INSTANT REACTION! | Recapping the 2021 NBA Draft

few drafts in my day. Actually, now that we've gotten to this point, you have to be prepared for all sorts of outcomes, and one of the outcomes that I prepared for was the Sixers making all three of their picks, getting guys they're excited about. And that is exactly what happened. It was a relatively active night for the seventy sixers. With the twenty eighth pick in the two twenty one

NBA Draft, the Philadelphia seventy Sixers select Jaden Springer. I'm Brian Seltzer, Jaden's Springer out of Tennessee, the Sixers top selection. They also targeted size with two picks late in the second round. That's episopt with another easy finish. Charles Bassett look at them, extremely mobile. It guess what he'll be done? He gets you unbelievable brown protection. We break down the Sixers twenty twenty one draft night on this Instant Reaction

pod seventy Sixers podcast Network and Why Don't Learn. We begin with a SoundBite that I shall queue up for us all to listen to. Here we go for the President of Basketball Operations, Darryl Moorey, after the draft went final. I view the draft as just the really important blocking and tackling that you do if you're going to have a consistent winner like we plan to have here in Philly. And look, it goes into a lot of the little things that an NBA staff does, obviously, and players do

with offseason work, working on skills. These are the things that note you know, don't pay off right away, but over time they become really important. They make you more flexible in free agency because you know, you have you know, Maxie coming along, like because Maxie, you know, showed us so much year one. Now now you can use your free agent dollars other places and uh, you know, give him a real shot. So it's it's really important and subtle and pushes you forward and you have to you

have to do you have to do well. And hopefully we've we're going to continue to do that. We'll start wide Lauren Rosen with this dissection of the draft that I would say is a sound bite with some substance, a true look into the mind, a sharp mind of Darryl Moorey going into his philosophy about the draft. And I like that he harkened back to Tyrese That's exactly how you and I started out our night on our

pre draft show. This is a team that's had a lot of success drafting in the twenties, drafting in the forties, drafting in the fifties, and Darrel of course hopes to continue that trend that the Sixers started before he arrived, and he continued as he arrived, and based on the way that he spoke afterwards, it seems he's really confident that that trend is going to continue, but also that he's appreciative of those that have helped him continue that.

We're gonna play some more sound from Daryl Morey as this edition of the pod goes along, But I think my main takeaway was the Sixers had a plan, a solid plan going into draft night, one plan that they thought would pan out, and the night did kind of go that way for the Sixers. They wanted to possibly address a two way backcourt player in the first round. They felt like there were some talent to be had in terms of good potential for bigs later on in

the draft and earlier in the day. The day started with us learning that Daryl Morey made a move to acquire an additional pick, pick number fifty three, from the New Orleans Pelicans, and the Sixers were able to get some prospects that I think fit the molda what they were looking for and what they were able to pick up in Jaden's springer and also Philip Petrosev and Charles Bassey well and guys that check very different boxes, right, Even the two front court guys that they chose have

a lot of differences, And I like, I hope that I'm not spoiling a quote that you've chosen for later on in this podcast. But Daryl was a very matter of fact about the front court depth. It's an issue that Doc Rivers raised during the playoffs and Daryl wanted to address immediately, and when he was asked about it,

he addressed it immediately. He said, there you go, boom depth, and he's right, giving some options a growing Paul Reid adds to that depth, and of course that group is headlined by perhaps the best front court player in the league. Really cool to see what's going to go on there with Joel sort of becoming the veteran of the group, going to be really interesting to see him continue to grow as a leader and maybe as the leader of

that group. That's sound bite, Lauren, not in fact, one of the handful on my list, but it was a great one. Daryl. Even then, yes, even at one twenty six in the morning on Friday, after not just a long day, but probably long days, weeks and months of prepping for this draft, still very lucid, very eloquent, and insightful. Let's start with Jaden Springer, the number twenty eight overall

pick in this year's draft. I kind of think, Lauren, the phrase oh so many years young is cliched when we say, oh, that person's oh so many years young or whatever. But Jade Springer really is eighteen years young. He's young. He's gonna turn nineteen on September twenty fifth, but still I'm thirty six. That's a baby. I'll be honest, I think you consider me a baby. But I looked at a two thousand and two birthday, and I was like,

oh man, I'm getting up there at this point. We're gonna have a guy play who was born in two thousand and two. But yeah, so young, and as Darrell said, established himself in college at that young age. So it feels that the sky is the limit. It feels that the ceiling is really high. And I know it's a group that's looking forward to welcoming Springer into the into the roster, into the potential summer league, which I think we might touch on at the end of this at

