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Category: Sixers/NBA

  • Trump attends ’Nova Knicks game and they end a 13-game playoff winning streak. Coincidence?

    NEW YORK — The ’Nova Knicks finally lost.

    All it took was Donald Trump.

    The least-loved New Yorker since Boss Tweed, the Donald on Monday took it upon himself to ruin pregame plans and pleasures of thousands by becoming the first sitting president to attend an NBA Finals game.

    It tracks: Trump always seeks to steal the shine from winners, and the Knicks, fueled by NCAA champs Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart, and Mikal Bridges, were winning like nobody’s business. They had won 13 consecutive playoff games and held a two-games-to-none lead over San Antonio when they took the court at Madison Square Garden.

    Trump’s presence created traffic snarls and ingress nightmares, and he was buried by boos during the singing of the national anthem, but nobody in the joint paid him much mind after that. He’d wanted to sit with Spike Lee and Larry David courtside, but the Secret Service (and perhaps his more sane advisers) persuaded him to retreat to a suite. There, in the shadows, he rested as the streak ended, a 115-111 downer in Game 3.

    Then, he fell asleep.

    You can’t make it up.

    Later, Trump blamed Karl-Anthony Towns. He wasn’t wrong.

    Look, it wasn’t all Trump’s fault, or KAT’s fault. It wasn’t anybody’s fault, really.

    Well, maybe it was the refs’ fault. That’s what Knicks coach Mike Brown claimed.

    “They outshot us 14-3 [from the line] in the third quarter. Maybe we did foul. But they fouled, too,” Brown said. “If they do this, 24-8 [in the second half], in Game 4, it’s going to be tough to win.”

    It will be interesting to see the league’s reaction to Brown’s comments, since he was fined twice in 2024 for interactions with officials before he was fired by the Kings.

    His players had no axe to grind.

    The Mike Gansey era has begun. Where do the Sixers go from here?

    “That didn’t cost us the game,” said Towns, who finished with just 11 points. “We turned the ball over. We didn’t execute. We didn’t do the things that got us 13 straight wins in a row.”

    It was a very non-’Nova-Knicks night, the sort they cannot afford against an assemblage like San Antonio’s.

    The Spurs won nine more regular-season games than the Knicks. Third-year center Victor Wembanyama finished third in MVP voting this year and was Defensive Player of the Year, De’Aaron Fox was an All-Star this season, Keldon Johnson was this season’s Sixth Man of the Year, and guard Stephon Castle won Rookie of the Year last season.

    Wemby had 32 points, eight rebounds, six assists, and three blocks. Castle has 23 points. Fox had the dagger and eight assists.

    They are a very, very good team.

    The Knicks trailed by five with 9 minutes, 18 seconds to play when Brunson, who leads the Knicks like he led the Wildcats, returned to the game. That set the scene for another comeback, like Game 1 in the Eastern Conference finals against the Cavaliers or Game 2 on Friday in San Antonio, Texas. Those comeback wins branded these Knicks the same way the gritty, deep Villanova teams were branded when the won NCAA titles in 2016 and 2018 under Jay Wright.

    Alas.

    The Knicks got 32 points from Brunson. They got 16 points and nine rebounds from Josh Hart. But they got just two points from Bridges, the hero of Game 2 just three nights before.

    Alack.

    Whether it was the 13-game run, the 53-year drought, or the presence of the president, Brunson & Co. were making no excuses.

    “There are going to be a lot of distractions, positive and negative,” Brunson said. “Most important is how we compose ourselves as a team, and we have to make sure we have accountability as a team.”

    Mikal Bridges is in his second NBA Finals. His grit comes from his mom.

    To be fair, it was thrilling to the end.

    Brunson hit a putback-and-one, a jumper as the shot clock expired, and a three-pointer with 33.7 seconds to play that cut the lead to three points, but Fox’s jumper with 12.2 seconds and two late free throws from Castle were just enough.

    You felt early that not even the steely pedigree forged on the Main Line almost a decade ago would be enough Monday.

    Wembanyama had nine points and a blocked shot in the first five minutes. Bridges committed two fouls and a turnover and had his shot blocked in the first four minutes.

    That’s how the Spurs built a double-digit lead. A constellation of stars of stage and screen looked on, hoping for a sweep, the sweetest possible end of a 53-year title drought. From Lee to David to Ben Stiller, they all felt it. The Knicks seemed … affected. Tight. Flat.

    Mostly, anyway.

    The Knicks took their first lead when Brunson — who else — canned a 25-foot three-pointer with just over four minutes left before halftime. He hit it over Wembanyama, reluctant to extend his defense too far, lest Brunson burn him to the basket again.

