had an unreal performance for the history books in Philadelphia’s 98-105 win over Utah.
Embiid scored more than half of the team’s total points, finishing with 59 on 19-of-28 from the field. Philly’s superstar added 11 rebounds, eight assists, seven blocks, and one steal to cap off an unbelievable night.
NBA Twitter was in awe with Embiid’s performance Sunday night.
The Philadelphia 76ers are off to an embarrassing start in terms of transition defense to begin the season.
The Philadelphia 76ers have gotten off to a pretty tough start to the 2022-23 season. They are 1-4 after a loss to the Toronto Raptors on Wednesday. The loss shined even more light on familiar issues.
Offensively, Philadelphia continues to be one of the slowest teams in the league. They are dead last in pace. Even more alarming are the points they are giving up in transition.
Per Tom Haberstroh of the Basketball Illuminati Pod, the Sixers are giving up 139 points per 100 possessions in transition. It is by far the worst rate in the NBA to begin the season, and the worst since Synergy began tracking that stat in 2004.
The Sixers are giving up an embarrassingly-high 139 points per 100 possessions in transition, the worst rate in the NBA this season and on pace to be the worst since @SynergySST began tracking in 2004. https://t.co/oPwy3Zyh80
— Tom Haberstroh (@tomhaberstroh) October 27, 2022
Joel Embiid says he wants to see more effort from the Sixers on the defensive end of the floor. At this point, they need to start by focusing on getting back on defense and picking up a man in transition. Considering the personnel they have on the roster, the Sixers should not be this bad on defense.
[mm-video type=playlist id=01f09kz5ecxq9bp57b player_id=01f5k5xtr64thj7fw2 image=https://sixerswire.usatoday.com/wp-content/plugins/mm-video/images/playlist-icon.png]
[listicle id=70066]
[lawrence-related id=70084,70078,70075]
Here’s how NBA Twitter reacted to the Philadelphia 76ers starting the 2022-23 season 0-3.
The Philadelphia 76ers have started the 2022-23 NBA season with three straight losses, and head coach Doc Rivers says the team is ‘not ready to win yet.’
Saturday night, Philly lost 114-105 at home to the San Antonio Spurs, despite Joel Embiid’s 40-point game.
Here’s how NBA Twitter reacted to the 76ers starting off the season 0-3.
The Sixers haven’t made the Conference Finals since 2001, which seems odd considering that they’ve had many successful competitive seasons since. Since ending the tanking portion of “The Process” and making the playoffs in 2018, Philadelphia has …
The Sixers haven’t made the Conference Finals since 2001, which seems odd considering that they’ve had many successful competitive seasons since. Since ending the tanking portion of “The Process” and making the playoffs in 2018, Philadelphia has made it to the second round in all but one season. They have now put together the best-fitting team around Joel Embiid in his career. If everything goes right for them, they could break their Conference Finals streak and potentially make it all the way to the NBA Finals.
Below, check out our preview for the 2022-23 Sixers campaign.
Reports indicate that a rival Eastern Conference team is discussing a possible Kevin Durant trade.
Earlier this week Kevin Durant met with the Brooklyn Nets ownership to reiterate his trade request, obviously it got the attention of another Eastern Conference team, the Philadelphia 76ers – who are reportedly interested in the forward.
NBA insider Ian Begley reports that some members of Philadelphia’s front office are exploring creating a trade package for the sharpshooting forward. “As of earlier this week, there were high-ranking members of the Sixers who’ve felt strongly about engaging with Brooklyn on a Durant trade,” wrote Begley.
There appears to be mutual interest, as well, as Durant reportedly considers Philadelphia a desirable landing spot.
[pickup_prop id=”26870″]
While teams such as the Miami Heat and Phoenix Suns have been involved in talks with the Nets over a possible trade, no deal’s worked out. Even though none of Durant’s preferred destinations can trade enough to get him, the Sixers may be able to sneak in and offer valuable assets to the Nets.
[mm-video type=video id=01g9z9as3ayrt0e7v2wd playlist_id=01f09kz5ecxq9bp57b player_id=01eqbvq570kgj8vfs7 image=https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/video/thumbnail/mmplus/01g9z9as3ayrt0e7v2wd/01g9z9as3ayrt0e7v2wd-dd2d7b6e6ebc1740a70cd4c4795689d6.jpg]
[vertical-gallery id=23306]
Ben Simmons’ former coach Doc Rivers talked about their relationship and says they had a ‘good talk’ after his trade to the Brooklyn Nets.
While most of the attention for the Brooklyn Nets is on disgruntled star Kevin Durant, Philadelphia 76ers coach Doc Rivers opened up on a conversation that he had with Ben Simmons after the trade went through.
