05-15-23 Line Change - Dick Jerardi

Dick Jerardi joins Jon Jansen to talk about the #Sixers' effort in Game 7 and what lies ahead for the team's future after another disappointing exit from the #NBAPlayoffs.

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Just sitting before we get on air. And I have heard this term coined
by the great Dic GIRARTI for theSixers and what they've been for the past
works and years clown show, andyesterday was the main events of the clown
show. It was bad joining usright now on the Gambler hot Line.
You can hear him every Saturday nineam to eleven little nine am to eleven

(00:25):
am. Not eleven pm. Thatwould be a long show. Can't go
that long. Only two hours nineam eleven am right here on the Gambler
for sports, here there and everywherelive over at Pars Casino, and it
Ben Salem. It is the greatDict Girardi joining us on the Gambler hot
Line here on the line. Changeand Dick, It's not like you needed
any validation about Joel Embiid not havingthat championship DNA. But I always felt

(00:48):
like we could put that in penciland then maybe later on race it rewrite
history and and B can maybe proveus wrong. But I think we can
put it in sharpie. I thinkyou're validated. Yeah, look I wish
I was wrong. I know Isaid it on the show Saturday. I'd
be happy to well in this week'sshowed to be able to talk about the
Sixers in the heat in the EasternConference Final. But yeah, I said

(01:10):
what I said, and I thoughtwhat I thought, because look, it's
a it's a movie, John thatyou've seen over and over again, and
generally, if you watch the samemovie and it has the same ending,
why do you think kids can havea different end the next time you watch
it. So yeah, even bythe standards of this era of the Sixers,
that was a pretty pathetic effort inthe third quarter yesterday, and when

(01:33):
Boston got hot and the Sixers startedthe panic and whatever could go wrong did
go wrong. I did just seethe body language of the key players,
especially Embed and Hardened, who neverreally looked like they had much of anything
the whole game. I mean,they sort of survived the first half,
were actually ahead by nine somehow,with neither of them playing anywhere close to

(01:53):
what they could. But yeah,it ended with a big thud. It
just I didn't think they were goodenough a player, but you would hope
they'd be a little more competitive thanthey just weren't. No, not at
all, and really hardened to beatwith the two that had the worst performances
out of the entire team, whichobviously that cannot happen. We know the
mental roadblocks. It seems Game seven'sand B just doesn't show up for the

(02:17):
moment. And Harden has had thatlabel as well throughout his career. So
we know the mental blocks. Whatare the physical blocks here? Not just
physical? And is embat a goodenough athlete physical as in on the core
xes and o's tactically Like, whatis the block here that they just seem
to not be able to get past? Yeah, I think there's a couple

(02:37):
of issues. And I know we'vetalked about on the Saturday Morning Show.
This is just a structurally unsound teamthe way it was put together. There
aren't enough athletes, not nearly enough. Two way players like PJ. Tucker
is a perfect example. He's aguy who really tries hard. He's older,
but he's very unathletic. He doesn'thave any jumping skills anymore, he

(03:00):
doesn't rebound. He's a tough guy. He gives you four bang with guys,
but you're playing four on five onoffense and it's not a way to
win. And beyond that, specificallyto the two main players, I think
that embiid is limited in things hecan do in big moments because of where

(03:23):
he plays and how he plays.He's become a jump shooting seven footer.
Now that's just a hard way towin when you need easy baskets. I
don't care how good you are,A fifteen foot jump shot is not necessarily
an easy basket. And Harden,I just think has just gotten old.

(03:45):
How he did what he did inthose two games in this series, it's
kind of mind boggling to make.I think the first one is because he
had ten days off. The secondone is kind of a miracle in Game
four. But yeah, I justthink they're not They're not a very athletic
team in a league of the bestathletes in the world. I think that's
a structural problem. Tobias Harris isa nice part to a really, really

(04:12):
good team, but again, he'snot a particularly great athlete, and it
really shows up against teams like Bostonwho have athletes up and dab a lineup
guys who can just blow by youat will. And again, there's something
beyond John beyond all that. Imean, there's just something when you watch
and beat in these games sevens andthis is the third one he's been in,
and he didn't play well on anyof them. And he looked he