    About a minute later, with the Knicks down by four, Castle bulldozed Brunson while pursuing an offensive rebound. Hart scored on the ensuing possession and tied it at 54. Hart’s trey gave the Knicks the lead again, and Brunson dropped another 25-footer on Wemby. Brunson’s feed with 9.6 seconds soon sent Towns to the line, where he made both free throws, the end of a 14-3 run, and the Knicks’ halftime lead was 64-57 after they dominated the second quarter, 42-24.

    But the Spurs won the third quarter by eight, scored the first six points of the fourth, and held off the valiant ’Nova Knicks.

    They resume the series Wednesday, but don’t expect Trump to be back.

    Knicks fans might burn down the city.

  • The Mike Gansey era has begun. Where do the Sixers go from here?

    The Mike Gansey era has begun. Where do the Sixers go from here?

    Really, there wasn’t anything that Mike Gansey could have said that would have changed the expectations for the 76ers.

    Which is good, because he didn’t say much.

    Gansey’s first news conference as the 76ers’ president of basketball operations offered little in the way of detail about the team’s path forward. He acknowledged that Joel Embiid and Paul George are players who are currently on the Sixers roster. He noted that Tyrese Maxey and VJ Edgecombe are, too. He explained that he and his front office will attempt to select the best possible player with the No. 22 pick in the NBA draft later this month. You could say Gansey’s plan was short on specifics, except there weren’t many generalities, either.

    “I just got here,” the 43-year-old Ohio native and longtime Cleveland Cavaliers personnel man said at one point while prefacing one of his comments.

    All of this was to be expected. Smart, even. There is some short-term value a new hire can reap from winning the first news conference. But it often is outweighed by potential long-term damage he can sow. Look at Gansey’s three immediate predecessors. Each was haunted, even undone, by the narrative they sold at the outset.

    Sam Hinkie’s biggest problem wasn’t The Process itself. It was his explicit acknowledgment of it. Daryl Morey was ultimately defined by his unabashed and steadfast belief in the power of veteran superstars rather than his draft night successes. In between was Bryan Colangelo, who went all-in for Markelle Fultz as the Sixers launched a Welcome to the Moment marketing campaign.

    There were no slogans from Gansey on Monday. The surest sign that the Sixers have entered a new era is that we have no clue what it will look like. For more than a decade, the team has conducted its day-to-day business within the framework of a grand and easily articulated strategic vision. The Morey/Colangelo years were as well-defined a process as Hinkie’s capital-P Process years. Jimmy Butler, Tobias Harris, James Harden, George, every veteran backup center who used to be an All-Star. Star hunting, in the mortally immortal words of Brett Brown.

    Gansey, meanwhile, explained his vision only in the broadest, most abstract terms. He spoke of a desire to create “alignment” throughout the organization and remarked that he expected that he and coach Nick Nurse would be “attached at the hip.” On a couple of occasions, Gansey said he wanted to build an organization with people who are “fountains, not drains.”

    “We’ve got to do the work, you know?” Gansey said. “Obviously, draft coming up, for example, you’re talking to plenty of coaches, people that have been around these guys, and you want to bring in good people here. If they don’t want to be here, or you don’t feel they can fit with our culture, then we don’t want it. We want people that want to be in Philadelphia and we want guys that — I want competitiveness. I want toughness. I want guys that hate to lose. Those are the kind of people I’m going to try and target and want to bring onto this roster.”

    Mike Gansey expects to be “attached at the hip” with Sixers head coach Nick Nurse.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer

    The first part of that comment is the important part. The Sixers have no magic bullet to shoot nor rabbit to pull. They likely are going to need to build a team the old-fashioned way. With Embiid and George under contract at roughly $115 million per year combined for the next two seasons, the most the Sixers can spend in free agency is $15 million (via the nontaxpayer mid-level exception) plus minimum-level contracts.

    “I don’t look at it as a timeline,” Gansey said. “I just look at like we have those four and we got to maximize those four. Obviously, VJ and Tyrese are younger, but Paul and Joel can still play at a high level. We were 24-14 when Joel played, and obviously the playoffs coming back from Boston. Like, we got to rely on those four and obviously keep [them] on the floor and then just build around them.”

    The important work over these next couple of seasons could look a lot like the roster grind Gansey helped preside over during his time with the Cavaliers, when he was Cleveland’s point man on the draft and related talent. Two rotation members from this year’s Eastern Conference finals team were Dean Wade, signed as an undrafted free agent in 2019, and Sam Merrill, initially signed to a 10-day contract in 2023. A third, Jaylon Tyson, was selected at No. 20 overall two years ago.

    Mike Gansey plans to build around Sixers’ current core while growing the team’s culture

    One of the shrewder value plays swung by Cavs president Koby Altman during Gansey’s time with the team was the signing of restricted free agent Lauri Markkanen to a four-year, $67 million contract via a three-way sign-and-trade with the Cavs and Chicago Bulls. One year later, the Cavs made Markkenen the centerpiece of a trade package (along with three firsts and two pick swaps) that landed them star guard Donovan Mitchell. Two years later, Markkanen signed a five-year max contract extension with the Jazz.

