All Signs Point to THIS for the Sixers...

All signs seem to point to this, that the Sixers are the best team in the NBA, but have an offensive issue right now. But I think I have found the solution. Hear me out, folks. Let's talk about rebounding. What's going on? Christian Pedersen back with another episode of Sixers Digest, the show that even though we are talking about how there are some offensive shortcomings, I promise this is not me crashing out, freaking out, overstressing. I just want to take like an academic look at it's an off day. Let's talk about some numbers and see if we can't work through it all together. And if you want to join in on that, comment, subscribe, follow, YouTube buttons, press them, don't press them. No matter what, we will still be here blabbing away on the internet talking about the Sixers who 9-2. So again. Trying to freak out here, but if you look at this, to me, all signs do point to there is an offensive shortcoming for this team, and I hear me out. Here's my thesis right now, and you're going to go, yeah, no duh, we're bad at rebounding, but I think that I could say to hell with the defensive rebounding. If we focused all of our efforts on improving the offensive boards, I think that the rest of the offense would follow suit. If you look at those numbers, 23rd in field goals, 25th. Three points, 27th in rebounding. I don't have, even with all of our fancy graphics and stats and AI powering DigestSports.com, go check all that out. I don't have something to be like, hey, Grok, give me what would happen if we out-rebounded everybody on the offensive end. How good would we be? Because A, I'm not that good at computer science, but B, we're already 9-2, so I'm not, again, trying to entirely freak out. It's also something where Embiid, for as much as he's having some shortcomings on the shooting end, he has not been singularly dominant in the rebounding in a way that breaks it down to be something like the recent rebounding has been, oh, like when he's on. When he's on the court, we're just unstoppable on the boards, and when he's off the court, we're a complete dumpster fire. It's been kind of all over the place, where there's been somewhat of a downward trend anyway in his rebounding and his minutes, and the rebounding split for the team in general has been kind of all over the place. And that recently for Embiid, it has been. Um, let's hear, let's pull up, let's pull up these numbers a little high, a little low. And it's not one where like, if this was a continuous downward trend, I'd be like, okay, there is a underlying like fundamental issue that we need to bench somebody, change rotational minutes, um, uh, trade for, we can all talk about still trading for a big, although my boy, Adem Bona. His issue isn't in the rebound. His issues is just everything else in his game. But his issues is not necessarily... There have been games where he has been the team's leading rebounder. There have been plenty of double-digit games from Adem Bona. The issues to me seem to be that the offensive woes, though, boxing out, depending too much on Embiid and expecting too much from Embiid. And combining those two things and we've had Nurse and Maxey and some of those other guys talking about how it's like once, you know, if Embiid can give us that tip, if we need to go fight for that set, if you give us, you know, move from 27 to 20, if you move from 27 to 15, if we can be top 15 or just even at 15th in offensive rebounding alone, Not even in entirely. Just overall rebounding. I would assume that the rest of those offensive numbers will start to tick up. LeBron James has been helpful in the boards. There have been nights where he has been. Crashing and doing well. Some of this, though, is how much do you want to rely on LeBron spending those minutes in the paint and that much gas out of the tank this early in the season? But I think it has shown that the formula is there for us to have winning moments of... I think everything that we've seen from the Sixers, this is why I am not panicking, is Jalen Brown's numbers rebounding. Bron James' numbers, rebound, VJ Edgecombe's numbers, and I just did a VJ Edgecombe video, so go check that out as well. That's why I always say subscribe. I've got a lot of content coming out for you. All of the numbers are there in a condensed sense of, if we are in a seven-game setting, I think that you can crank it up to 11 and be like, guys, we need to get after it, do or die, season's on the line, format, you know, the process is going to be decided if it is back to bleep on or not, whether or not we can crash the boards. So it's not that I'm worried, like again, not underlyingly worried, but I am curious how we go from 27th in offensive rebounding to 20th. How do we go from. Where we're at to where we want to be, because this does, to me, feel like there is a chance that this is us not having an adequate backup big, but it also just feels like, I mean, if anything, is this the... The new roles, chemistry, rotational issues that everybody was alluding to in the national media of us having everybody trying to play a different role and nobody's used to just having to be that guy that's fighting for boards. This one is where I'm unsure about where we go from it. According to our graphics people, they must find more second chances. And I'm fine with that. Edge comb. has been, again, this is one where it's like, he's shown that he can do it, he's had bad games, and then he's bounced back with good games. Jalen Brown, his boards have been all over the place. And so that to me even further frustrates the concept of how is this fixed, because it is there is not seemingly one glaring Just like, oh my gosh, there's a spotlight on that one spot. That's where the issue is with the rebounding. We need to hyper-focus on getting that fixed. It seems like the boards are available out there in the ether, and we just need to figure out how to cohesively get the team all on the same page. Hey, like, we could, if we go hard in the paint, literally, And metaphorically, in the first half, we won't have to metaphorically go hard in the paint in the second half and fend off a, or come back from a crazy game. And again, though, I come back to the we're winning, and so I'm not trying to fully crash out, but it does seem like if the offensive boards can get somehow at least consistent. There has to be that trickle-down effect of more second-chance looks, more buckets going in early on, shooting percentages starting to rise, average margin of victory going up. And then I think that's where you would then have the trickle-down of, in the back half of games, some usage and some minutes going down for some guys. So guys getting healthier and yada, yada, yada, you wind up in the promised land. So let me know what you think on the offensive rebounding. As always, like, subscribe, share, follow, all those other good YouTube buttons. Until next time, we'll talk to you guys soon.