(04:36):
just looked like it like you cando a point as an athlete or in
life or anything where you want somethingso much that you almost you almost get.
You're just you're almost afraid to makea mistake. See, you don't
do anything. He was so tentativein the game yesterday, and same with

(04:57):
Harden, and obviously you're never gonnawin anything when your two star players are
like that. And I wasn't surprised, although it happened so fast in the
third quarter, It's like, ohmy god, that's like and it was
over in like two minutes. Youjust go that's over. Yeah, Tobias
made that three, I think,to open up the third quarter. And
that was the last tweet by thesix or Twitter account, which they have

(05:19):
since deleted, and then pretty mucheverything since then was all Boston and it
got ugly very quickly, so andbed and being at a great year and
beat out this MVP year. Andyou mentioned the game sevens have been a
problem and he just gets too tentative, and I completely agree. I just
think these games sevens are certainly somethingthat he just mentally can't get past.

(05:42):
But in terms of on paper thenumbers, they were a top ten defensive
rated team. They were like atop three offensive rated team during the regular
season. This was a great teamand numbers wise, this may have been
because of how good and Bead was. Harden was the assist leader, you
know, Maxie had another great yearand seemed like he took another jump forward.
Tobias played pretty well and having evenPJ. Tucker they helped. But

(06:06):
this team seemed like the best versionof the Sixers. So I guess the
question is if this team didn't doit, how on earth do they get
better from it? How is thereany way that and with embat on this
team that it can get better,Because it felt like this was the best
team that they've had and that theymight have moving forward. And they had
no shot in Game seven. Nowthey really didn't, and I think all

(06:30):
the moves had been made right Hardenwas the last move. They don't have
any other moves to make right there, way over the cat. Even if
Harden doesn't come back, if hedecides to go to Houston, doesn't use
his player option, they're still overthe cat. So it's not like they
have a lot of moves to make. They don't have any draft choices anymore
right there. They're all gone inthe Harden trade, So I think this

(06:53):
is kind of what they have.So somebody's you know, Daryl Moore,
whoever's in charge of this thing,is going to have to think you're at
some sleight of hand to get moreathletic. It was interesting, and I
know you were a mcdonnels fan.They brought him in and then they didn't
use him in the playoffs. Hejust disappeared against the team where you want
to have some matchups against their againsttheir wing players. So yeah, I

(07:17):
don't know that there's any way outof this. And the Knicks are going
to get better. You know,the Knicks are going to take a run
of a star clearly Milwaukee with thatwas just kind of a fluke because Joanna's
got hurt. Boston's not going anywhere, I mean, and they're younger than
the Sixers, and they're better,and they're more athletic, and they have

(07:38):
more good players. So I don'tknow how that changes anytime soon. So
John, I think they're stuck.I you know, sort of and I
were talking before the show it's likethe old group. They were stuck with
igodalla and that group good good teams, right, I mean good teams,
but never good and never good enough. So the decision was made to just

(08:01):
um ire Sam Hickey, blow itall up, start from scratch, acquired
draft choices and and everything, andand now here they are. They're one
round further but still stuck. Umyou know, and they have a but
they have a generational big man talentin Joel emb They just set a record

(08:22):
for free throw percentage modern day.In the playoffs. I mean, they
have some real skill, but itjust doesn't quite fit as a playoff group.
Uh. They're more They're just aregular season team. And there had
been some of them through the years. But yeah, if I'm management and
in an ownership, but I don'tknow what ownerships doing since they own hockey

(08:46):
teams and football teams, I don'tknow if they're paying attention to the basketball
team or not. Um, I'mlooking around, going you now, now,
what do you do? Uh?And I certainly wouldn't make any decisions
like right at the moment, becauseyou love would do something really stupid because
you're upset what just went down.But I wish I saw an answer.
Look, this is not new tome. I told I think I've been

(09:07):
saying all along they were never goingto get there, But yesterday was just
sort of a validation of what wethought the makeup of the team. But
yeah, good luck the road.Yeah, and I called it. It
was it was almost like facing asad reality because I, again, I
think the role players are actually goodenough, and even in Game seven,
I thought they were good enough andit was really just up to and beat

