The Liberty Ballers

By Jarrett Felix

Usually, I like to plan out the flow and progression of my posts a bit before I just jump in and type out a scrambled mess of information, but in honor of my topic today I will go in with a general plan, write down the best ideas I can come up with and then at a certain point hope that with all these good ideas I'll have a quality post to share.

Yes, I'm talking about the Philadelphia 76ers, my favorite basketball franchise who is currently en route for another ugly season of handling the orange. Today, while flipping through the inter webs, I came across a site called: Liberty Ballers. Let me just say, it's an amazing site of you are a Sixers fan or a fan of reading comments from crazy people. I happen to fit both criteria so I was in like a Hollis Thompson 3 pointer. 

Sorry did I say Hollis, I meant Klay. Like 3rd quarter Klay. 

Like a distant dream I vaguely remembered encountering the site at some point in the summer when I was trying to figure out the deal with all the Sixers first round picks. We're not Boston, but we are doing alright for ourselves. Now I was back and ready for some more valuable insight that only Sixers fans would care about. And bang, right away I got an article about how the Sixers were not able to get involved in the Mario Chalmers trade. Beautiful.

Now some of you probably don't know Rio was traded. Or don't care. It's not exactly a huge event. But Sixers fans, we hear "avoiding luxury tax" and "not the Sixers" and we are like what the eff is going on here. So I read the article, it informed me and then I jumped down to the comments to get a feel for the other fan perspectives. And I'll tell you what, people were pretty intrigued by a trade of bench players that the Sixers literally had nothing to do with. There were some praises of Sam Hinkie being a tough negotiator and some unique perspectives on real life situations he would be able to exploit for second round picks. The optimism was inspiring.

Apparently the Sixers are also involved in Derek Rose trade rumors? Or at least the Sixers fans think we are involved in Derek Rose trade rumors? There was a post on that as well. We have the ability to take on his contract and we need a point guard, but the asking price is likely way high and it's a one year deal so the dude is likely walking or asking for big money next year and who knows if he is gonna be good again. But I guess you never know considering Hinkie has a thing for injured dudes with potential. 

However, that wasn't what I was most interested in. I jumped down to the comment section mining for a bit more gold. I really enjoyed the Sixers fans discussing what they would or wouldn't trade for Derek Rose and ... For some reason that I wasn't really quite sure of ... Paul George. Is Paul George on the trading block? I had no idea. But I'm getting sidetracked ...

The fans are just drooling over all our first round picks and I couldn't believe how much people were fawning over our assets. If we had a chance to get PAUL GEORGE (which, for the record, of course we don't) why would we not give up the Lakers pick and some other good stuff? The man with two first names and two last names is one of the best five players in the league, can defend at an extremely high level and is smack in the middle of his prime. And somebody said, "I wouldn't give up Nerlens for either imo" I think that was in addition to some other stuff not straight up, but that's the thing I'm not even sure.

And don't even get me started on the savior TJ McConnell. The team captain of your 2015-2016 Sixers is, according to my fellow fans, either better than D'Angelo Russell or a great bet to get flipped for a second round pick and it be a good trade. Both things were said. And neither dude was trolling. Trust me, I edit the comments for this blog, I know how to pick a troll out of a line up.

But this is where we are now as fans aren't we? We are so brainwashed by the process that we are going crazy over all of our first round picks and assets while my boy Jah slowly gets more and more frustrated that he is the most polished player on an NBA franchise. And look I think Jah could be real good on the right squad and I too love some good old fashioned European prospect drafting but am I the only one that's starting to get worried? Like how long can these players take it? How long will it take for Embiid to ever play basketball again? Will he eat a basketball before he plays basketball? It's actually kinda possible!

And like even though we are trying as hard as possible to be absolutely putrid at basketball, you know there have been teams worse than us both years? The bucks and the t wolves both were worse than us! Somehow! And the nets are next! If Bill Simmons steals Ben Simmons from us, I'm going to be so upset. Ben Simmons! He might be really good at basketball, but more importantly he's Australian! I could desperately use more Australian accents in my life right now.

I mean I'm just gonna say it, if you walked into my house this past weekend you would have found your fearless blog leader curled up in the fetal position, rocking hysterically back and forth muttering "trust the process ... trust the process" over and over again. 

Thankfully, my girlfriend went to my room and pulled out a blue and yellow shirt and threw it at me. I looked down to see the calming "#30" and I was steadied.

For those of you who don't know, I'm a huge Steph Curry fan. Also, welcome to the blog! I hope you are enjoying your first visit. He's been getting me through this tough time with his amazing abilities to shoot and pass and dribble and have adorable children. I could watch his highlights for hours. In fact, I have. That's why it took so long for me to get my states recap out.

Some of you might be saying, well Etrain you're pretty lame being such a bandwagon fan right now and jumping on the Warriors bandwagon because they are good. I respectfully disagree, some of you. First of all, my allegiances will always be to the Philadelphia franchises but the Sixers are currently at a point in time where their goal is to lose. Therefore my goal as a fan should be to root for the other NBA teams. Second of all, I'm not just jumping on the Warriors bandwagon because the Warriors just won a title and are one of the best teams of all time right now. I find that implication very disrespectful. I'll have you know I jumped on the bandwagon 3 years ago when the Warriors were only kinda good and I got my first 2k video game where I played with Steph as much as possible. You know, like a real fan.

If you don't believe me, go ahead and look back at my posts over the years. It's well documented. I once made a post that was literally just "I once had a dream that I met Steph Curry. Then I woke up. Maybe one day." And that was the whole post! I put that up on my blog for people to read when I'm trying to be a respected journalist. 

I feel like I've gotten off topic. What we were talking about? Hmm now we are at the tricky part where I have all the assets but need to put it together into an actual post. I hope I can do that ....

Get it? It's a joke about the Sixers. Please hold your applause.