We're Almost There...

It's about to go down. Training camp is almost here. We got a scrimmage to talk about. Let's talk about the preseason. Basketball is... It's almost back. Not quite back. But look, I think that, uh... You guys all know that I'm pumped about the return of training camp. I'd assume if you're also watching this show. Speaking of which, welcome back to another episode of Sixers Digest. Christian, Pedersen, Sean, and I give you daily content. If you like, subscribe, share, follow, all those other YouTubey buttons. I think if you know at this point, like... It's here. It's close enough to taste. We got LeBron explaining why he's a Sixer. And things feel like they've gone from off-season-y to pre-season-y camp. I'm gonna run down some of the headlines. I want to talk about an article a little bit more. Going into what Jalen Brown is going to allegedly bring to us. Or need to bring to us this season. Other than his eclectic tastes for off-season workouts. Which now we got Tyrese Maxxie doing some boxing. Look, you can tell by my energy level that I am pumped. And I want to talk with you guys all about it. The first thing being that the blue and white scrimmage is being moved to being played in Xfinity Arena for the first time. And for the recent years and iterations of this, it has been at the home of the D-League affiliate, the Delaware Bluecoats. And I think that, again, I keep saying this, it's fun to just follow the economy of the Sixers as ticket prices go up and primetime games go up. And while they are not necessarily deciding to charge an arm and a leg for this, and the money that is the donations that's required is going to kids, charities, and there are 5,000 tickets out there for kids. Like, good things coming from this being in Xfinity Arena. I just think that this is another notch in the belt of interesting artificial inflation of this season's economy and value. And the perception of, we've added some guys that aren't just improving this thing, and aren't just a hype, and aren't just a gamble. And we've made this into a, we are really legitimately, not just a playoff contender by the way that the NBA analysts are doing this, but we are a national story. And now we need to house our scrimmage in a big-time arena. I will be curious, I don't think this is going to necessarily change, like, the style of play, I don't think Nick Nurse is going to just be like, turn this thing into a cage match, and we're going to knock down Dragout Brawl, and get everybody injured, yadda yadda. So it's probably still going to be a fun time. But just to have it in the big house, have it in front of what I'm assuming will be a lot more, maybe probably equal number of fans than we have if you add it all the last couple of years together, I think that's awesome. To me, give me all the cameras, give me all the hype, give me all the expectations, I don't need to slowly build this thing up. We only get a, only a two-year window with LeBron, and a couple of years after that with the lingering impacts of LeBron being here. So let's ride this wave, let's enjoy it while it's happening. If you look over on the Kalshi markets, and as always, we've got to say thank you to Kalshi for sponsoring this video. We are the third favorite team to win the NBA championship. I've not been in that kind of a position. So that's what I'm saying, let's just, let's be hype about all this. And a reminder, if you want to sign up for Kalshi, you can use the code DigestNBA when you are signing up, and they will hook you up with $55 when you trade your first $25 in options. I want to talk next about this three goals for Jalen Brown. I have not done a lot of Jalen Brown talking other than just the off-season that he had, and I talked in yesterday's video about who's, who's the man, who's going to take the shot, who's the guy that we go to with on the line, and one of the ones that I was the least confident about in understanding his role was Jalen Brown. He is technically a cast-off from the Celtics, and somebody that despite having the resume of being a Finals MVP is somebody that they thought, oh, you'd rather have playoff P and his dusty old ass than having Jalen Brown, and it works better with Jason Tatum. We've seen some of the prognosticators be like, oh, now the Celtics are going to be the one seed in the East. So he feels like he's got a huge, a huge variance of either the Celtics were right, and he's about to come in here and be the odd man out, and the analytics will prove that he's done this, that, and the other, and he's, or he's going to come in here with a chip on his shoulder and be somebody out for blood this season, and be like, not just the spark, but the burning hot magma that fires up this team. The three things that they said was set a championship example. Thankfully, we don't need, he's not the only guy on here that has a championship, but I think it'll be interesting to see, like, LeBron and him had very different paths to their championships, and thus, I think he can bring in a, you know, it's not just LeBron being like, here's the way we get it done. Jalen Brown can bring in an interesting set of perspectives and attitudes as to how to maintain that intensity and fire that level of preparation. Impact both ends. We've talked a bunch about the Sixers needing help on defense, and Jalen Brown can not necessarily go to banging in the paint, but he can be a huge perimeter disruptor and mid defender in the way that maybe doesn't force us to have to rely on only cleaning up the boards and being big internal, but the offensive impact, he's, like, he's, this makes me think that he's got to be closer to being that dude, and he's got to be hungry for it, and maybe fight for that opportunity to be that closer and that killer, but the biggest one here is, I could not agree with more, is carry that chip on his shoulder. I want to see Jalen Brown start, dare I say, the preseason, and we'll get to the preseason schedule in just a second, but I want to see him start this season angry. I want him to play so intense and so, you know, going downhill, to borrow a phrase from Marshawn Lynch, hit a mother bleeper in his face over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over until it breaks. I'm like, I want that kind of basketball, even if it has to be Nick Nurse and LeBron and everyone being like, chill dog, chill. I'd rather start from that place and then work backwards, bringing up the preseason, now that we are, I mean, we're close. We're really close. Like, this is actually happening. Like, this is, we're like, only a couple weeks away from it. I'm curious what you guys think about, and we've talked now a ton about, how does this all come together? And I would assume that we are not going to get very many, if any, moments from the main dudes in the preseason, but what kind of a schedule do you have, if you were all in Nick Nurse's chair and in Mike Gansey's chair, in terms of putting, you know, the real deal to get, like, do you need to see any of that starting five, and then figuring out the bent, like, how much of that gets figured out in the preseason? How much of that do you guys want in the preseason? How much do you need in the preseason? How much do you think the Sixers need? Because, like, us wanting and needing it versus the Sixers wanting and needing it can be different. Like, to me, I want it because I want to see us, like I said, start with that intensity, and to me, starting with that intensity means we get a sneak peek of that in the preseason. I also think that, as much as I have dismissed the argument of, like, oh, this team's got to figure out how to play together, and all these pieces, and I've kind of brushed it aside the last couple of days, like, I'm just tired of that argument, it is a real deal argument of, like, you know, like, we do have to actually roll the ball out and play, and preseason games either mean way less to this team, just because LeBron has done a bunch of them, we're going to load, I would assume Embiid is not out there for any significant amount of anything in the preseason to just try and keep him healthy, and that already, like, with those two, you're already looking at, like, not the full gang is out there, but at the same time, do you want to risk a slow start if we could have gotten a little bit more work in in the preseason? I don't know. We'll find out soon enough. Only a couple more days of nothingness until training camp hits, so it's a fun talk to have in the comment section. Let me know what you think. Like, subscribe, share, follow all those other YouTube-y buttons. Until tomorrow, go Sixers. Talk to you guys soon.