    The most intriguing variable in the Sixers’ strategic decision-making is a competitive landscape that could be on the verge of shifting dramatically in the favor of teams such as theirs. In the new framework, a team that narrowly misses the playoffs would have better lottery odds than the four worst teams in the league, meaning the Sixers won’t have much of an incentive to bottom out or blow it up to maximize their chances of a successful rebuild.

    Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment president Bob Myers (right) helped hire Mike Gansey and will work closely with him. At left is Sixers managing partner Josh Harris.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer

    The dominant operating strategy for the next few years would seem to be playing it smart but honest: prioritize the three-to-five-year-plan while making this year’s team as good as possible within the constraints. The Eastern Conference landscape likely will get a lot tougher next season. With Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton returning to the 2024-25 Eastern Conference champs and Boston Celtics star Jayson Tatum fully recovered from Achilles surgery, the East should have at least three teams (including the New York Knicks) well out of reach of the Sixers.

    That doesn’t include the Detroit Pistons or the Cavs, both of whom have a 60-win season within the last two years. Nor does it include the Miami Heat, who are a perpetual threat to shake up the offseason, especially with a Giannis Antetokounmpo trade lurking. Meanwhile, the Atlanta Hawks and Charlotte Hornets ended the season on runs of 26-11 and 28-12. Factor in a talented Orlando Magic roster that underperformed in 2026, and the Sixers easily could enter the season as the eighth- or ninth-best team on paper, regardless of what they do this offseason.

    “We’ve got to find an identity,” said Bob Myers, the longtime Golden State Warriors executive who hired Gansey and will work in conjunction with him as president of sports at Sixers parent company, Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment. “We just don’t have one.”

    At this point, there isn’t much else to say.

  • Trump crashes the NBA Finals and creates chaos at Madison Square Garden

    NEW YORK — There were 66 New York Police Department vehicles and two garbage trucks acting as barriers parked around the corner of 33rd Street and 8th Avenue. Forty-three of the vehicles, including 35 motorcycles, were lined up on 33rd alone.

    Both streets were locked down, and it wasn’t because John Turturro was inside Madison Square Garden.

    Trump was coming.

    President Donald Trump on Monday became the first sitting president to attend an NBA Finals game. He did so in the worst possible setting: the middle of the biggest, most congested city in the United States.

    Trump, a native New Yorker, said he was invited by Knicks owner James Dolan. He choppered into the city and took a limo to the arena, but did not sit courtside as planned.

    With the best seats auctioning off for more than $500,000 and the worst seats going for more than $6,000, maybe he couldn’t afford it.

    During the national anthem, he was shown in a suite, saluting.

    The boos were absolutely monumental, long and sustained, drowning out the hearty singer, Avery Wilson, and whatever cheers there might have been.

    Knicks guard Josh Hart expressed regret that ticket prices were so high that many long-suffering Knicks fans, whose team last won a title 53 years ago, would have to watch on TV.

    “I kind of wish ticket prices weren’t as crazy as they are. I feel like a lot of people have been waiting for this moment for a very long time,” Hart said. “Unfortunately, they’re not able to get into the building with the cheapest ticket $7,000 or $8,000. That’s ridiculous.”

    You wondered what, then, Hart thought of Trump and his entourage taking up so much space in the World’s Most Famous Arena. Hart has been a frequent critic of Trump’s, celebrating on X, then known as Twitter, when Trump lost the 2020 election.

    Hart has not issued any comment on Trump attending Monday night.

    Trump’s presence only amplified what you knew would be a frenetic, eclectic, and electric atmosphere.

    There was Spike Lee mugging courtside in a signed Pope Leo jersey. Signed.

    Comedian Larry David and Patriots owner Robert Kraft were hugging and texting courtside.

    Ben Stiller arrived four hours early, game face on, and was rubbing elbows with Pat McAfee, Stephen A. Smith, and what seemed like the rest of the ESPN staff that isn’t covering the College World Series.

    Jeremy Lin was in a leather Knicks jacket, and, for some reason, was stretching his Achilles tendons backstage. He looked fit. Secret weapon?

    Long before tipoff, thousands of folks outside were being misdirected by confused cops for an hour, then standing in lines another 90 minutes to get through security. There didn’t seem to be an empty seat by game time.

    New Yorkers knew what was up. They’re used to Trump messing up Manhattan traffic.

    ESPN studio host Ernie Johnson, his bow tie undone, was getting wanded by Secret Service as he entered the arena 4½ hours early, then waited among a herd of press types for 20 minutes to be let in 30 minutes early, then waited 15 minutes for the only accessible elevator before they turned on the escalators around the corner.

