Quote (Sixers @ Mar 13 2020 12:40pm)
Not necessarily true.
That team last season had a mediocre at best defense, which ranked #15 in the NBA in defensive rating. Defense was a huge question mark, as well as depth up front with no serviceable big men that could play center off the bench in a playoff series (i.e. against Toronto).
This season, the Sixers are top 5 in the NBA in defensive rating and have better depth and an actual big man (albeit overpaid) who can play center while Embiid is out. The bench in general this season became a lot more reliable after the trades. We actually have scoring off the bench, and with Horford coming off the bench we actually have a big man that can be relied on in a playoff series, regardless of his contract he's still a huge upgrade over anything we had last season.
So is that team really much better? The #1 hole last season was a backup big man, that was miles and miles in the lead as the primary deficiency on that team and the primary reason they failed to advance. In addition to being a mediocre defensive unit, though they did play well in the playoffs defensively (thanks to Embiid absolutely dominating defensively).
This current iteration keeps getting hurt so fucking often but from what we've seen and what their record says they are, we are way fucking worse.
Now were they gonna turn it up in the playoffs? Maybe, maybe not. I'd take last years old team 10/10 times and just have anybody that's not fucking greg monroe and it's a championship team. We didn't need to fill a backup center spot for 100 fucking million.
Simmons defense this year + same squad last year and it would have been enough. JJ reddit shooting 45% from 3's when he doesn't have to run a dribble handoff for every single one of our offensive possessions, thanks brett brown.
Maybe even the first iteration from last year with Covington and Shamet might be better than what we have now.
This post was edited by Embiid on Mar 13 2020 06:17pm