Tuesday, February 1st, 2022

I'll be honest, when we received news that Joel Embiid would miss Monday night's game against the Memphis Grizzlies with planned rest, my intention was to write very little about it, for a few reasons.

The first reason was I didn't want to read too much into a game against a tough opponent when the Sixers were playing without the one player who truly makes them relevant. Last night's game had the chance to get real ugly real quickly, something we saw play out earlier in the year, and it's easy to overreact to that.

But the second, and far greater, factor was that I figured I would instead redirect that time into some of the trade deadline pieces I have sitting in my drafts folder. The trade deadline is, well, a deadline, and it makes sense to focus a little bit less on the day to day and a whole lot more on the big picture with the deadline quickly approaching.

Then Tyrese Maxey and Ja Morant came in and gave us one of the most entertaining games that I've ever had the pleasure of witnessing in person, and there's honestly not even the slightest bit of hyperbole in that statement.