    Spurs center Victor Wembanyama went through the same process two hours later.

    Both coaches said Trump’s presence and the resulting complications affected neither them nor their teams.

    We’ll see.

  • Mike Gansey’s career started in Cleveland. Here’s how that experience will inform his role as Sixers president of basketball operations.

    Mike Gansey’s career started in Cleveland. Here’s how that experience will inform his role as Sixers president of basketball operations.

    During his introductory press conference, new 76ers president basketball of operations Mike Gansey detailed his journey to Philly, explaining the role he played in the Cleveland Cavaliers front office for more than a decade as he climbed up the organization’s ranks.

    Gansey most recently served as Cleveland’s general manager, but he has worked in a number of roles since joining the organization in 2011. A native of Olmsted Falls, Ohio, Gansey took some time to thank the franchise on Monday.

    “Cleveland has been home for me, and leaving that special group was not an easy decision at all,” Gansey said on Monday. “I have nothing but gratitude and admiration for the Gilbert family [majority owners], [president of basketball operations] Koby Altman, [coach] Kenny Atkinson, the players and everyone with that organization that have helped me personally and professionally.”

    Sixers promote Jameer Nelson to executive vice president of basketball operations

    Promoted to general manager in 2022, Gansey helped build the Cavaliers into a contender. The team traded for franchise cornerstone Donovan Mitchell during Gansey’s first season as the team’s GM. Then, after finding minor playoff success despite impressive regular-season finishes, the Cavaliers made another splashy move. Cleveland traded two-time All-Star Darius Garland to the Los Angeles Clippers for James Harden, forming a new backcourt between the former MVP and Mitchell.

    After winning 52 games this season, the Cavaliers were swept by the New York Knicks in the Eastern Conference finals.

    On Monday, Gansey explained his role with the Cavaliers and the part he played in major moves: “I did all the day-to-day. Talking to players, the agents, collaborating with any coach. I mean, me and Kenny [Atkinson] had a great relationship, we talked every day. … I haven’t been the number one guy, but right there with Koby, and Koby put a lot on my plate. I was very fortunate to be able to work as much as I did.”

    The Harden move, in particular, has given some Sixers fans and analysts pause. Harden, who played two seasons in Philadelphia before requesting a trade, struggled against the Knicks in the playoffs, averaging just 16 points, 4.8 rebounds and 3.0 assists in the four-game series. On Monday, Gansey did not offer much insight about the team’s acquisition of the 36-year old.

    “Obviously I was in those conversations,” Gansey said. “I was involved, but you know, James is with another team now. So you know, 10 days ago I could have answered every question you had on James, but he was great for us.”

    Mike Gansey makes his first appearance as Sixers president of basketball operations during a press conference on Monday.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer

    When asked further about his major responsibilities in Cleveland, Gansey shared that he “ran the draft,” playing a major role in “player personnel and evaluation.” Since 2022, when he took over as the team’s GM, the Cavaliers have drafted a few key role players. Namely, Cleveland selected guards Jaylon Tyson in 2024 and Tyrese Proctor in 2025, who both contributed to the team’s success this past season. The Sixers have the 22nd pick in this year’s draft. Bob Myers, president of sports for Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment, told reporters that while he did not know Gansey personally before the interview process began, he was more than familiar with his resumé.

    “[Gansey is] a great guy, he’s well-respected,” said Myers, who led the search. “I [did not] know if he’d leave Cleveland, the only place he’s ever been. I think Cleveland’s done a good job, obviously, in the LeBron [James] era and then climbing back up out of that. They made a lot of good decisions.”

    After playing basketball professionally overseas, Gansey’s first role with Cleveland was as a basketball operations seasonal assistant. From there, he willed his way up the organization via the team’s G League affiliate. He served in a multitude of roles with the Cleveland Charge, being named the 2016-17 G League Executive of the Year prior to being named Cavaliers assistant GM the following year.

    “I was there for 15 years, worked my way up: intern to GM, and I give Koby all the credit and the Gilbert family,” Gansey said. “They let me do my thing, I had a ton of responsibilities. Nowadays, when people can be a G League GM, I think that’s a huge stepping stone in their career, and I was able to do that. And it helped me when I became assistant GM all the way to GM.”

    New Sixers president Mike Gansey has a tall task ahead. His former WVU teammates, coach, and even bus driver say he’s ready.

    Gansey said he maintained an “open-door policy,” meaning he was available to anyone in the organization. He noted he built relationships “all the way from our star player to the janitor,” and he hopes to do the same in Philly.

    “We’re going to have alignment throughout the whole building. You know, me and Nick [Nurse] are going to collaborate every day, Jameer [Nelson], Prosper [Karangwa] — our whole staff, all the coaches, players. It’s going to be a great environment to be in Philly. I’m big on having fountains, not drains in the building.”

