05-15-23 Line Change Open

Jon Jansen opens the show discussing the pathetic #Sixers performance in Game 7 against the Celtics ... again. #MLB, #Phillies, and more.

Episode Transcript

(00:03):
Sports talk that has never been donebefore in Philadelphia is we're breaking down the
live action and helping you make yourlive wagers at the right moment. Follow
all the action right now on theline Change with John Janson. Yesterday was

(00:40):
not fun. Sixers lose Game seven, season over again without reaching the Eastern
Conference Finals, and again another disappointingresult. You're tuned into the line Change
Fox Sports the Gambler. We havebroken this down only Shawn Brace and Sean

(01:00):
Bernard did in every way possible.But I can't help but thinking that the
Sixers are facing an impossible situation movingforward. In fact, yesterday was just
sort of a reality check, orat least settling in on a sad reality
of what the Sixers are going tobe moving forward and what they were yesterday.

(01:22):
We're gonna be talking about Game sevenbetween the Sixers and Celtics loss for
the Sixers. All show today comingup at six thirty going to be Dick
Girardi, and I'm sure he'll haveplenty to say, especially about Joel Embiid.
He's talked about that he doesn't havethe championship DNA. Dick Girardi has
said that about Himbad multiple times onsports here, there and everywhere every Saturday

(01:46):
nine am to eleven am over atParks, and I feel like he has
been validated more than once, butthis one was the I think stamp of
that validation. So dog with alreadyat six thirty about that potential things moving
forward and Sixers super fan Gerald Coulton. Of course, he wears many hats

(02:07):
and certainly helps out around here atthe Gambler, But Jered Colton's going to
join us and put into perspective howmuch this one hurts and how much this
one hurts because of what these Sixersmay face potentially in the future. But
if you heard me, I've saidthis plenty of times after the Game five
win, and I felt this,and I do actually still feel strongly about

(02:30):
this, that the Sixers may havebeen one of the best rosters remaining in
the NBA playoffs. Now, sittinghere Monday after Game seven, after a
loss in Game seven, yeah,that looks pretty stupid. I stand by
that, though. I stand bythose claims that the Sixers were the best

(02:51):
remaining I specifically said starting lineup inthe NBA, I think better than most
teams, and I thought they werepretty close to Boston, and I think
you could have made the case thatthey may have been better. And I
do stand by that. And itwasn't the end of the fourth quarter in

(03:13):
Game six and Game seven. Itwasn't I think the starting lineup and the
fact that they were bad. ThisSixers team was capable of winning those two
games. This Sixers team was capableof beating the Miami Heat in the Eastern
Conference Finals. And this team wascapable of beating either Denver or the Lakers

(03:37):
in the NBA Finals. They werecapable of all of that, and in
fact, once they got pasted Boston, they may have been the favorites.
They were the favorites after Game five. They probably were going to be the
favorites if they did beat Boston.This team was great all year. Their
offensive rating was great, defensive ratingwas great. They were top ten in

(03:57):
both third in the regular season andoffensive race. Joel and Beat at an
MVP season, James Harden led theleague and assists and beat again that led
the league in points. Tyrese Maxiecontinue to shoot well from three. The
team overall shout well from three.This was a great team and I believe

(04:19):
there have been a couple of theseteams now now a few of them that
have lost in Game seven. Outof all of those teams, out of
all of the disappointments, this oneis the biggest disappointment. This one.
This team was the best. Andthe reason I still stand by that is
in Game seven, the team showedup. Maxie showed up. PJ.

(04:44):
Tucker showed up, Tobias Harris showedup. This team was good. This
team did have enough talent and notjust enough talent to say it like that.
They were one of the best startingline of surmaiding. It's a sad
reality that the reason why the Sixerslost in Game seven to Boston and why

(05:11):
this opportunity in which they actually hadthe best team I think with them beat
on the roster since it beat hasbeen in Philadelphia, this has been the
best team and the reason why theSixers couldn't get over the hump, the
reason why the Sixers are again knockedout in the second round, and the
reason why again we're going into theoffseason going what the heck do we do

(05:33):
now? Because and Bead wasn't goodand Bead was the issue, not Tucker.
I've been man, I've been sohard on PJ Tucker, and he
deserves it because there are some issuesthat the Sixers face because of how bad

(05:53):
PJ PJ Tucker is and the thingsthat he isn't able to do on a
basketball court at this time. Thoseare tough things to overcome. But PJ
Tucker put up eleven points. PJATucker showed up in Game seven. Tyrese
Maxie. It's probably the best Sixerover the last couple of games. Over

(06:15):
the last few games, Game fiveincluded Tobias Harris came back after an abysmal
Game six performance solid in Game seven. The reality is it was Embed and
Hardened that weren't good enough, andEmbed especially as one that you can't move

