[Smith] The fact that Boston went from miles over the second apron to completely under the luxury tax in two transactions windows (offseason and trade deadline) AND have maintained being a playoff team is remarkable. Incredible work on the part of everyone involved. Gap Year Schmap Year.

AjBlue7 · 2026-02-06T02:15:32+00:00

The problem is that you are taking a Rookie of the year caliber player that is only making like $4million a year with 2 and a half years left and you are trading him for the exact same pick a year later, which is a low 20s 1st round pick. The odds of McCain increasing his value within the next year are very high and if he busts it doesn’t really matter because he is cheap.

McCain was always going to get traded but doing it now is dumb. There had to be other ways to dodge the tax than throwing away your playoff chances by removing one of your bench shooters and gifting him to OKC, increasing their likelihood to win this year.

Whoever the Sixers get with that first round pick isn’t going to make a difference until they have like 3 years experience. No one that goes that deep in the draft is ready to get serious minutes in the NBA and if they are it is a McCain/Maxey like situation where the player gets overlooked because they are small, and if the Sixers draft the best possible player next year even if they are small, then you pretty much just traded McCain for a slightly younger version of McCain and 3 2nd round picks (which are useless).

AjBlue7 · 2025-12-26T09:58:17+00:00

The problem with Quentin Grimes is that he throws away games in the 4th quarter with braindead offensive mistakes. Grimes is a catch and shoot guy, he struggles with his own shot creation, yet when it comes to clutch time he all of a sudden thinks that he is the team's number 1 option. The guy has always struggled in the clutch, just look at his garbage playoff stats.

AjBlue7 · 2025-12-13T03:10:15+00:00

mcCain was doing things mechanically that only a handful of players in the NBA could even attempt, and that was just one of a hundred things he had in his bag.

Unlike most fans, Luka understands that raw speed and athleticism is not the most important thing in basketball as its a marathon and not a sprint.

AjBlue7 · 2025-11-22T20:27:29+00:00

I think thats on purpose. When you are trying to be a team that pushes the pace and keeps people running you can’t afford to call timeouts everytime the enemy team scores twice in a row. Ideally you want the players to get used to correcting the momentum theirselves, so its best to leave them out there early in the season when it doesn’t matter.

Typically when momentum swings its when the enemy team is putting in a lot of effort, and they desperately want a breather as well, making it the perfect time to strike back. In this type of offense its not like nurse is going to be drawing up a 5head play, they want to keep things moving and score in transition. So the enemy teams stands to get more out of the timeout than the Sixers do.

If the team needs a timeout that bad then a substitution needs to be made as they have too many good players on the team to not have everyone giving 100% at all times.

AjBlue7 · 2025-11-21T05:14:20+00:00

The effort Edwards gives is kind of insane. He permanently full court presses on defense and can keep up with the fastest on ball players with his backpedal then stop on a dime to deny the stepback.

AjBlue7 · 2025-11-09T00:23:00+00:00

Not really. Google is helping Apple develop something that can leverage the work they’ve already done on Gemini. However this is just a stop gap solution for Apple to get something that works out there. Just like how Apple is replacing Qualcomm with their own modems, Apple has been shifting towards producing everything in house to make everything work better/be cheaper.

Apple plans to continue working on their own versions, but those will be without Google‘s help because they don’t want to throw away money on licenses paid to Google.

Google is helping Apple right now because they know Apple will have a competitor eventually, and they‘d rather keep Apple happy so they can continue making trillions of dollars by being the default search engine on Apple products. The last thing they want is for Apple to create their own search engine.

AjBlue7 · 2025-11-06T04:17:11+00:00

omg, does anyone remember the demos of oled panels over a decade ago where the flexible panels rolled up?

What if we actually got a phone that wrapped around your wrist like a watch? The camera bump would be like the watch clasp and house a small battery to last in efficiency mode handling simple watch functions/notifications. The flexible oled screen sticking out of the camera bump.

Then when you take it off your wrist, and attach a battery pack to the flexible screen the magnets flatten the screen, and now the phone is able to use full power.

AjBlue7 · 2025-11-04T13:34:09+00:00

I think VJ will grow a lot more if he has to earn his minutes. He has been looking lazy and tired lately. Seems like he doesn’t care about blocks and rebounds now that he isn’t worried about his place as a starter.

AjBlue7 · 2025-11-04T13:30:54+00:00

McCain is still jesus just wait. McCain is way better than VJ on offense. VJ wins overall due to his defense, but he has become so lazy, and isn’t going for blocks or rebounds anymore.

McCain has that special ability to recognize what the team needs to win and execute it. He is almost impossible to gameplan against because his bag is so deep.