  • Mike Gansey plans to build around Sixers’ current core while growing the team’s culture: ‘I want fountains, not drains’

    Mike Gansey plans to build around Sixers’ current core while growing the team’s culture: ‘I want fountains, not drains’

    The 76ers need to establish an identity, Bob Myers said Monday.

    That’s the central task ahead of new president of basketball operations Mike Gansey, who will look to bring the Sixers past the second-round hump and build them into a true championship contender.

    When asked if the franchise was committed to Joel Embiid in the long-term, Gansey said that he considers Embiid, Tyrese Maxey, VJ Edgecombe, and Paul George the four tentpoles of the roster in the short-term.

    “We have those four and we’ve got to maximize those four,” Gansey said. “Obviously [Edgecombe] and [Maxey] are younger, but [George] and [Embiid] can still play at a high level. We were 24-14 when Joel played, and obviously in the playoffs, coming back from Boston. We’ve got to rely on those four, and obviously keep them on the floor, and then just build around them.”

    The Sixers were not elite offensively or defensively last season — they ranked in the middle of the league in both offensive (17th) and defensive (16th) rating — and the new leadership group wants to change that.

    Mike Gansey will have one big question to answer as his Sixers tenure begins | David Murphy

    But getting their stars on the floor at the same time is easier said than done. Myers cosigned that to establish a team identity, the Sixers need to have their top four guys, namely Embiid and George, who both missed significant chunks of the last two seasons, all on the floor together.

    “In order to see what we are, we’ve got to be on the floor, right?” said Myers, president of sports for Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment and the head of the search that led to the Sixers hiring Gansey. “You have to have a consistent product on the floor, and maybe that’s not good enough, or maybe it is, but we’ve got to figure out what are we, what can we stand on as a team.”

    Mike Gansey (center) was introduced to the Philadelphia media Monday by managing partner Josh Harris (left) and president of sports for Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment Bob Myers (right).Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer

    Myers referenced Embiid’s comments that the season was “successful” because he felt like he’d worked past the knee issues that hampered him for several years. Embiid has no scheduled surgeries this summer and the Sixers hope he can use the offseason to build instead of recover.

    But Embiid has missed more games than he’s played in his NBA career, partially due to just exceptionally bad injury luck, like last season’s appendectomy, or an orbital fracture or a bout with Bell’s palsy. Embiid has never played 70 games in a season, and hasn’t played more than half the games in a year since his MVP campaign in 2022-23.

    “He’s too important, and we are a top heavy team, right?” Myers said. “That’s just what it is. Look at the contracts. We need those guys to play, and you need depth underneath it. The league has changed, so we need both, but to experience what this team is, we need a healthy roster in training camp.”

    New Sixers president Mike Gansey has a tall task ahead. His former WVU teammates, coach, and even bus driver say he’s ready.

    The other aspect of building a team identity is through the internal culture of the organization. Gansey said explicitly that the Sixers roster is not championship caliber as it stands, but “we’re going to do everything we can to bring in players that fit” in order to build that roster.

    “I want guys that want to be in Philly, first and foremost,” Gansey said of his roster construction philosophy. “… I want fountains, not drains. I want guys with high character, guys with high work ethics, and guys that want to be in Philadelphia.”

    Gansey also said it was “a sticking point” for him to keep Jameer Nelson on and promote him to executive vice president of basketball operations. As a Chester native and former St. Joe’s star, Nelson knows the culture of basketball in the city in a way no one else in the organization does.

    Mike Gansey speaks to the Philadelphia media Monday as his wife Amy and their four children sit in the front row.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer

    With the draft at the end of the month, Gansey’s first big task will be to add another piece that can hopefully make an impact for the Sixers next year. Gansey did not delve too deeply into his draft philosophy, but said that at No. 22 he would consider both best fit and best player available.

    But it’s not just about getting the pick right. It’s also about what the Sixers do from there. The team has come under scrutiny recently for its struggles in keeping and developing players. This year’s NBA conference finals featured several ex-Sixers, including former draft picks Jared McCain, Landry Shamet, Isaiah Joe, and even Mikal Bridges, though he never suited up for Philly.

    From the ‘Nova Knicks to a Sixers castoff turned Spurs starter: All the Philly connections to the NBA Finals

    Now in Philly, Gansey hopes to fix that — starting with some of the players already on the roster.

    “The big part is just internal development, with Tyrese, VJ, and some of our other young guys, like they’ve got to get better too,” Gansey said.

  • Mike Gansey will have one big question to answer as his Sixers tenure begins

    Mike Gansey will have one big question to answer as his Sixers tenure begins

    It is fitting that the Sixers will introduce their new personnel chief on a day that could end with the Knicks one win away from their first NBA championship in 53 years. The last time they held one of these press conferences, the Knicks were coming off their sixth straight season with fewer than 33 wins and heading into a campaign where their starting lineup would include Nerlens Noel and Elfrid Payton.

