Justin Verrier

And that's a good position to be in because if they went around, it's found money.

They also don't have the opportunity to because Reeves will presumably be coming back on a full max.

And at that point, you're restricted to what you could do.

I doubt it's a Giannis move, but honestly, I think it might not be in their worst interest to bring back Reeves and fill out a defense and just go from there.

I think they can still be a pretty good team.

Since we're circling teams that didn't do something that we're kind of secretly a little disappointed in, the Sixers, every time I watch them, I'm just marveled at how much of a monster Joel Embiid still is.

I know he's probably never going to be the version that we hope

he will be or was before, but he's putting up 30 on a night practically at this point.

And so I do wonder like it is this disappointment that they didn't turn the stuff that they got from McCain into something else.

It seems like more just ended up with a SW side swipe and another case of what could have been does feel like that whole, that Paul George has left over the next 20 plus games here.

If they weren't able to fill that,

They could be spicy enough that, again, like the Lakers, if things just happen to roll their way, if Embiid, when we're least expecting it, is actually healthy for a playoff series, who has the counter to that in the East?

Does anybody have an Embiid stopper just on hand?

Anything else that caught your eyes over the past couple days post-deadline?

I have a couple, like, reconsiderations that I've been undergoing as I've just thought too hard about what we've already said about the deadline.

I have started to talk myself more into the Wizards.

If you think about what they did with the Anthony Davis more as like a way station as a rehab facility in the same way that the Thunder did with Chris Paul.

I don't know if this is their intent, but it kind of sounds like they're signaling toward that if they're not going to sign him to an extension that our plan is not to move forward with an Embiid.

It's actually to do what we did with some of these other guys that we brought and try to bring back value in him by letting his contract expire a little bit, let him show a little bit more in a low stakes environment.

And then all of a sudden, maybe we turn two bad first into one good first.