5 Overreactions to Opening Night

Since the Philadelphia 76ers opened up their NBA campaign last night scraping past the Boston Celtics at TD Garden it has been easy to get caught up in the emotions of their narrow 117-116 victory. Whilst of course there has to be a consideration that the Celtics are without Jayson Tatum, the Sixers too were depleted being without both Paul George and Jared McCain respectively. Despite this, the Sixers still had to overcome a team comprised of the likes of Jaylen Brown, Derrick White, Payton Pritchard, and Anfernee Simons, most of whom being players who should be attaining an average north of 18 points per game this season and may be expecting to set record breaking seasons of their own. So whilst some may look to demean this victory, ultimately it means a lot. Boston have routinely had our number and to get a win on them on their own patch is always something to celebrate even if both sides may not be operating at full capacity, but what can we take from this going forward? We've had 48 minutes of Sixers playing NBA basketball and already their are plenty of things to celebrate and some things to express concern about too. Naturally, being sports fans we're going to lurch from one extreme to the other and overreact to 5 key points from our victory last night.

1- V.J Edgecombe is a world-beater

I'll be the first to admit that I have drastically underestimated just how special a player V.J Edgecombe is. Sure, I thought he'd be a decent player in a saturated guard rotation, perhaps some evenings only getting minutes in the single digits. But I have never been happier to be so far off the mark. V.J looks to have put a firm grip on the shooting guard role, keeping it away from the returning Quentin Grimes and I'd also wager that Jared McCain may have to put up with a role as a 6th man upon his imminent return to the side. What V.J has brought of course is an incredible ability to score in a multitude of different ways, but it's his athleticism which has struck me the most.

Anyone who has watched the Sixers for long enough knows that we've been in short supply of athletes- players who can play above the rim and be explosive when driving or cutting to the hoop. In 42 minutes of play, we saw V.J unleash a mean dunk over Jaylen Brown, drive regularly through contact to the rim, and finish a seemingly impossible alley oop off the assist from Kelly Oubre Jr. This, when supplemented with his strong shooting prowess from three will consistently keep defences honest with defenders unsure whether to commit or back off, allowing V.J to take full advantage of whoever is tasked with guarding him any given night. His athleticism has also seen him show some savviness defensively too, most notably exhibited when blocking 7-footer Karl-Anthony Towns in a pre-season game.

Edgecombe finished last night with 34 points, 7 rebounds, and 3 assists shooting 50% from the floor and 5/13 from 3 (38.5%). This banked him with the record for the highest scoring debut since 1959, when the greatest scoring cheat code in basketball and former Sixer Wilt Chamberlain put up 43 points. Edgecombe surpasses a plethora of NBA greats in this category, including the likes of LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, and Michael Jordan, now just sitting behind Wilt and Frank Selvy, both of whom debuted in the 1950's. V.J has put the league on notice, he's ready to contribute to a winning side now, he's ready to start for a winning side, and he's undoubtedly the future of this team and arguably one of the future greats of this league.

2- Dominick Barlow will have a full-NBA contract by the end of the season

Since going undrafted in 2022, Barlow has had to work extremely hard to stay in the league. Having previously spent seasons on a two-way contract with the San Antonio Spurs and Atlanta Hawks, expectation was not exactly high when he arrived on a two-way deal in early July. But given the Sixers inability to secure Guerschon Yabusele to a long-term deal, and with Paul George and Trendon Watford out injured, an opportunity emerged for Barlow to show his value. The Sixers have failed to adequately nail down the power forward position, and if we're being realistic if we have any aspiration of legitimately competing, we do still need to find a way to upgrade this role. With this being said Barlow showed a lot of promise in the opener, securing the starting 4 spot.

Barlow brings a lot of strong fundamental skills. For the longest time we've lacked an ability to attack the glass and rebound. What Barlow displayed was nothing flashy, he's not the strongest of shooters, nor does he have a tight handle, but he does drive well and can pick up second-chance points. He finished last night with 13/8/5, racking up an impressive 5 assists off the back of some nice handoffs to VJ or Maxey. If Barlow can continue to just be fundamentally sound I've no doubt he is worth converting to a full-NBA deal, he can slot in seamlessly at the 4 for a few minutes and so long as he keeps displaying a good level of competency and effort that is exactly the sort of guy you want in the locker room.

3- Is this the beginning of the end for Embiid?