(09:30):
and hardened, and they completely falteredin the moment. Will they ever be
able to win anything with him?Bead? Whether that is just the type
of player that he is because ofplaying center, that's the type of game
that he plays, because he's nota back to the basket center, He
faces the basket and all of thesethings. It's just with all of these
I guess handicaps he kind of putin yourself, when your star player is

(09:50):
at that position, will they beable to ever make it past that next
step? Because I had to saythat you have to face that reality and
go, okay, well just moveon from a B because that's almost impossible
to do because then you almost haveto rebuild again. And he's, as
you just ad a generational player,but there just seems to be too many
limitations that kind of force you toplay a certain style and who knows if

(10:11):
it could ever work. Yeah,I think the evidence would suggest at this
point the answer is probably know thatthey can't get there, and I think
part of that is due to Umand Bead has just he just got this
mental book. Now. Look,I hate to use the word choke,
and it's easier thrown around. I'mnot going to go there, but we

(10:33):
all saw what was I mean,it's just it just like Froze in the
moment, and he's done it beforein those games. So until he can
get past that, it may notwho they get. But having said that,
if somehow they can get a coupleof young athletic wingmen, then you

(10:56):
have a little better chance because rightnow, I mean that and the numbers
were fine, John, but you'vewatched the games. I watched the games.
When your guard line is Maxie andHarden, you're too easy to go
by. You're just too easy toget by because they're both below average defenders
and embat It was great protecting theRam the whole series, and I do

(11:16):
think Another problem is he does gettired, he gets physically worn out.
Yesterday, I think he was mentallyand physically shot and that's why the celtst
kept Iso and Tatum on him inthe second half. And you know,
if you get em beat at thethree point line, Garden a guy like
Cayson Tatum, that's not a fairflight. Yeah. And one thing you
always say about the Sixers too,and I feel like this is organization from

(11:39):
the top down, but just onthe floor, you can tell that they
are front runners. When they're up, when everything's going well, everything's easy,
they can really front run. Theylook great. But once things get
hard, that's when they have difficulty. But I feel like that's what the
process was, making something very hardinto trying to make it easy and take

(12:00):
cuts and kind of front run there. Um, it just seems like from
the organization top down, they justwhen things get hard and you have to
work within the thin margins, whetherit is you know, whatever the process
was. Then also building a teamafter that and getting bench players too,
then within the margins of a game, it just feels like top down,
the Sixers always wanted to take theeasy way, and once things got hard,

(12:20):
they never wanted to face it.No, No, I think that's
really well said John, And Ithink that is true. I think I
think because of the way this thingstarted a decade ago, when you're you're
preaching. First, you're preaching orlose as much as you can, right,
and then eventually we'll have a greatteam. I mean I've called it.
I've called it a basketball Ponzi scheme. And because I think I wrote

(12:45):
that in a column and it's probablysix or seven years ago, and people
went berserk. But and I explainedwhat I was thinking and really hasn't changed
any It's like you're promising some futurebased on um, All right, Well,
we're going to accumulate all these assetsand eventually it's all going to turn
into gold at the end. Well, it doesn't work that way. Every

(13:09):
decision has to be perfect or closeto perfect. You make enough bad ones,
it's not going to end well anyway. And I just this whole thing,
I just thought it was a flawedpremise. Um. I mean,
think about the teams that had beengood in recent years, right, like
the Celtics. They drafted brilliantly,right, they they never had the number

(13:31):
one pick, they got Tatum,They got Brown, they got Marcus Smart,
all lottery guys, right, butnot you know, Al Horford has
been in He was a trade andthey got him back again. He was
a lottery guy back in the day, but not number one picks. Sam
with Golden State, who and whoin their top three was a number one
pick? None of those guys.It's it's about talent evaluation. It's about

(13:54):
a fit, it's about a scheme, it's about the right coach for the
right players. There's just been somany mistakes made along the way, and
even when you're drafting. And Iremember talking to people about MB when he
was a freshman in Kansas and hedidn't play that much, but I knew
some scouts and they all said,look, he's the best player in Thomas
Fast. Aren't thren out he was? He was clearly would have been the

(14:16):
number one pick had he not beenhurt. But what you can't evaluate is,
sorry, once he develops, he'snow he's almost thirty, what's he
going to be like in the bigmoment? You don't know that until they're
in the big moment. And nowhe's been in it for a number of
years and this was his worst performanceyet in the big moment after his greatest