some point. But gonna be cool to see him continue his growth, which has already obviously come a really long way in a short amount of time. As a seventy six er, Springer played twenty five games for Tennessee last season, average twelve and a half points, three and a half boards, three assists per game. He shot forty three and a half percent from three, eighty one percent from the line, and just over forty six and a half percent from

the field overall. Limited sample size from three. If anyone out there has not done their homework yet on Springer and you want to learn more, Lauren wrote a great recap about that. Some quick facts on Springer. What was your biggest takeaway? It was the most interesting nugget that you mind and uncovered. I would not call it a feature by any means an article. I think even that might be generous. We called it quick facts, That's exactly

what it is. But my favorite quick fact, perhaps one that I didn't realize until we started doing our research on mister Jaden Springer, is that his dad, Ry Springer, who was an All American at Iona College, also was drafted by the seventy six ers. We love a nugget like that. Yes, we really really cool, really cool. So awesome to see that it's in the family. Really looking forward to getting to meet him and speak with him

in the coming days. Jaden coming from a family, as Lauren said, with voluminous basketball pedigree, not just his dad, but his brothers played in college as well and Iona and Army. So great pedigree from Jaden Springer, who is bidding to become perhaps the most successful Springer of the bunch in the NBA. Darryl Morey likes the young man. Jaden's really exciting boy. I know JMS get killed for talking about upside, but he's not nineteen, yet you know

already already a productive player at Tennessee. We feel good about his ability to be a three and D player in this league. We all know how valuable they are. There was a top high school recruit position where you could see a path to him potentially getting on the floor. Usually it takes a rookie more than a year, but you never know. Sounds like Lauren. Lots of people bullish and convinced that the defense of Springer could cut it

at the NBA level. Something that was raised in Morey's press conference after the draft was the volume of threes that Springer took in his single season at Tennessee. Last year he shot only forty six threes. He made twenty. Then that's pretty darn good. But that was something that Daryl Morey seemed comfortable with. He seemed to be okay based on other things that the Sixers were looking at

and making their evaluation. Well, and if we're honest, it doesn't feel and Daryl talked about this, that they're going to be relying on him for heavy productivity, at least not in his rookie season. And of course looked at Tyres Maxie, someone that they didn't expect to rely on as much as they did. That certainly doesn't mean that Jaden's not going to find a way to make a big impact, but good to know that he can shoot

at the clip that he shot at in college. Perhaps eventually ramp up to a bigger role, to a larger sort of three and D role with an NBA team, but a lot of potential there and some time to grow. I liked that Daryl didn't seem to be putting any pressure on him to come in and take control of the offense or anything like that at such a young

age on such a good team. Yeah, Daryl really made it sound like the case of Tyrese Maxie and what Tyrese was able to do, particularly in the postseason, perhaps within the context of a team like the seventy six ers, where they at where they're at with their timeline an exception, not the expectation or the rule. But yeah, bullish, very bullish.

It sounded like he and the scouting staff were on Springer and one of the things that Darryl talked about as far as projecting at the three point shooting of Springer, I think two things tell me, Lauren, if I'm not remembering this right that they felt projected well was that Springer has good touch in their mind around the rim, and that he can shoot his free throws pretty well.

He shot eighty one percent last year. But Daryl, I think, was saying that there were other signs, things like at that would point to the three point shooting at some point down the road coming along and being effective at the NBA level for Springer. Well, first of all, I don't know if I'm the one you want correcting you if you're wrong at three am. I'm not necessarily going to be able to do that. But what I can

do is add to what you said. We haven't really talked about his defense yet, and that of course is sort of what he's become known for it and going to be cool to see the Sixers add a really young defender to an existing core of really strong defenders. Seems like he's going to have some pretty solid role models as he moves forward in his NBA career, and a young core two laren that could be developing in

the seventy Sixers backcourt. Going it to that notion that Darrel was talking about of the draft being a building block for a sustaining winning for a franchise. You have someone like Maxi Isaiah Joe who everyone thinks has some promise. Obviously there's someone like a Shake Milton in the fold right now. And then you add Jaden Springer to the mix, and the seventy sixers working on a perhaps young backcourt group that they're looking to develop, no doubt about it,

some really exciting guys across the roster. That's something that I was able to speak with Darryl Moury about it. It's pretty rare, he says, to have a really good group of established veterans being pushed by a really promising group of youngsters. He says, a lot of teams have one but not the other. They have the established veterans, they have the all Stars, but they don't have the youngsters to push them. Or they're just a team of youngsters that don't have a lot to look up to.

