Add to that the fact that he was stuck behind Iggy, and no matter how much Collins tried to say they did, they did NOT mesh well on the court. You can’t have a 2 and 3 on the floor at the same time who can’t shoot a jumper. It allows defenders to crash at will, it’s a recipe for failure. It works great in the open court, but good teams prevent you from running, especially when they know you are terrible in the half court set.

Even though they are a few years late, they brought in one of the best bigs in the NBA, with arguably the highest cieling of any big in the league. Plus they will have the ability to bring in another top tier talent over the next few seasons if the right guy comes up. They still have Holiday to worry about, and his mind boggling belief that he is a max player, but if I’m the sixers, I let him test FA. Nobody else is going to give him a max deal, and if they do, you match it and it is still less than what your max deal would of been. Unless they can find a replacement PG, which I wouldn’t rule out either. But hopefully, Jrue gets it through his head that while a good young player, he is nowhere near a max guy. Sign a 3 year deal around 20mil, and you are an UFA at 25.

All in all, should be an intersting season. I don’t think they’ll make a serious run, the roster still needs to gel, guys like Holiday, Turner, and Young have to get used to a new system, Bynum has to get used to being the focal point, etc etc. But them going big while the rest of the conference is going small should be intersting to watch. Mainly becasue of that, although I don’t expect a serious run, if they made one, it wouldn’t surprise me. But I think this will be a scary team next year and looking forward. Especially if they can find another top tier talent to add to the mix.

Either way, great to be a sixers fan and not be stuck in constant mediocrity. It’s been since Barkley was here that the sixers weren’t in that position. Even with AI, they had a great run to the finals on year, but nobody seriously thought they could be LA for the title, and they only made it past the 1st round 1 other time. I’ve always said, the way the NBA is set up, the worst thing you can be is average, it’s brings you average draft picks, and average FA, to keep you average. It’s nice to see the sixers get out of that, and straight to a positive direction, and not have to turn in to a terrible team for 3+ years to do it (the usual path in the NBA)