The Joel Embiid haters on social media were licking their lips after this performance. Like most clickbait pages on X (Formerly Twitter) they've revelled in the fact that what was once one of the best players of his generation has now had his career cut short and limited by injuries beyond his control, ranging from meniscus tears, broken orbital bones, and bells palsy. Contrary to popular belief Joel has tried his absolute hardest to play through these injuries, former teammate Nicolas Batum went so far as to say that having looked at his knee prior to every game he "had no idea how he could walk." But this information tends to get omitted as those who dislike Embiid would prefer to focus more on the degrading, lazy takes, ones which describe him as "soft", or "weak."

Now as far as I'm concerned, Embiid is a 76ers legend who will have his jersey retired and hung in the rafters of the X-Finity Arena, and rightly so. I will always support and back the man who's quite literally put his body on the line for our team, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't have any worries or concerns, especially after last nights performance. It was announced prior to tip off that Embiid would be put on a minutes restriction, logging just 20 minutes, a far cry from the usual 35-40 minutes he may accrue. This would suggest that Coach Nurse is looking to protect and preserve an injury prone Embiid, with last season illustrating just how lost we are as a team without him. This idea was underlined further with Barlow competing for the tip at the start of the match rather than Joel, so as to not put any unnecessary stress on his fragile knees.

Throughout the game he steered clear of the low post, a place where he usually gets his work done but also somewhere where he tends to attract the most physical plays. Instead he engaged in pick and pops, lingering at the top of the key. Unfortunately, Embiid couldn't get his shot to drop, finishing with just 4 points on 1/9 from the field. Now Embiid has been known to start the season slowly until finally reaching the point where he's his usual, dominant self. But although Embiid looks in fantastic shape, he simply isn't playing like Joel Embiid. He's avoiding contact, not getting on the low block and now looks a shell of himself, with the coaches wrapping him in cotton wool so as to not aggravate any injuries. This raises the question, if Joel Embiid cannot assert himself in true Embiid-like fashion, then what value can he bring to this team?

4- I think it's time to trade Kelly Oubre

Kelly Oubre hasn't changed a bit. He still gives 100% effort, he's just as tenacious as ever, but unfortunately he's still just as frustrating. In the 33 minutes Kelly played he had a 1:2 assist to turnover ratio, hit a huge three pointer to help ignite a Sixers comeback in the 4th quarter, and also took as many as 6 three pointers despite being a career 32% 3 point shooter, with many of these coming early in the shot clock or not being the best shot available for the team.

Now there's no doubt he deserves credit. Last year, Kelly was one of the few, if not the only player that tried his hardest every game despite it becoming apparent early on that it was going to be a dead rubber season. Kelly's confidence can win you games, with random spurts where he'll get 20+ points, but equally, he'll shoot you out of games and can't seem to settle for a role that requires him to merely spot-up shoot and cut to the basket. It is because of this that we should look to trade his $8m a year expiring deal. This when packaged with Andre Drummonds contract or even Quentin Grimes' contract, should enable the Sixers to get a strong starting power forward like 24 year old Tari Eason, someone who the Houston Rockets have recently chosen to not extend.

With Fred Van Vleets recent injury, and with the Rockets obvious lack of guard depth exhibited in their opening night loss to the Thunder, an Oubre & Grimes deal for Eason could be an attractive proposition for both parties. Of course for Grimes, he could still easily prove that we may want to keep him for the long-haul, but with just how good VJ Edgecombe has looked, Grimes could be perceived to be slightly more expendable especially if he and his agent still value him at the $20m a year mark.

5- Tyrese Maxey has taken another step

It's easy to forget that although Tyrese Maxey has been in Philadelphia for over half a decade now, he is still just 24 years old and has plenty of development still to come. And with VJ breaking records, Tyrese's contribution last night has slipped under the radar. Maxey put up a whopping 40 points as well as 2 rebounds and 6 assists. Since arriving in South Philly, no one could ever question Tyrese's character. He's consistently played to the best of his ability and subsequently the fans have taken to him tremendously.

However, some criticisms could be lodged at him, mainly just at how he could look to improve his game. Last season in a depleted team it was often on Tyrese to drag us to victory. Consequently he often shot-chucked, and tried just a bit too hard to get the ball in the hoop. Last night, we saw Tyrese being guarded primarily by well-respected defender Derrick White, Tyrese however took his time with each possession, carving out the best possible look either for himself or for others. Maxey has to find a way to be the point guard of this team whilst simultaneously being a scorer. By continuing to simplify his game and not force possessions he'll continue to make the step up that's required of him. Whilst this could result in a drop in his points per game average, we could see him set a career-high for assists per game in a season if he continues in this vein, and hopefully, get his second all-star appearance of his career.