And this team, no matter how it is composed when the regular season begins, certainly does check both of those boxes. We said part one. Phase one of the seventy six ers draft plan on Thursday was to hopefully get a two way guard in the first round. Checkbox next to that and then in the second round, the mission was to acquire some frontcourt depth and young talents. We thought the depth that the big spot was really really strong

this year. We had a group of bigs we thought could make it to that the early fifties, we thought there'd be a strong non big. That sort of rough plan played out. It doesn't always so, but it did. Tonight really learned for the first time, at least in my time doing this, being with the seventy sixers and covering the draft, a mostly predictable, nothing totally out of left field draft night, which in some ways may not be someone's cup of tea, But I'll be honest with you,

I was ready for it. I was ready for a more plain Jane draft night. And being on the ground, it was a very calm, collected, streamlined draft night, and it felt nice to get some normalcy, just sort of aside from basketball, Aside from what went down in terms of picks, in terms of moves. It was awesome to have a traditional draft night. It feels like nature might

be healing a little bit. Yes, yes, indeed so about the two bigs that the seventy sixers acquired in the second round pick number fifty, which the Sixers got in a deal with the Knicks was Philip PETROSEV six eleven, two thirty five. Perhaps as far as how his game might translate to the NBA, more of a stretch four, small ball five than a traditional center, but he played two really strong years Ekenzaga. He was the conference player of the Year his second season, he averaged seventeen and

a half points eight rebounds per game. But then he went overseas and he played in the Adriatic League in Serbia. He was the MVP there last year, average twenty one points per game. And he played for the team megal X. I think it's called actually something else now, but it was at one point megal X, and that was the team that Timo tay lewhile Cabaret played for Nicola Yokich Zubats from the Clippers. So he got some good pro experience under his bill. Go. Yes, all of a sudden,

I'm such a connoisseur of international basketball. I feel really good about this. Yeah, love love love to see that he comes from a pedigree like that, and of course having that college experience at a high level as well, going to be really cool to see how he confused the different types of experience, the perspectives he's gathered in still a very young career, and is able to translate

that into pro basketball in the US eventually. And what I like is that he played at a winning program in Gonzaga, surrounded by some players that had pro potential and went on to playing the pros like ruy Achimura. As far as what Daryl Morey said after the draft on Thursday, he acknowledged that this might not be an immediate contributor for the seventy six ers here in the United States. TBD on that, But like what we've seen in the past, thinking back to guys like I think

this is the case. I mean, it feels like it's really long ago. But fur Con and I can't even I actually can't remember if Dario played in Summer League

before he played here. I don't think he did. But anyhow, it's not uncommon for a European player that was drafted to come playing Summer League, go back Overseas, finish out whatever their arrangement is there, and then come back to the United States to the NBA to latter points, So maybe we see that from Petro Sev and of course grew into a little bit of a Summer League legend, and you never know. Summer League is, of course salts

where legends are made. And here we go, getting ready for another Summer League in which Darryl Moorey did say that he anticipates all three of these new sixers being able to play. Of course, you never know what could happen, especially when you're dealing with folks overseas. But we'll be exciting to get to see these draft picks in a little over a week playing live ball. It's awesome, fantastic.

I've not done much advanced scouting for the seventy six Summer League team as far as draft talent they acquired, anything like that. But of what I have seen, the most footage I've looked at is of Charles Bassie and I like it. Energetic, feisty, super speedy rim runner. I've heard an elite shot blocker as well, just to give the people in the background. I just got home, so I have not looked at any film yet. I literally am car to pod right now, but I'm looking forward

to pour in over some film. What did you see when you checked him out? Just a high energy guy, guy that runs end to end and as a great presence around the rim. The Hilltoppers found him for I'm not it's it's three o'clock saws. They found him at the old top of the hill. They found him for the lab a lot. He was able to get behind defenses, finished strong at the rim. Shot blocker, rebounder last year seventeen and a half points, eleven and a half rebounds.