(14:37):
year. That's not good, No, not good at all. And we're
talking with Dick Giardi right now onthe Gambler Hotline. You're tuned into the
line, change Fox Sports the Gambler. John Jansen here, you can follow
me at g Jansen thirty four.So we have seen a number of coaches
get fired almost prematurely. It seemslike Monty Williams is just ownership. Seems
like they wanted to go in adifferent direction because they weren't the ones that

(14:58):
hired him him, Mike Budenholzer getskenned, Nick Nurse gets kenned. A
lot of good coaches that I thought, you know, would have been there
for a while and then could makeanything work. Now gone. Here's Doc
Rivers sitting there. Any chance thathe's the one that escapes sort of this
firing spree that's happening in the NBA, or is he probably gonna get caught

(15:18):
in the direction as well. Yeah, my guess is he's more likely to
get fired than not, John,because I mean, what's the definition of
insanity, right, doing the samething over and over again expecting a different
result. So Doc has had threeyears the team has been a solid regular
season team three years in a row. In the playoffs, they lost to

(15:41):
an inferior Atlanta team his first year. I mean, clearly they were the
better team. Nobody would argue thatBlue made huge leads last year. At
the end of the second round,they get blitzed by the heat not once
but twice, including Game six ontheir home court, and then lose by
a million in the in Game sevenafter they gag up Game six that they

(16:06):
basically have won because the Celtics aretrying to give them game six to oh
and they can't. They don't makea basket for six minutes. So yeah,
I think you probably if I'm ifI'm management, I don't know he's
making this decision. I don't knowDarah Moorey or somebody in ownership or whoever,
you'd probably saying, look this group. Now, Harden's only been there
for a year and change. ButI think we've seen enough of that that,

(16:27):
um, maybe a different voice comesup with different schemes, something differently
that we have a chance that Iwould be surprised if he survives. But
you know, maybe maybe he'll goto Milwaukee and Boodnots or come to Philly
or who knows. I mean,maybe Nick Nurse will go to Phoenix and
uh, yeah that's fine. Igot it's fine. But yeah they will

(16:56):
say. You know, this isas far as we can go here and
look at the two guys who werein the championship game, Championship series two
years ago? Here, do Ihave that right? Two years ago?
Are both gone? I mean,why does Doc you know, why would
he survive? You know, Idon't know that that's necessarily the answer to
the problems here. I think it'sbigger than just the coach, But I

(17:19):
would suspect they're probably going to thinkabout that kind of change. Yeah,
I think so as well. AllRight, last question on the NBA playoffs
before I move on to one otheritem. Who do you think should be
the favorite? Who do you havewinning? We have four teams remaining,
Lakers, Nuggets in the Western Conference, Boston, Miami and the Eastern Conference.
Who do you think is the eventualwinner? Yeah? I mean major

(17:41):
respect for all. I mean Ithought this when the playoffs started. Yesterday
kind of reminded me why I thoughtof it. I don't know why they've
lost as many games as they have. Boston has the best players. They
have more of the best players.They were in the Championship Game Championship Series
last year. I think they shouldwin. They're playing an eighth seed,

(18:03):
not taking nothing away from the Heat, but they caught an injured Bucks team
and I'm not ready for prime timeDick team. I think the Celtic should
win the East. Not a littletrouble at West. I've been really impressed
by the Lakers, but I dothink Denver has a better overall squad.
So I think it's Denver and Boston, and I'll go with Boston to win

(18:26):
at all. And last thing Iwant to talk with you about, and
I don't know if I mentioned thisSaturday at all. It's been after the
Sixers game. It's been a longcouple of days. But I watched the
movie Watch the movie Air. Idon't know if you know what that is,
but it's the movie based on NoI just watched. I just watched
it on the perfect because I wantedto talk with you about that because I
watched it um last week. Andobviously the main story is all told through

(18:51):
Sonny Vicaro. He is the He'sreally the main character, not a story
about Michael Jordan. Doesn't have MichaelJordan as the main character. They never
show his face for a reason becauseI think they didn't want Michael Jordan to
overshadow what was the actual main character. And I think most interesting part of
the story, And Sonny, howpivotal was he in that because it makes
it seem like he was the onlyperson to ever realize Michael Jordan could have