    By the end of Daryl Morey’s first season as president of basketball operations, the Sixers would have a 15-game winning streak against the Knicks dating back to 2017. Six years later, there’s no better way to measure the organization’s stagnation than against the ascendancy of its closest neighbor.

    In short, the Sixers have selected a heck of a contextual backdrop for Mike Gansey’s first meeting with the Philadelphia media. Not only are the Knicks up 2-0 in the NBA Finals, but they are there with a starting lineup that features four players drafted no earlier than 23rd overall, plus a center whom Joel Embiid once used as his literal and figurative punching bag. Granted, the Knicks were not the team that drafted any of the five. But they also weren’t the team that traded one of them away.

    Mike Gansey is the guy for Bob Myers and the Sixers on paper. But what exactly will that mean in practice?

    The Villanova angle has been well trod. For good reason. It is a remarkable twist of the knife. Less examined are the more painful connections.

    In 2017, the Sixers traded up for Markelle Fultz in a first round where OG Anunoby went at No. 23 and Josh Hart at No. 30. They are two of five players from that year’s draft who participated in this year’s conference finals.

    The following year is the year best known as the one where the Sixers drafted Mikal Bridges at No. 10 and then traded him away for a guy who would play 13 career games. It was also the year where they drafted Landry Shamet seven spots before the Mavericks took Jalen Brunson. The kicker is that Shamet is now on the verge of a ring as a key reserve with the Knicks.

    This exercise is mostly an example of the fun of cherry-picking your hindsight. But there is some level of truth in it. Like Morey, Gansey will be inheriting a team that is largely a function of some consequential missteps in its long ago past. The original vision was to lose a lot of games in the hopes of drafting a homegrown triumvirate like Fultz, Embiid, and Ben Simmons. The Sixers ended up with more chances than they deserved at executing a pivot. Each time — with Bridges and Jimmy Butler, notably — they kicked the ball right back out of bounds.

    Now, somehow, they have another chance.

    Gansey’s hiring comes at a critical time for the Sixers. Somehow, they find themselves at an inflection point that could prove just as critical as those they deflected in the past. Tyrese Maxey and VJ Edgecombe are both gifts from forgiving gods. Maxey was selected with the No. 20 overall pick that the Sixers initially traded to the Magic in the Fultz draft and then reacquired by trading a then-floundering Fultz to the Magic. Edgecombe was selected with the No. 3 overall pick that the Sixers landed because of how bad they were in Year 1 of the Paul George/Embiid Era.

    Sixers promote Jameer Nelson to executive vice president of basketball operations

    Monday’s press conference will hopefully be an opportunity to hear Gansey’s response to a question that nobody from the Sixers has yet answered. Bob Myers and Josh Harris took turns dodging it a month ago in the wake of Morey’s firing. They surely posed it during their interview sessions with the former Cavaliers general manager. However much say Gansey ends up having relative to Myers, his hiring is pretty good evidence that their philosophies are all in alignment here at the beginning.

    Where do the Sixers go from here?

    While the futures of Embiid and George are clearly the biggest variables, they also might be beside the point. There is only one answer. Their future is here, with the Sixers. Each of their contracts renders impossible a mutually beneficial trade, at least for next year. Gansey’s real challenge is how to factor that reality into his attempts to build around Maxey and Edgecombe.

    Maybe that is giving him and the Sixers too much credit. I suppose there is a chance he comes out and says he sees a roster that is built to win now, that Embiid is still the centerpiece of this team and George is still a fine championship-caliber starter. I suppose he could look at the No. 22 pick in this year’s draft and the Sixers’ relative wealth in future drafts and see mostly the capital it would take to add a win-now player to George, Embiid, Edgecombe, and Maxey.

    But I doubt it.

    Josh Harris and Bob Myers meet with the media at the 76ers Training Complex on May 14.Yong Kim / Staff Photographer

    If that was a philosophy Myers and Harris agreed with, they wouldn’t have had a reason to part ways with Morey. The change at the top only made sense if they sought a change in vision. Let’s hope we hear Gansey articulate that vision.

    There are lots of different ways to build a championship contender. There are lots of different timelines. The Knicks remade their entire roster from scratch in the span of a couple of seasons, but they built a team so sensible that it feels like it was drafted and developed together. The Spurs hit on three top-five draft picks in Victor Wembanyama, Stephon Castle, and Dylan Harper.

    In the push-pull between present and future, how much will the Sixers value players who make them a better team now vs. players who might make them the team they’ll need three years from now? Gansey’s first task as president of basketball operations is to sell his fan base on that vision.