(06:36):
on from. He's the reason whyyou're there. He is the reason why
you have these games sevens. He'san MVP, and he is the reason
why they are in these spots.And this is not a bad spot to
be in. I'm not gonna sugarcoatthis, but let's be honest. Their
Game seven against Boston. Now,Boston is likely the favorite, and I

(06:57):
think over at bet Parks, bythe way, the line change presented by
Bett Parks that the Boston is probablythe favorite to win the NBA title.
So the Sixers went to Game sevenwith that team, had a chance to

(07:19):
close out Game six and the fourthquarter against that team, and didn't do
it. They fell short against thebest. But why they can't beat the
best? The team's good enough,Maybe the star players aren't good enough.
And I hate to say maybe yesterdaythat was certainly the case. That seems

(07:40):
to be the case through every Gameseven that the Sixers have had and beat
is not played well. This isan imbibed problem and this is a hardened
problem. Now Harden, he's likelyoff to Houston, so long, goodbye,
have fun and Euston. But Inbiadis the face of this franchise.

(08:05):
He is the face of not reallythe face of a representative I guess,
a product of the process, andhe is the prized possession of it.
There was nothing else that came outof the process. Nothing They didn't get

(08:28):
other players around Embeed. Ben Simmonshas gone, Marco Foltz has gone.
The best draft pick that they've hadother than Embeed has been Tyrese Maxie.
The prized possession of the process isEmbeed. And after the process, there

(08:52):
was no easy way to move onafter it, because once you get out
of the process and what that represented, and basically stop piling all these draft
picks, stop stop piling all theseresources, and then once the moment's right,

(09:13):
use them all. Get draft picks, top draft picks, number one,
number three, overall draft picks,use other draft picks, other type
of resources to get star players intoyour franchise and go for a title.
And again, Embid was the prizedpossession of that and to a certain extent,

(09:37):
hardened as well, and they gotnothing out of it. This is
everything that what you wanted from theprocess. And I'm not saying the process
failed. I don't know if itdid. There are layers to this that
I think can be peeled, andI think we can see a lot of

(10:03):
pros and cons from both. I'mnot saying one. I'm not saying the
process was a very bad idea orthe process was a great idea, but
I do think you're kind of stuckwith whatever happened. And what the Sixers
got in return was embed incredible MVPplayer, face of the franchise, supposed

(10:26):
to be considered one of the bestin the league, and he got nothing
outside of that, and you reallyhad to dig this organization out of this
kind of loser culture. They didthat, but now Imbide, who was
supposed to continue to take them further, has hit this ceiling. I think
we have seen basically a peak ofembed I don't know how it gets better.

(10:50):
He was runner up for MVP twoyears in a row, He's been
the scoring leader for two years ina row, he finally won the MVP.
How does it get better? AndBeat sits up there at the podium
says, I have to do better. What are you going to do better?

(11:11):
I don't know what's going to change. You've been a great player.
You know how to win games,you know the part of your game that's
great. You know all of this, and yet every time come up short
in the postseason, every single timethat's on him. Beat and now moving

(11:33):
forward, you can change the piecesaround, you can change the head coach,
which I think all of it hasto happen. You know, I
don't know if you're going to letgo of Tyrese Maxie. I find he's
one of the few players that youmay not want to move and you shouldn't
move. But even a part ofme thinks Maxie sit this kind of ceiling

(11:54):
here, and he's got to takea leap forward. I don't know if
he can. Harden's gone. Who'sthe next player that's going to replace him?
Can they replace him with any kindof ball handlers? The Sixers have
to make changes, I just don'tknow what. And even if they do,

(12:16):
let's say they had the ability tomake all of these wholesale changes because
changing the coaches eg easy. Changingsome of the bench pieces around is easy.
But you might have to replace twoout of your five in the starting
lineup. You should be replacing threebecause PG Tucker signed, he's just not
good enough. Essentially, you needto be replacing three because Harden's gone,

(12:41):
likely to Bias gone, and PJTucker should be on the bench. You
have him beat in Maxie. Thoseguys locked in. That's it, which
leaves it open for some change,which leaves it open to try and find
a different line of combination. Buthey, there's risk in that. Again.

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This Sixer's team was look. SteveKerr at the end of their series
against the Lakers, I think truthfullysaid we were in a championship caliber team,
and that was the god's honest truth. From Steve Kerr. They were
not. They didn't look like it, never had that look, and they
were just trying to coast off ofthe fact that they had experience and they

(13:24):
had one of the best players thatwe've ever seen play basketball and Steph Curry
and just hoping and praying that hewould be enough, and the Warriors are
kind of just figure it out asthey go along. They never figured it
out, and I think Steve Kerrwas very honest with that assessment. Now,
I know not every coach is goingto do that, but as much

(13:48):
as I believe Kerr was honest withthat answer, I also believe when Doc
Rivers at the end of Game sevensays, I'm disappointed because I thought we
had the team. I thought wehad the championship team. I also believe
that's the god's honest truth. Thiswas the team. This was a championship
caliber team. I don't know whatother things you can do and how you