(19:14):
been the greatest player ever. Butloreyour overall thoughts in that movie and how
they how they portrayed Nike signing ofJordan, because they obviously, you know,
Nike, I'm sure was involved ina way made it seem like they
were this huge, huge underdog inthis great company now and they give away
billions to charity. But it wasyour overall takeaways of that movie in their
portrayal of that moment. I watchedthe movie. One of the characters in

(19:40):
the movie is a good friend ofmine. George Rabble, who was played
at Villanova in the late set theseearly sixties, was a coach at Maryland
when I was at school. Therewas an assistant coach on the eighty four
Olympic team. I think you mightremember a scene or two the guy who
played George in the movie and wastrying to convince Michael. As Michael was

(20:00):
on that eight he was the starof that eighty four Olympic team won the
gold medal in LA He was tryingto convince George or Michael to go with
Nike because George worked for Nike atthat time. And I actually called George
today, he lives in California.I said, what did you think of
the movie? And he said hehadn't actually seen it, but his children
had and they said it's like eightyfive to ninety percent accurate. He said,

(20:22):
Sonny definitely was a key player andall that he says, but he
wasn't the only one. There wereother people involved. George obviously was a
factor in recruiting Michael to Nike.And then he told me something really interesting.
He said, when they were tryingto get this movie done, Michael
obviously had to approve of it,right, I mean, you're not doing
that without Michael's signing off on it. And the one he had a couple

(20:47):
requests, he said, make surethat George Raveling and Howard White, Remember
Howard White in the movie. He'sactually he played at Maryland for George raveling
when George, one assistant coach therewas to make sure they get major portrayals
in the movie. Hour certainly did. George got his run and make sure
to get Viola Davis to play mymother. That's a great request, by

(21:07):
the way, that Viola Davis absolutelyvery good. Yeah, and he wanted
to make sure everybody knew because apparentlyalmost all of what was involved with his
mother, including asking the first personever to ask for a percentage of the
sales, that his mother did allthat, but nobody knew her role until
just now. I don't think thatif that had come out before, I

(21:30):
was unaware of it. Michael said, I want to make sure my mother
gets all the all the juice sheshould get, and she sure did.
I mean, she was one ofthe stars of the move So yeah,
I liked it. I thought itwas I thought it was interesting. I
didn't know that part about the pieceof the action. And of course that's
been worth you know how many bazillionsof dollars for Michael Jorge and his family

(21:52):
in the interim. But yeah,I would recommend it to everybody. I
thought. I thought it went byfast. You know, when something's good
at you're up. Oh my god, it's only thirty minutes. Like a
good way and a very good wayto me at least it was. Yeah,
And I'll tell you one Sonny mccaro'sstory too. I knew Sonny a
little bit. Sonny is a Pittsburghguy, started the Dapper Dan, first

(22:15):
big high school tournament in the country, Anticut. We really got all the
best players call me. Well,Kobe Bryant's a senior at Lower Merion High
School and and the word was hemight go pro. Uh And at that
time, Kevin Garnett had done itthe year before, but players weren't doing
that. It was like, youknow, go from my school to the
NBA. So I'm trying to findout what the deal is and I find

(22:36):
out that somebody told me that,hey, I think Kobe might be going
pro. Sonny Vicaro's involved. SoI gets Sonny on the phone. I'll
never forgetting, I said, Sonny, I'm hearing, I'm hearing Kobe might
be going pros that it's just absolutelywe signed him. He's going Nike's going
pro. So I broke the storyof the paper that he was going to
going to the pros. That isincredible. Yeah, I got it straight

(22:59):
from Sonny for Carol. Now howmuch? Because I feel like because Sonny
a car was the main character inthat story, and I felt like there
was so much more interesting about him. What other stories would you think Because
he obviously was involved with the NCdouble A, obviously did a lot with
basketball in high school basketball. Ifeel like there was a lot more to
tap into. So what about SonnyVaccaro do you think should be if not

(23:22):
portraying like a Hollywood type setting oreven a TV show type setting, just
being known about his contributions to basketball. Yeah, I think I think he
was always about given the players abetter shot. And they mentioned put it
up at the end where he wasinvolved in the Obannon lawsuit, which basically
has given us an I L tonight. If it wasn't for that, A

