Who even needs Joel Embiid when you have a guy who does all the same things and isn’t a walking injury report? No one, that’s who, and especially not the Sixers. He shoots threes, he dunks, he blocks the bejabbers out of people, it’s all there. People aren’t quite as hyped for Richaun Holmes as they are for the Cameroonian, but the gap is closing.
That’s a lie. It’s not closing, because national attention for the Sixers is back to pre-Embiid levels, and all the Sixers fans were already hyped for Rich Holmie Chaun. These career-high 24 points, while impressive, will go unnoticed because of all the other storylines around the league. No one has time for a second-rounder coming into his own in his second season.
And that’s okay. Let the plebeians have their Westbrooks and Embiids. Their Kawhis and Draymonds. They don’t understand the true meaning of basketball, which is not-so-good players sometimes randomly becoming kind-of-good for a game or two. The players that Naismith had in mind when he created this beautiful game.