If Paul George signs at 3:30 AM Eastern and no one is around to hear it, will it make a sound?
Suffice to say the answer is yes. The moment we've been waiting for has finally happened: Paul George is officially a Philadelphia 76er.
For Philadelphia, this is obviously seismic. George joins Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey to form what immediately becomes one of the best big threes in the league. George is not what he wants was as a two-way wing, but what makes him such a valuable player is the fact that he fits in pretty much anywhere on any team because he can play on the wing, with or without the ball, stretching the defense with his shooting ability and taking nearly any defensive matchup. Paul George is not additive. He is a force multiplier. His presence will make everyone else on the team better.
Don’t forget, Joel Embiid was well on his way to a deserving MVP season before the injuries last year. That particular ship may have sailed at this point with the 65 game limit, but Embiid is nearly unstoppable in the post. His partnership with Maxey streaking down the rim into space had become just about as unstoppable, and now you’ve got PG as the third option waiting to hit an open jumper on the wing or attack the open space created by the defense collapsing on the other two. Good luck defending that.
Those three guys alone immediately make Philadelphia a genuine bona fide title contender. Where Boston and New York rely on depth and lack of an elite star, Philadelphia now has the best player in the conference, and the case for the best second best and third best players too. What the team won’t be able to match those two on his depth.
Remember, the Sixers were able to pull this move off with all that cap space specifically because Tobias Harris, Kyle Lowry, Buddy Hield, DeAnthony Melton, Nic Batum, Kelly Oubre, and others are all free agents — technically along with Maxey. Maxey is going nowhere and Oubre has officially re-signed with the late-night George news, but the rest of the roster is mostly barren.
Andre Drummond has been signed and he will back up Embiid. That’s a regular season move but an important one considering his history. The goal here is 16 wins, not 65 games. Eric Gordon was also signed, and the team drafted Duke sharpshooter Jared McCain and UCLA big man Adem Bona.
Are you catching a theme? Depth for Embiid and great shooting and spacing around him. That’s the formula for Daryl Morey, Nick Nurse, and the crew.
The rest remains to be seen. Maxey, George, and Oubre all have some playmaking ability but this team will badly need a more traditional point guard at times. Will Lowry take a hometown discount to chase another ring? Could Melton take a one-year discount off the injury to help the perimeter defense and save PG’s legs? Who else can the team get to fill out the roster? We’ve seen these top-heavy rosters struggle to find depth in recent years.
Either way, the Sixers certainly deserve to be considered among the very best title favorites now. They have the stars to match up the best in the East, and it should be said they have the star center to match up with the best in the West if that’s still Denver. While New York just chased wings to match with Boston, it now has a significant gap of big men to match up with Embiid. Truthfully, very few teams can defend him when he is healthy and at his best. That of course remains to be seen next May.
If you wanted to Philadelphia title ticket, the time to buy it was a week ago before this news, and anticipation and hope, available at +1400. Now is absolutely not the time. Now you’re paying for hype and knowledge, when the reality is that there are 10 months of unknown, most importantly whether this team will even be healthy enough to contend at the start of the playoffs. With the history of these stars, there will no doubt be down points of the season to invest in later, at a better price and with far more information.
For the Clippers this is obviously bad news. James Harden has signed to return, but we’ll see if the team targets DeMar DeRozan or another similar replacement. And don’t forget about the draft picks still owed to the Thunder, a quiet winner of the signing because those assets just got more valuable as Oklahoma City potentially hunts Lauri Markkanen or another star itself at the top of the title race. Of course, that’s the thing with dominos, right? This was only the first one. Remember, one of last year’s major dominos was Damian Lillard, and it was the aftershock of that trade, not the initial move, but ended up shaping the title race.
We have only just begun. Buckle up.