Has some stretch, big potential. Definitely more of a NBA five for sure type presence, at least at this stage of the game, it would seem. But yeah, three years of NCAA experience under his belt at Western Kentucky. It's gonna turn twenty one in October. Got a really massive wingspan. I like it. I like it. I like the I like the top of the hill punt. I gotta be honest with you. I think some of the best jokes, the best corny humor comes between the hours of like

three and five in the morning. As you know, I'm not gonna subjects the pod listeners to my joke that I had yesterday around the same time. Maybe one day, but yeah, great humor in the middle of the night. I was all about it. I think when you look at the draft haul, the three selections for the seventy Sixers in total, it's a nice profile for this group.

You have two way potential in the back court, You've got a stretch ish big in petrosev and then you got you know, some five potential with some energy at Bassie. I'm all about it. I agree with you. Cool to see three players with some distinct skill sets bringing different things to the table, as was the case with three from last season, and it'll be cool to see if they see a similar progression in their respective rookie years.

I'm also pumped that Summer League is back this year and we will be seeing it in not too long. The Sixers are actually going to take their Summer League team out to Las Vegas a couple of days ahead of time. I would be surprised if they were the only team to do that. I would expect a handful of teams to do this. Have a mini camp out there in Vegas, which the Sixers have done in the past, and then they start playing the games on August ninth. They have four games plus one if they don't make

it to the championship final, so that should be great. Hopefully, we see all these draft picks out there in Las Vegas. One thing though, alarmed before we wrap this up, because we're gonna hear from a lot of these prospects in the days to come. We got some insight, we got some news, a little bit of an update about at update from Daryl Morey about the main big fella, the MVP candidate. Let's hear about it. Joel Embiad update. Joel has been in the gym. He was in the gym

today working on his game. He has a plan with our medical staff and we feel good about it and we are not concerned about him medically at all. Great. Great. I think that if you're a seventy sixers fan, that's the update you won. He's a man with a plan, He's Joel Ebiad. I'm sorry, that's I gotta I'll see myself out. And you know what, though, I know that part of him being in the gym maybe to make

sure everything's cool with the meniscus and all that. But I love hearing that Joel embiads in the gym for whatever reason. That's great. I can envision something in my mind right now, the facility, the training complex and Camden Joel and bad checking in. To me, that's a good thing. It's poetic. On draft day, a lot of guys are out of market, understandably, a lot of guys are not

from Philadelphia. But do you know that Joel is still around and still putting in work on such a big day when other things are sort of a buzz at the complex, the complex feels more like the complex when Joel Embiad is there putting up shots, and on Draft Day he was It's almost time time. That's sacred thing we call rest. We know, Lauren, you're not getting much of that these days. You are on the beat following Matisse Thyble with great expertise in his Olympic metal pursuits.

We also had a long day on Draft Day. I gotta say the picks they say exciting. My highlight was helping Tyrese Maxie opened his ears to the world of Twitter spaces. To me, that was a lot of fun. That is a good tease for those of you listening. Seltz and I are gonna be doing a little bit more Twitter spaces action now we have to twitter. This was validation of that and the tease is as follows. You never know who's going to log on If Seltz and I aren't enough for you, I guess I understand.

But you never know who's going to drop in. It's kind of like the comedy seller in New York. You know how sometimes like really good comics just sort of show up unannounced. Well, Tyrese Maxie did that on Twitter spaces tonight with me in Seltz and it was a lot of fun to hear some of his draft memories, learned some insights that he had playing against Springer in AAU. He had some strong impressions, some positive impressions of his

new teammates. So you never know who's going to log on to Twitter spaces when you see that notification, make sure you're there because they're not recorded. It's gone, it's out into the abyss. And if you weren't there listening to Tyrese, sorry, he's just I'm a fan of him as a human being delightful, delightful, always great upon our Twitter spaces and made it better for having done so.

Told us how he was hanging out with mom and dad watching the first part of the draft, gets a guy he knows and Jaden Springer into the fold two sec products. What if we see Tyres out in Vegas, TBD. I wonder we'll have to tune inn and c. All right, Lauren, exceptional work. We look forward to your continuing coverage of the draft and getting ready for summer league in the days ahead. Thank you everyone out there for listening as always. You haven't had a pod. Oh we had the Mattise

one about the Olympics. But we've been a little bit infrequent and a regular in our cadence, but that is going to change with the summer league schedule picking up, So starting next week, look for our stuff on the regular as we check in from summer league and have some basketball about to watch the seventy six or should be fun, really looking forward to it. We will be back. Thank you as always Selts for leading us through the darkness past three am as they say, good Draft, good night,