  • Daryl Morey teams up with Philly-born chess master Jennifer Shahade at Rittenhouse Chess Club’s charity tournament

    Daryl Morey teams up with Philly-born chess master Jennifer Shahade at Rittenhouse Chess Club’s charity tournament

    There were two kinds of GMs on hand at Rittenhouse Chess’ charity tournament at Queen & Rook Game Cafe on Sunday afternoon.

    Former 76ers president of basketball operations Daryl Morey and Philly-born Woman Grandmaster Jennifer Shahade both attended the event, which drew 64 players from across the city.

    Despite parting ways with the Sixers after the team was swept in the Eastern Conference semifinals by the Knicks, Morey kept his promise to show up for Rittenhouse Chess Club’s Charity Blitz Tournament.

    Daryl Morey made some poor decisions, but was he simply a victim of the Sixers’ circumstances?

    “[It is] very cool of him to still come here after not being with the Sixers,” Zach Pepsin, one of the event’s organizers, said. “He definitely loves chess, and it’s a cool thing to do for charity.”

    Pepsin said that through the tournament’s $30 entrance fee and raffle, Rittenhouse Chess will able to donate more than 100 chess boards to local organizations, including the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, the Ronald McDonald House and After School Activities Partnerships, among others.

    Morey makes moves

    Pepsin, a 32-year-old software designer, has been an active member of Rittenhouse Chess since it started in 2021. The club, which meets twice a week, on Wednesday and Sunday in Rittenhouse Square, runs occasional tournaments, including one in February at the Brauhaus Schmitz restaurant.

    Pepsin was not organizing that tournament, but he asked to see the list of entrants to see which of his friends he could expect to see. Instead, Pepsin spotted Morey’s name among the registered players.

    “No one else who runs Rittenhouse has any idea who Daryl Morey is,” Pepsin said. “I’m a huge Sixers fan. I’ve had season tickets for over 10 years now. When I saw his name, I thought it was a joke. I was like, ‘Oh, who put his name on here?’ They had no idea who he was. It turned out it was real, and he just wanted to play some chess.”

    Morey missed out on the tournament in February, as the Sixers were in the midst of a three-game road trip, but for Pepsin, the executive’s sign-up was kismet. Pepsin was planning to reach out to Morey, whose love for chess is documented through interviews and a bot on chess.com, to see if Morey would be interested in helping Rittenhouse with a charity event after basketball season.

    Pepsin reached out to Morey, and the executive agreed to come for the club’s tournament in June. There were concerns among the organizers that Morey’s dismissal from the Sixers in May would change his plans for the summer, but Morey remained committed to the tournament.

    Daryl Morey was hired by the Sixers as president of basketball operations back in 2020.Isaiah Vazquez / For The Inquirer

    Morey declined to speak with media at the event, but he found his way to Queen & Rook as the tournament was entering its final round.

    He played alongside Shahade in a “hand and brain” team game against two of the tournament’s top performers. Shahade, playing as the brain, told Morey which piece to move, while Morey, the hand, had to decide where to move the piece Shahade selected. Morey and Shahade lost the match after their 10-minute timer ran out.

    Shahade plays simultaneous exhibition

    Shahade and Morey are friends, having met at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan Sports Analytics Conference. Shahade, who became a Woman Grandmaster in 2005, has attended the conference each year since 2021 and has spoken at the conference multiple times about chess and poker, which she also plays professionally.

    “I’ve known [Morey] for a long time,” Shahade said. “He’s a pretty good chess player. He’s especially good with strategy.”

    Shahade, who drops into Rittenhouse Chess meetups monthly, also played in a simultaneous exhibition against five players at once. The players were selected as part of the raffle, which also included five copies of Shahade’s latest book, Thinking Sideways. Shahade beat four of her opponents in the timed exhibition.

    Jennifer Shahade (center) is a three-time National Chess champion.Isaiah Vazquez / For The Inquirer

    Shahade said seeing organized tournaments and club meetings across the city is a testament to the game’s ability to bring people together in a time when isolation is becoming more common.

    “Ever since the pandemic, there’s been a huge hunger [for chess],” Shahade said. “But there’s also been hunger around board games in general, churches, synagogues. There’s real interest in people getting offline and meeting each other in real life. I think you see that in chess.”

    Shahade said she expects the interest around chess and other face-to-face games to increase as the role of artificial intelligence expands in people’s daily lives.

    “Now, not only are you not necessarily talking to someone you might be friends with, you’re probably not even talking to a person at all,” Shahade said. “I think that’s just making people crave the real-life interactions even more.”

    Sixty-four players competed in the Charity Blitz Tournament.Isaiah Vazquez / For The Inquirer

    Chess in the Square

    Andrew Graham, 31, started Rittenhouse Chess in 2021 to try to meet new people in a new city. Graham moved to Philadelphia from Cheyenne, Wyo.

    “I didn’t know anybody,” said Graham, who works as a data scientist for PECO. “I wasn’t that into chess, but I needed activities to meet people. So, I picked chess.”