Rivers talked about the playmaking forward on ESPN’s “The VC Show with Vince Carter”, reflecting on the phone call they shared post trade:
That one comment thing had nothing to do with why Ben wanted to leave. Alright? Let me just say that. It was a lot of things as Ben told me and publicly now that happened long before I got there. What frustrated me was that I still think it shouldn’t have been enough to want to leave. I just didn’t and I told Ben that. I kept telling him that. This is not why you want to leave a team. You work these things out. They didn’t get worked out and so yeah, we’ve had one talk. Not a long, long talk, but we did have one good talk. Ben called me afterwards, which I thought was great and we had a good talk, but the point was, he was already leaving and I really believe, even though 99% of the people didn’t, that that we could make this work with Ben and Jo (Joel Embiid) and the team because I’m built that way. That’s what coaches have to do. I want the kid to do well. I don’t have any, like, bad feelings about him. He didn’t do anything wrong to me. I just want most guys do, I really do. Now I want to kick all their butts when they’re not on my team. That’s the competitive side of me, but as a human being, I think we all should want Ben and all these guys to do well.
The comments that Rivers is referring to came after a Game 7 loss in the playoffs two years ago.
[mm-video type=video id=01g9cx4c488mznbghpd5 playlist_id=01f09kz5ecxq9bp57b player_id=01eqbvq570kgj8vfs7 image=https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/video/thumbnail/mmplus/01g9cx4c488mznbghpd5/01g9cx4c488mznbghpd5-b3edbb12019594c2c8b4b5c4aacc7fb3.jpg]
[vertical-gallery id=44401]
The Philadelphia 76ers and James Harden have finally agreed on a deal for the 13-year veteran to return. He will re-sign with the Sixers on a two-year deal worth $68.6 million with a player option for year two, according to Adrian Wojnarowski. This move could serve as a temporary financial sacrifice from Harden that allows the Sixers to make moves that improve their title odds.
The NBA Draft is less than a week away, with more potential big trades on the horizon following the Christian Wood acquisition by the Dallas Mavericks, as noted throughout our new HoopsHype aggregate mock draft.
To get a better projection of where all of the projected top prospects stand currently, we compiled mock drafts from ESPN, The Athletic, Bleacher Report, The Ringer, Sports Illustrated, NBADraft.net, CBS Sports, SB Nation, Yahoo, Basketball News, and USA TODAY’s For The Win.
The most notable risers within the projected lottery selections included Dyson Daniels moving up further within the top 10 picks, Ousmane Dieng becoming a projected lottery pick, and Jalen Williams vaulting into the Top 20 range. Jake LaRavia and Dalen Terry, two of the biggest risers throughout the draft process, have moved into the late first round.
Other risers in the second round include Ryan Rollins, Andrew Nembhard, David Roddy, John Butler, Michael Foster, Gabriele Procida, and Dereon Seabron.
The notable name that fell was MarJon Beauchamp, who now is projected outside the top 20 picks despite receiving a green room invite. Josh Minott and Jean Montero were among those whose stock fell in the second round.
NOTE: These rankings reflect the composite score to get a feel for the overall consensus, not our own opinion. For example, if a player was the first pick on a publication’s mock draft, he received 58 points. If a player was second, he received 57 points and so on. We then tabulated the total number of points for each player’s consensus ranking.
HoopsHype’s Alberto de Roa contributed research to this report
Following the withdrawals of several prospects, the aggregate NBA mock draft has shifted noticeably, and more intel on teams have surfaced with the draft nearing.
To get a better projection of where all of the projected top prospects stand currently, we compiled mock drafts from ESPN, The Athletic, Bleacher Report, The Ringer, Sports Illustrated, NBADraft.net, CBS Sports, SB Nation, Yahoo, Basketball News, and USA TODAY’s For The Win.
The most notable risers within the projected lottery selections included Keegan Murray leaping Shaedon Sharpe into the top five range, Dyson Daniels entering the top 10, and Malaki Branham cracking the end of the lottery. Dalen Terry also vaulted 12 spots since our last aggregate mock draft and is currently positioned as an early second-round pick.
Some of the more notable names that fell slightly included TyTy Washington, Max Christie and Leonard Miller.
NOTE: These rankings reflect the composite score to get a feel for the overall consensus, not our own opinion. For example, if a player was the first pick on a publication’s mock draft, he received 58 points. If a player was second, he received 57 points and so on. We then tabulated the total number of points for each player’s consensus ranking.
HoopsHype’s Alberto de Roa contributed research to this report
