Why the heck did the 76ers trade Ersan Ilyasova away in the first place? It baffled me then, it baffles me now, and it will continue to baffle me until I lay on my deathbed and take my final breath. I’ll be like “Hey nurse, why in the hecking heck did Philadelphia trade Ilyasova who was averaging like 15 points a game for frickin’ Tiago Splitter who was totally washed?” and the nurse won’t respond because she’ll think I’m delusional or whatever, and then I’ll just fade away into the infinite blackness, my question unanswered. Forever.
Well, at least Philly saw the error of their ways and brought him back to help them be the second best team in the East (don’t even think about @-ing me). He’s rebounding better than ever now, his scoring is still solid, and he’s the perfect foil for the non-shooting Ben Simmons.
Tonight, he replaced the facially-lacerated and dentally-chipped Dario Saric about 15 seconds into the game, and the team didn’t miss a beat. Maybe they did, actually, because they didn’t ever really pull away from the Hawks, but in any case, this was totally a revenge game for the Ill-man. At least the Hawks trading him made sense; what good is one of the most prototypical stretch-bigs in the league for a team that is going nowhere?
Update: I looked it up to get my facts straight, and it turns out Atlanta frickin’ WAIVED him. Not even a trade. Just straight up waived. Damn. That’s pretty harsh.