    Graham looked for a preexisting chess club, but the city’s most prominent club, the Franklin Mercantile Chess Club, closed during the pandemic. So Graham set out to start his own club, bringing a board with him to Rittenhouse Square and waiting for passersby to come over and play.

    “I started making friends, and some people started to return,” Graham said. “Slowly, it picks up, and then over the course of two months it picked up pretty good.”

    Andrew Graham (right) started the Rittenhouse Chess Club. He runs it alongside Helen Sdao, Sarah Court, and Zach Pepsin.Isaiah Vazquez / For The Inquirer

    Sarah Court, a 27-year-old freelance artist, claims to be the club’s second member, as she walked up and played Graham in the club’s early days.

    “It was just Andrew out there, and I walked out and played with him,” Court said.

    Court, who does artwork for the club’s social media and merchandise, helped run the tournament on Sunday.

    Now, a handful of people come together every Wednesday and Sunday to play in Rittenhouse Square, one person on each side of the wall that surrounds the center of the square.

    Roughly 100 people came to Sunday’s tournament, and the 64 players came from the vibrant chess community around the city, including players from South Philly Chess and Capitolo Chess Club, among others.

  • New York restaurants are rebranding their Philly cheesesteaks to support the Knicks. Wimps.

    New York restaurants are rebranding their Philly cheesesteaks to support the Knicks. Wimps.

    Restaurants across New York City and Long Island are striking the word Philly from their menus to support the Knicks as they face off against the Sixers in the NBA’s Eastern Conference semifinals, according to the New York Post.

    “Philly needs to understand, New York is the king‚” Louis Cretella, the owner of Dario’s Pizza in West Hempstead, told the tabloid.

    The restaurant — which purportedly sells 2,500 cheesesteaks a week — is rebranding the sandwich as the “Philly SUCKS” cheesesteak for the duration of the series. For hard copy menus, Cretella reportedly instructed staff to scribble “F— Philly” in black marker over the item.

    The online menu at Dario’s Pizza in West Hempstead, NY. The Long Island restaurant is sold out of “Philly SUCKS” cheesesteaks.Scree

    This is exactly the sort of over-the-top behavior expected from the bridge-and-tunnel crowd. Y’all want to prove you’re NYC tough so badly that you forget how to act.

    Still, the whole gimmick raises a couple of questions: Why are you bragging about selling Philly’s signature sandwich if you hate us so much? And is your ego really that fragile?

    The Philly cheesesteaks we genuinely want to eat

    Other New York City area restaurants have joined in. At Birdie Bar in Northport, it’s now the Big Apple Cheesesteak. At G’s Cheesesteaks in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, their entire livelihood now revolves around whatever a New York Knicks cheesesteak is.

    And at Wogies — a traitorous Philadelphia-themed bar with locations in the Financial District and the West Village — it’s now called the Appendix Burster. It’s an homage to the appendectomy that kept Joel Embiid out of the first three games of the Sixers’ playoff series against the Boston Celtics.

    To this, I say: Our culture is not your costume.

    A sad-looking Philly cheesesteak from Wogies in FiDi, 44 Trinity Place, New York City.Michael Klein / Staff

    I know: New Yorkers are allowed to be petty. The Knicks whooped the Sixers 137-98 in Game 1 at Madison Square Garden Monday, and Embiid is out again with more injuries. Plus, the Sixers restricted ticket sales to Games 3 and 4 at the Xfinity Mobile Arena to only fans from the Greater Philadelphia area, all but shutting out New Yorkers from attending. Players even begged Philadelphians to not resell their tickets.

    Sixers release single-game tickets with restrictions for second-round series vs. Knicks

    Perhaps this is all just an eye for an eye. Still, this trend smacks of one thing: fear.

    “We just sat around, and all of a sudden we see the word ‘Philly’ there, and we’re like, ‘ugh!’ Teeth are grinding, and we didn’t want anything Philly. That’s weak,” Lure Group CEO Aristotle “Telly” Hatzigeorgiou told the New York Post. At the restaurant group’s lounge Slate and bar Clinton Hall, “Knicks” has been added to the front of each establishment’s cheesesteak empanadas and sliders, respectively.

    Do they hear themselves?

    What’s weak is the mere mention of a city making your teeth grind. Might as well just stand on business and pull cheesesteaks from your menu entirely at this point.

    After all, it’s not like Philly restaurants are wiping the words “New York” from our menu — mostly because we have no need. You don’t see people lining up at Pat’s or Geno’s and demanding a chopped cheese. There’s plenty of hoagies and real cheesesteaks to go around.

    Still, if erasing the word “Philly” is what it takes for Jalen Brunson to actually play to his potential, go for it. Cope harder.

    Just remember, Knicks fans: Like the cheesesteak, all of the team’s best players technically come from Philly.