(14:13):
can rotate and move some pieces aroundto change that for the better. They
were already there. They were alreadythat championship team, So how can they
do that again? While also nothaving many draft picks trade moves to be

(14:35):
made, They just can't do muchbecause they went all in. This was
the all in team, and theywent all in for it. They went
all in for the past few years, especially since they traded for Jimmy Butler,
Tobias Harris On. This has beena lot of all in trading,
a bunch of draft picks, tradingfuture first round draft picks, all of
that. So the Sixers don't haveany of that. So it's gonna be

(14:58):
harder if you do want to makethose changes, and you likely won't be
able to match this team what thisteam was. Maybe you can find players
better suited around and bad change theoffense a bit around. I don't know

(15:18):
how that's going to work. I'mnot good enough of an NBA head coach.
I'm not an NBA head coach tofigure out what can be changed around
a beat and how you can runthe offense differently to provide something better.
Because it feels like this is thebest. This was the best. It's

(15:39):
certainly to me was the best ofthe embat era, and I'm not sure
how it gets better moving forward.End of the day, this was a
championship team and the only reason whythey didn't attain that goal and move past

(16:02):
a spot that they haven't been passedin over two decades. Isn't because of
the role players. It isn't becauseof Doc Rivers. Heck, it's not
even I think Darryl moorey certainly needsto be a better GM. And you
certainly got to work within, youknow, small margins with the team like

(16:25):
this, because you're not gonna havemuch to spend on bench players, not
much money to spend overall. It'sreally tough. We've seen this with teams
that have signed Lebron and big times, so it is really tough. Rob
Blincoln did it, and the Sixersdidn't work within those five margins and those
offseason pickups bench guys that they hadsignings, we're not good enough. But

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even past that, I can't evenblame Darryl Moore. This was all on
hard NNB and they're just not goodenough. That to me is a that's
the worst reality I could have faced. I could have lived with Embed and
Harden putting into solid performances. Itdidn't have to be all time great fifty

(17:12):
point performances from either too, butlook good, play well, and heck
if they just get beat because Maxiedidn't make a few shots, or Tobias
Harris wasn't defending well, or PJ. Tucker's problems persisted in game seven.
I could live with that because thenmake the changes, find something better hopefully.

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But you know that, Okay,you have your anchor, your foundation
is correct, that foundation that theSixers are built on with embeds, it's
cracked and it's falling apart. That'sa sad reality because how do you move

(17:53):
on from it? You want togo through a whole other process again.
You want to go through trading andBead for what another star player that's going
to do the exact same thing.All of this is really a product of

(18:19):
not making good decisions, being abad organization, and continual missteps lead to
this team not having any way anyability to get better. And it was
all put on the shoulders of Embadand Harden, and it beats the one

(18:41):
staying here and beads the one atthe Sixers I have put all of this
stock into, and it beats theone who failed. Now you're stuck with
it. I'm not saying it's abad thing to be stuck with because you
know what, and Bead's gonna probablyput up over thirty points again next season,
and Bead's gonna be in the MVPconversation again next season. The Sixers

(19:03):
are gonna go into the playoffs asa number three, number two, heck,
who knows, maybe even a numberone seed. I don't know what
Milwaukee is going to be like.Who knows where Jalen Brown ends up after
next year, So maybe they doend up as a number one seed.
But is it ever going to begood enough? Isn't beat ever going to

(19:29):
be good enough to get over thathump? And to me, the answer
now the answer previously, and Ithink the answer in the future to that
seems to be forever a no.Tune into the line change Fox Sports The
Gambler. You can follow us atFox Beacho Gambler. Also check out YouTube
channel we're streaming on stream yarn.Check us out on Twitter at Foxpeacho Gambler.

(19:51):
Also a YouTube channel. We're gonnabe really ramping things up on YouTube,
so please please please please subscribe atFox Sports The Gambler're gonna be a
lot of content going up there.You can also follow me John Jansen at
j Jansen thirty four. Two.Great Guess Today coming up at seven o'clock
the top of the next hour,Gerald Colton. But coming up next the
legendary j Dick Girardi, and hehas been with us every Saturday for the

(20:14):
last couple of years Sports Here,There, and everywhere, every Saturday nine
to eleven AM with Mike Kern,Dick Girarti, myself and Kyle Nunamaker and
Dick Girarti over and over again hastalked about the lack of I Guess Championship
DNA with Joel Empide. He's beenvalidated plenty of times before this one.
This one is permanent. You know, there was a chance to write that

(20:37):
in pencil race it and rewrite history, and that hasn't happened. This feels
permanent and Sharpie doesn't happen. Sowhat's next? And can players ever come
out of something like this? AndBET's not the only player before to have
postseason struggles? Be great players,not great postseason players. What are the

(21:00):
chances that I can get out ofthis? And what are the chances of
the Sixers can ever figure it outwithin being and get on to not only
just the second round but past it. That's coming up next with Dictorarity right
here on the line, Change