Lost in the resplendent glory of the 76ers young core of Ben Simmons, Joel Embiid, and Markelle Fultz is the knowledge of who remains their best player: Robert Covington. That’s right, I said it, and I’ll say it again too. Robert Covington. Robert Covington. Rob đź‘Ź Ert đź‘Ź Cov đź‘Ź Ing đź‘Ź Ton đź‘Ź.
I ragged on him a bunch last year for taking tons of shots and missing most of them, and I’m not taking back all that stuff. His offense was not great last year, no excuses. But, apparently, advanced stats are telling us that he was one of the league’s premiere defenders last year. I’m not in a position to verify that claim, because I don’t care about defense and never will, but you can’t deny the impact that an elite wing defenders has on a team. Of course he shot poorly! He was too busy locking down Durant and Giannis to have good shot selection!
Covington proved his superiority again tonight. As Simmons and Embiid got busy having a co-masturbation sesh while Fultz sat in a corner and looked sad, Covington was canning triples and looking like the legit two-way player we knew he was. So while all you lame-os are trying to cram yourselves on to whatever space is left on the Simmons/Embiid/Fultz hype train, I’ll be enjoying my cushy engineer’s chair on the Covington Express. Choo Choo!