wanted to see what zhaire smith could do when he wasn't poisoned by snickers bars, but tony bradley is interesting: led NBA in offensive reb rate, top 10 in FG% and TS%, took some 3s in g-league (with mixed results)
bradley only took three 3-pointers for the jazz last season, but made all of them. a backup center who shoots 100% from deep could be helpful!
bradley seems to view it as part of his game (this is from summer 2019):
who knows if bradley ever steps on the floor, but there's at least the whiff of a sleeper: trapped behind vets for two years, a few oddly impressive stats, eye-test lumpiness, potentially underutilized shooting
Sixers Nation's concern about the need to acquire a "closer" feels like Jordan Originalism. Joel Embiid was 7th in the NBA in 4th quarter points, with 7th-highest usage rate and a TS% of 60.7 (higher than LBJ, Kawhi, Luka, Jimmy, etc)
Like, if late game iso-ball is your kink (no shaming), you're not finding someone better at it than Embiid anyway
According to NBA.com's "Clutch" stats, Embiid was 2nd among all qualifying players in points per game and had a TS of 71.9%, which completely blows every other high usage player out of the water
only two games, but sixers have defensive rating of ~102 when embiid is *off* the floor, which is slightly better than their defense last season when he was *on* the court
philly couldn't defend at all when embiid sat last season—horford (and to a lesser degree guys like richardson and thybulle) should shore up those wild swings
philly could be vulnerable against quick teams who spread the floor, but have smothered 3-point attempts so far. BOS and DET were 5th and 6th in 3PAs last season (~35.5 per game average). sixers held them to 22.5 average