Welcome to the third Sixers mailbag of the 2025 offseason. Today, my followers on Bluesky had questions about some of the overarching conversations stemming from the first round of the playoffs — and one presented me with a trade idea so chaotic I almost needed to take a nap after reading it. Let's get to the questions.
From @yduker.bsky.social: If the Sixers get No. 1: Joel Embiid and the pick for Giannis Antetokounmpo. Who says no?
The devastating news of Damian Lillard's torn Achilles and the Milwaukee Bucks' continued playoff failures have many wondering if the upcoming offseason is the one in which Antetokounmpo finally forces his way out (count me as one of the folks awaiting that news).
Trading Embiid and the right to draft a potentially generational prospect like Cooper Flagg for Antetokoummpo would have been completely unthinkable even 16 months or so ago, when Embiid was the frontrunner to win his second straight NBA MVP Award and third consecutive scoring title. Embiid was firmly better than Antetokounmpo, and the injury-related concerns surrounding him had died down quite a bit.
A whole lot has changed. Embiid has four years and $248 million left under contract after signing another massive contract before the start of this season — and he has since been unable to demonstrate his knee can hold up and allow him to play NBA basketball consistently. When Embiid did make rare appearances, his mobility and overall dominance were severely reduced.
Antetokounmpo, meanwhile, is younger with a much less troubling injury history. The 30-year-old two-time MVP has played more than 60 games in every season of his NBA career; he is perhaps the most consistent superstar of his time not named LeBron James. At this juncture, Antetokounmpo being a more impactful player than Embiid moving forward almost feels certain.
But then there is the allure of having control over at least the first nine years of the career or Flagg, who dominated college basketball this season despite being 18 years old for much of it.
Accepting and declining this offer is arguable on both sides. For the Sixers, it is not a hard sell to use a draft pick to flip what could be the most harmful contract in the league into one of the five best players in the world who happens to be extremely reliable. But it is a hard sell to give up the chance to draft and develop Flagg, who will be one of the single most valuable commodities in the NBA the moment he is selected. Even if Embiid continues to decline physically and remains incapable of playing consistently, it will not exactly inhibit the organization's ability to build around Flagg, who would not be up for his first major contract until after Embiid's deal has expired. Flagg offers a new timeline of potential championship contention, granted he must reach his expected upside first.
On Milwaukee's side, if they do go searching for Antetokoummpo trade packages, no team will offer an asset even close to as valuable as the right to select Flagg — particularly for an organization with no control of its own assets moving forward. They will be forced to try to compete in the immediate aftermath of an Antetokoummpo deal because of that, and perhaps the Embiid/Flagg combination offers the perfect combination of theoretical short-term upside and long-term benefit.
At the same time, will the Bucks really trade one of the 20 best players in the history of the sport for perhaps the riskiest contract in the NBA right now, all so they can draft a teenager with no NBA experience? It is a remarkable hypothetical.
MORE: What would Sixers' rotation look like with Flagg?
From @kellenpastore.bsky.social: Early takeaways from the first round of the playoffs? Feels like depth is more important than ever in these series.
This has been an awesome round one so far, and Nuggets-Clippers has been a particularly incredible series. And this does feel like a year that the pendulum is swinging quite a bit in terms of which teams are emerging victorious.
As you and many others have pointed out of late, it feels as if teams are being rewarded for depth and optionality within their playoff roster far more than ever — and, conversely, that having the best player in a series is less meaningful than it used to be. In my view, it is at least as important to not have exploitable weak links as it is to have the best player on the floor at any given time.
An example: I believe the Oklahoma City Thunder will win it all this year, and the biggest reason for that is not Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who very well may end up being the best player on the floor in every series they play. It is because they are not reliant on a single player with exploitable weaknesses on offense or defense. They have incredible optionality when it comes to the lineups they can close games with, going small or big or somewhere in between.
It is worth thinking about, from the perspective of the Sixers and other teams at home watching these playoffs, the extent to which players with limited skillsets on either end of the floor can be taken advantage of in high-leverage basketball and played off the floor. That is something the Sixers will think about when adding players on the fringes of their roster.
MORE: Possible targets with No. 35 overall pick
From @treenas27.bsky.social: Do you have advice for someone who's getting disillusioned with a league that has multiple playoff games end on blown calls every year? I don't want to harp on the "refs suck" point but games seem increasingly determined by who gets the luck of the whistle and it's frustrating as a fan of the game.
It is, of course, massively frustrating to feel as if games of this magnitude are being decided by late-game officiating blunders. I have always strayed away from that mentality a bit — to me, part of winning at a high level is doing enough to overcome the fact that the referees will inevitably miss calls. But it does feel wrong to see — on multiple occasions over the last few years — playoff games ending with misjudgments by officiating that are not corrected in the game but immediately acknowledged in a pool report.
Now, what would the fix have been in Game 4 of Pistons-Knicks, when the Knicks won after Josh Hart got away with fouling Tim Hardaway Jr. on a buzzer-beating three-point attempt? There was no call to be reviewed in that instance, and at some point it has to be understood that there will never be a 100 percent success rate on these close plays.
Your frustration and disillusionment is entirely understandable. My response to it would be this: missed calls happen in every quarter of every game, so it would be misguided to expect the officials to suddenly get everything right when the pressure is at its highest and coaches may have already used their challenges.
To me, the issue more significant than end-of-game officiating mistakes is the lack of consistency in how games are being called from the regular season to the playoffs. More physicality being allowed in the playoffs is great, but the difference is so pronounced now that players cannot gain a reasonable understanding of what is allowed and when it is allowed. Whether it means allowing more physicality in the regular season to prepare for the playoffs or being a bit more harsh in April, May and June so the difference is not so massive, I would like for regular season basketball and playoff basketball to not be legislated so differently.
SIXERS YEAR-IN-REVIEW
Joel Embiid | Guerschon Yabusele | Paul George | Jared McCain | Tyrese Maxey | Andre Drummond | Quentin Grimes | Jared Butler | Kyle Lowry | Kelly Oubre Jr. | Justin Edwards | Ricky Council IV | Eric Gordon | Lonnie Walker IV | Adem Bona
Follow Adam on Twitter: @SixersAdam
Follow PhillyVoice on Twitter: @thephillyvoice