u/therealallpro

Received a ticket for fare evasion. Utterly ridiculous. I was literally running to the platform. I walked on WITH the Dart officer. She immediately asked me for ticket and I explained the app was messing up. She then asked for my id, which I just happened to have, and complied as an act of good faith.

She then proceeds to give me a ticket without asking any questions. Even though I had a ticket by the time it was even written and I had screen shots of the app messing up and declining payment for no reason. It would only work thru Apple Cash. I tried to provide the contextual info but she didn’t care at all.

It annoys me when you act in good faith and someone is just legalistic. This is NOT A GOOD WAY to increase feels for Dart. Not a good way to increase ridership.

Looks like I worked 2,502 hours last year aka 48 hours a week. Which is more than I thought. Did the math we were taxed at about 10% higher rate for federal

But the math is mathing. It was one week.

I think too many ppl don't understand the Logic of the McCain trade so I'm here to explaining it because i see too many fans repeating talking points that have clear answers to. I say this as a McCain stan who is writing this in McCain sixers Shirt.

1. The death of the small guard: league wide trend to devalue their value.

I think a huge point fans miss is the league as a whole has been devaluing small guards, especially ones who's value is derived from Skill or scoring solely. I think this comes from the rule changes 3 years ago before the all star break where contact was more allowed, Influx of baseline skill around the league and the league valuing rebounding and second chance points more.

For years, skill was the main skill set that set you apart, probably hitting its max during the small ball era. Now rebounding has taken a major leap forward because the league as whole seems to under the value off offensive rebounding and how it leads to easy score. For years, it had always been a trade off of getting back in transition or clashing the glass for rebounds but teams figured how to do both by simply having athletes with high motors who had a baseline of skill.

On top of that processions are valued more than ever. You have to be able to protect the ball with solid ball handling but also you must be able to generate steals.

These are all skill small skills based guards lack. Which is why you see Trae young being devalued, you see Ja Morant being devalued, you see Jordan Poole forgotten about and you Cam Thomas basically without a job. If you can't affect the game without score via rebounds or with steals, if you aren't adding extra processions. The league is simply moving away from valuing your skill set.

2. Mccain must be protected defensively.

For years one of the best ways to know who the Sixers would value was to see who was good at perimeter isolation defense. So I pulled Bballindex's perimeter isolation defense to see where McCain was. Was he 40%, 30%? Maybe 25th? To my shock Jared McCain was DEAD LAST in perimeter isolation defense. Out of every player in the league, he was last!

For the Sixers this is a no go. We do not have Defensive shell that can protect that type of player but you know who does? OKC.

According to DunkandThree's Defensive EPM OKC has the 3rd best player in Chet, 7th in Hartenstein, 8th in Caruso and 9th in Cason Wallace. 4 players in the top ten!!! Not to mention 3 other players who rated in the 95th percentile. This gets passed over all the by Sixers fans but this is not normal. This is the perfect set up for a player who is skilled based and needs help defensively being protected. Literally THE ideal set up.

3. Joel Embiid's Decline defensively and rebounding.

12 months before Mccain was drafted Joel Embiid was coming off an MVP season, 6 months later he was scoring 70 points against Wemby and was even better than his MVP season. What ppl outside of Philly don't appreciate is While Joel was great offensive player what made him truly special at his peak was in contention for best offensive player and arguably the best defensive player in the league when fully engaged. This usually happened in high leverage moments or in the playoffs. In fact according, Bballindex's defensive playoff metric Joel had the single best defensive playoff season in their database.

When Mccain was drafted this is the version the Sixers were building around. A Superstar who need spacing to be optimized but could cover for all defensive mistakes. Mccain's skill set to a Tee. Unfortunately, the Injuries caught up with Joel and he can no longer cover up mistakes. In fact he is below average defensively now. Add on top that Joel was always below elite at rebounding and his now a major hindrance there. Instead of Mccain and Joel being the perfect paring, the decline of Joel happened in the exact areas that Mccain is naturally weak at.

So if you want the Sixers to be above average at rebounding or defense in general you need the other key players around Joel who can make up for that but the team was set up to optimize for MVP Joel, not this new Joel. You can't trade PG, You don't want to trade Maxey and VJ is the future. If Mccain is here and is going to be the player we want him to be he HAS to finish games. Its a fundamental mismatch in talents. Someone had to go and McCain was the easiest to move. Trading McCain was the plan to cover for Joel's new deficiencies.

I think once you understand the full CONTEXT of the trade it made sense. The risk is Mccain becomes a star but so far McCain has not improved over last year and doesn't seem to be on the Star trajectory. Based on the problems faced and context the trade is justified to me.