76ers Presser

[ballsohard]

Balls O'Hard:Good morning everyone- and that you for coming. As everyone knows, last season we were push out of the playoffs in round 1, which is unacceptable. We also had an extremely large tax bill and some atrophy in terms of the players in our line-up. This meant that things needed changing. The first thing we had to do is move on from a. man who will have his jersey retired in Philly one day, Van Grimaldi. Van came into this league as a guy not many people wanted after being the #1 overall recruit in high school. Van continued to push the limits on who he could be, who we thought he could be, in his years in Philly and had many accomplishments. He was the first 10,000 Point scorer in 76er history. With all of that, Van is without a doubt a top 3 76er player we've ever had, and he will always be honored here.

Balls O'Hard:But we had to move on. We ended up getting the 7 pick in the Draft, Mike Piazza, and a pick this year. Mike probably won't see playing time this year. But he and the pick next year allows us some flexibility in terms of cheaper contracts and filing the roster and hopefully as really nice talent when he's ready. The biggest piece we got, was financial flexibility. We were potentially 4 year repeaters this year, and now will be able to reset.

Balls O'Hard:With the extra cap space, we signed some younger players to short term deals. the longest term deal we got was with Chris Lemke. Chris was the jewel of our FA prize because he incorporates where we want to go in Philly- being team oriented and defensive focused. We also were able to add DeAndre Jordan, a defensive a rebounding stand out to guard the middle. The additions of Lemke and Jordan fill 2 spots we've been looking to fill for roughly 4 seasons now- a pass first, low usage defensive minded 1, and a low usage shot blocking rebounding 5. This is extremely important because we have 2 guys in Simmons and Fultz who should be taking the lions share of our shots. At least initially I see these two starting.


Balls O'Hard:To round out our free agency, we were able to add Constantino, Tardiff, Hagerman and Harrison Barnes at the forward spots. They will all be fighting for backup minutes which will be extremely important to this team. Swan, Lozano, and bringing back Gray were the additions at the guard spots. All bring very unique skillsets to the guard position, so we will toy around with who plays where. Our Current Starting lineup-up will look a little like this:

c: DeAndre Jordan
PF: Ben Simmons
SF: Nassir Little
SG: Markelle Fultz
PG: Chris Lemke

Balls O'Hard: With that I'll open up questions.

[NOLa.]

After trading for Mike Piazza, will there be a push to rename renamed players if it meets a certain threshold of ridiculousness?

[garbageman]

Sham Smith, Bulls.com: +1 for the previous question. Also. do you think your fiscally responsible team can outperform the team you had last year, which, while expensive, had one of the games best scorers in Van Grimaldi on it?

[ballsohard]

After trading for Mike Piazza, will there be a push to rename renamed players if it meets a certain threshold of ridiculousness?

Just waiting for the suggestion. I will say the terrible name drove the value of the player down for me.

[ballsohard]

Sham Smith, Bulls.com: +1 for the previous question. Also. do you think your fiscally responsible team can outperform the team you had last year, which, while expensive, had one of the games best scorers in Van Grimaldi on it?

It's really hard to tell, last year though, we didn't even make it through round 1 . So, yes I do think we can outperform last year's squad, but I also think last year's squad was more talented than this year's.

[drkavarga]

Who should be the Eagles starter next season, Foles or Wentz?

[ballsohard]

Who should be the Eagles starter next season, Foles or Wentz?

Foles- he’s the only one with an L in his name which fits the Eagles.