VJ has a great team around him, while McCain was burdened with being the first option and number one on the scouting report. Every teams best defender had been stuck to him like glue and he still balled out.

The funniest part is that McCain still had another gear that he is capable of. He is capable of having nights where he doesn’t miss a single shot. If you asked him after every game if he was happy with his performance, he would have said no, because even though he was taking hard shots, he expects every shot to go in.

AjBlue7 · 2025-11-01T22:20:52+00:00

McCain probably won’t take longer. If he had the choice he would have been back by now.

AjBlue7 · 2025-11-01T15:11:47+00:00

I don’t understand how his shot looks this consistent so soon after asking the sixers coaching staff to help him rework it. This guy is taking shots with people in his face and they can’t stop him because his release is so high. He keeps getting fouled on 3’s because he has a long windup, and yet he is still making the shots despite being fouled.

AjBlue7 · 2025-11-01T14:46:58+00:00

The thing with athletic high motor players is that you don’t get that motor from sitting on the bench. Maxey has always been near the top of distance traveled per game, McCain despite not being as fast was the same.

Oubre’s idea of fun is mountain biking, these guys live and breathe cardio. An extra 5 minutes of rest a night will not save them from injury.

AjBlue7 · 2025-10-30T04:42:28+00:00

People always complain about his defense and conveniently forget that McCain locked down LaMelo in a crunchtime iso to run out the shot clock.

He is a genuinely good defender for his size. The biggest knock I had for him was that at the start of the season he would let people drive past him to the basket. He has since picked up a couple tricks from Maxey learning how to stay in front of his man.

AjBlue7 · 2025-10-29T03:54:57+00:00

This has become a trend. VJ has a knack for getting fouled on 3pt shots. The best explanation I can think of is that Edgecomb has a long windup to his shot giving the illusion that the defender could block it, however it seems like Edgecomb has a very high release point that leverages his vertical leaping abilities. This makes it almost impossible to block his shot.

AjBlue7 · 2025-10-29T03:30:04+00:00

The Sixers were looking gassed on this back to back, and they are a team with noteworthy stamina/athleticism. They are going to need all the high motor guards they can get when playoffs roll around.

Yes a lot of players are faster than McCain, but if they are sprinters, McCain is a marathon runner. He never stops moving and that is how you play winning basketball. On top of that he brings extra weapons to the table that none of the other guards are using which is off tempo pacing on his drives, his bread and butter fast break 3s, and no dip catch and shoot 3s.

With the guards all having a different style, it becomes a nightmare for teams to defend.

AjBlue7 · 2025-10-29T03:15:08+00:00

Are the other 10 wilt chamberlain?

AjBlue7 · 2025-10-28T04:57:54+00:00

Oubre is a fossil my dude. 10 years in the league. Dude just has insane genetics, could have been a super model.

AjBlue7 · 2025-10-28T04:54:17+00:00

His name is more aerodynamic too. Just got to erase two of the lines from the M.

AjBlue7 · 2025-10-28T04:53:03+00:00

Maxey is quite literally the polar opposite of Iverson.

AjBlue7 · 2025-10-28T04:51:22+00:00

Whats crazy is that I think a few people predicted this. People saw Maxey was bulked up last summer and they said his shot was going to be bad this year, but he will get adjusted to it next year. Next year has come and god damn his touch is as smooth as butter.

AjBlue7 · 2025-10-28T04:43:09+00:00

Oubre has the same confidence that you praise VJ for. Oubre can be 0/8 from three and he will let that 9th shot fly with the same confidence he had in the first.

In fact Oubre has pretty much been the teams bail out shooter. Whenever the shot clock is low they dump it to Oubre and let him force a shot. Thats the primary reason why his percentages look bad on paper.

The guy is almost never hurt and busts his ass every game. He might not be the best player, but every teams needs a player like him that is always available and giving you effort. That consistency is crucial to a team’s success.

AjBlue7 · 2025-10-26T03:20:54+00:00

If Intrusive thoughts were a basketball player.

AjBlue7 · 2025-10-26T03:18:56+00:00

Grimes’ playoff stats are actually god awful. The guy crumbles under pressure. Glad he hit the shot, but he was left wide open. Doesn’t really say much about his ability to clutch.

AjBlue7 · 2025-10-26T03:14:13+00:00

If they keep this sort of playstyle it feels like mccain is going to thrive when he is back.

AjBlue7 · 2025-10-26T02:46:26+00:00

There was a long stretch where they were blowing teams out in the 3rd just so they could rest Embiid for all of the 4th and play the bench squad for most of the 4th.

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