(23:44):
lot of these players wasn't for Sonnyhelping it back these lawsuits. So he
wasn't the only one, but hewas a main player. And he's always
said that he thought that the playersgot the raw end of the deal on
college sports when coaches are getting eightto ten million. I think that's that's
all true. There were Sonny hadhis critics out there. He ended up
having he ended up getting blown upby Nike not longer his interested. I

(24:06):
didn't mention any of that in thething. He ended up working to Radidas
late in his career. I didlook that up, by the way.
Yeah, yeah, that's that's that'sa whole other story. But yeah,
Now he's a fascinating character. He'sjust one of these like Damon Rugging characters
from back of the day that youjust don't see it anymore. But I
think I only talked to him acouple of times. I emailed with him

(24:26):
a couple of times. But hewas always very gracious, easy to deal
with, and it's very cool thatagain, George Raveling got a lot of
play. Every everybody in the marketknows George because again he played at Villanova
late fifties, early sixties. AndGeorge's claim to fame, among other things
he's in the Basketball Hall of Fame, is that he was a security guard

(24:47):
at Mark Luther King's I'll Have aDream speech in nineteen sixty three, and
when it was over, doctor Kinghanded him that a true story. Yeah,
that's a true st George. Ha. Yeah, I think he's actually
I think he may I think Ihad this right I think he may have
given it to Villanelva. It maybe out there now. But George,

(25:08):
Yeah, George is the holder ofthat. George's Hell of the Life himself.
Yeah, that is incredible. Yeah, it's a great group of characters.
But it was cool. But Michaelinsisted that that George and Howard White
makes just it's not just Sonny,and George said that there were other people
at Nike. You obviously were bigplayers. But yeah, in the movie,

(25:30):
you're not going to be able toportray everybody. But yeah, I
think Sonny. Sonny was certainly themain guy. I think that's more.
Yeah, and it's one of thereasons again I'm glad they really didn't show
Michael Jordan, you know, havethis actor and show his face, because
I think it would have taken toomuch away from all of these interesting characters
that you're mentioning. That really thatwas one of my favorite scenes in that
barred there with Matt Damon and MarlonWayans. For sure. No, no,

(25:52):
it was, and it was clearlyintentional and they're trying to say.
I also, it changed, itchanged the world of certainly the bestsketball of
sports shoes, you know, backthen no, they we're talking about Nike
was a track company and they wereat Oregon because the University of Oregon was
a great track school and Phil Knightwas a track star, was a track
runner himself. And nobody thought thatbasket that there there was this kind of

(26:15):
money in basketball because they'd never hada player that you could market like Michael
Jordan. You know whoever saw it, and obviously the Jordan family knew it
that he was worth it. Theygot every bit of its worth. Yeah,
it's it's incredible. Viol Davis hadan awesome job portraying uh missus.
One of the best. Dick Girardi, appreciate you for coming on as always.

(26:37):
Of course you're from you Saturday nineam to eleven am over at Parks
Casino and Ben Salem. But whydid you just get your your assessment of
the damage after Game seven and itwas it was needed. Thank you so
much for coming on, Dick.I always appreciate it. You guys all
right, John, that is thegreat DIGIRARTI and I was not expecting that
much about Air and I'm so gladI got that because it is a good
movie. I have gripes with it, but it is good. I thought

(27:00):
Ben Affleck did a great job,but it was the cast. It really
did like the cast, and it'sjust cool to see the George raveling actually
a really good portrayal by Marlon Wayne'sand it was fascinating to hear of some
more of those stories and to peelthat back. We also asked Jerald Colton
about Air because he had a directa kind of tie into it as well,
But I don't think he wants totalk about movies. He may want

(27:22):
to, I don't know. GeraldCoulton Sixers super fan. I guess we
could call him here. It's beenfollowing the Sixers for a long time and
he's been on with us every stepof the way for the playoffs and of
course when he does the All ProPhilly Show, Gerald Colton, how is
he feeling after a Game seven lossand what next for the Sixers? Will
ask him that and more coming himnext year's outur Number two gets started on

(27:45):
the line change