The Sixers Master Plan is Being Revealed...

The Sixers master plan is being revealed with one day of training camp in the books. We've got a bunch of Nick Nurse quotes to talk about and relish on and live vicariously through. Look, I think it's all good news, both that the offseason is over, that the team we have seems to be at least capable of giving good positive quotes. But it also seems like the people in charge between Mike Gansey, Nick Nurse, and all the other assistant coaches that have been assembled, like there is some degree of a cohesive plan. Plus, we've got the first on Joel Embiid, and it is good news. We saw photos of him slimming down. He was available for an entire full day of practice, and I know that that sounds somewhat hyperbolic and sarcastic. A, I'm a YouTuber, so it's going to happen sometimes, but also every moment and instance that we can get good news to glean of Embiid, it's going to be good news for all of us to feast on between now and actually having some games. What's going on, everybody? Christian Pedersen back with another episode of Sixers Digest, the show that's bringing you daily content. Where, like I said, sometimes it's hyperbolic and overreactive, but nonetheless, we are going to be the number one Sixers positivity podcast this season. If you want to like, subscribe, comment, share, follow, all those other YouTubey buttons, always greatly appreciated. The experiment, we need to clearly define roles for everybody, is the main theme that we kind of already knew this offseason. But nonetheless, is the point that Nick Nurse was driving home all afternoon to the media. I don't know. I was about to say night. That happened during the day. Going to get to that in just a second. But before we do, as always, got to say a quick thank you to our sponsors on this channel. And that is Kalshi. And remind everybody that right now, speaking of numbers, we are the number three team on their markets to be the NBA champions. And if you would like to get in on that action, use the code DigestNBA when you're signing up. And when you trade your first $25 in options, Kalshi will hook you up with $55. Okay, let's dive into these Nick Nurse quotes. I got an idea, as I do with every guy and what their role should be, and even bullet points underneath. But I want to see the group a couple of weeks before I start trying to narrow that down. I want to collaborate with each player on that. We need to clearly define roles for everybody. So, again, take what you will away from this. As I always say with quotes, sometimes, you know, coach speak is going to be generic and whatnot. But the fact that, A, he has preconceived notions, obviously good. Someone did their homework and is coming prepped. But I like that he isn't coming out here and definitively saying already, hey, I've got a plan and we're going to be acting on that plan. I like him being open to some, some ebb and some flow and some change and some adjustment as these pieces all get to working together. Because really, as much as we've all talked about this a ton, we have not actually seen any of this in action. I think a lot of things will help the efficiency. Nurse said, I think we all have a little bit better pace. Passing, I think these guys are a little bit bigger and have better vision. Obviously, they can score, too. That helps. The word that I want to take out of that whole one is pace. Mike Gansey talked about it during the offseason in a summer league broadcast. LeBron has talked about it. Maxey has talked about it, about wanting to play fast and cut this team loose. So, again, another guy saying the word pace. Just to me, it echoes A, that a lot of these guys, if not all of these guys, are on the same page. But B, we're going to see some really up-tempo, fast-paced basketball. I think that for me, the biggest takeaway on the actual X's and O's side of is that the tempo and playing really fast could, from my limited understanding of the game, help take a little bit of pressure off on our defensive shortcomings. Going further down, a couple of metrics would show we really did well at generating the shots, but then the percentages, the effective field goals, whatever you like, show that we're getting a lot of shots we wanted to get. So hopefully we have a few more shot makers. Um, but that was, I was talking about last year's metrics versus this year's metrics in terms of shot generation. And, um, I think it's maybe of all of the things discussed from year to year, if this one is one, I take the least stock in just last year's team was not this year's team. And it shows that there was all these deficiencies, but it's also like, look at who was taking those shots. This isn't just an off season. When we were first talking this off season, it was going to be like, oh, well, we're going to draft LeBaron. And what about Grimes and Oubre? And what's, maybe we bring one back and not the other. None of that plotline exists anymore. This is ostensibly a, uh, this is not just a new coat of paint. This is a rip the house down to the studs. We built this bleep and it's looking, I think, way to, I almost can't even recognize it levels of difference. So not that I want to entirely be like, well, last year doesn't count for anything. Cause it was Nick nurse coaching. And so he needs to take some learning lessons and examples from like what the core remaining group of him be to Maxie and Edgecombe and Barlow and Edwards and Bona and did, but that was it. Like just those couple of names and those are scattered across both bench and starters. So I am not that worried about the carry over from, uh, one year to the other in terms of last year to this year. Nurse also commenting on LeBron James. He had a couple of different ones, but this one I really liked of just talking about how LeBron's he's very vocal. You hear his voice. He talks extremely loud on defense and they think he's obviously an example setter, right? He leads by example, and he was certainly vocal in everything, but especially in the defensive breakdown stuff. My key two takeaways there are LeBron still having that energy, still having that vibes, still having that, you know, that extra gear to kick it into. But if he can be, yeah, I just got done saying we have defensive shortcomings and we need to go so aggressively on offense that we can offset all of that. If Ron can be a defensive field general, I would be curious what you guys assign to that as a, as a metric. Obviously him yelling, like if he's just yelling super loud, LeBaron, run over there and guard that guy, like that's not going to boost our defense. But if he can be a really, if he can effectively be out there on the court as a guy who is so cerebral and knows the game that he can be an additional coach in real time, communicating the assignments and slides and changes. There has to be some element of help that is going to provide that doesn't really get quantified on the stat line necessarily directly. Maybe in aggregate, it helps everybody be a little bit better at defense, which in turn helps the team be better at defense. But having somebody out there who has that energy, that vibe, and that perspective, I think can be really good. Again, some of this is going to be coach going to coach speak and you got to, you don't want to go out there and be like, same time to have a nurse appreciate that. I think, again, this is where just the cohesion feels there to me. Last one that I got for you before I let y'all go, or most of you have already tuned out at this point anyway, but this is the quote on Joel Embiid making it through his entire first practice. Embiid was not available to the media, but this was about him to saying he looked great. Very, very good news from the standpoint of where it's been the last couple of years, last couple of summers leading into today. He looked great, full participant all the way through. It's great to see this is coming coupled with a photo or two, or just seeing Embiid recently of him looking like he has dropped a bunch of weight. So hopefully it's healthier and ready to go. That's what I got for you on this episode. Happy, happy camp. Everybody happy NBA season. Go Sixers. Talk to you guys next time.