History was made Sunday night. For the first time ever, a game-winning buzzer beater was hit in a game 7 of a playoff series. Kawhi Leonard hit a shot over Joel Embiid to give the Toronto Raptors the series win over Philadelphia 76ers. His shot bounced around the rim 4 times before falling through the net and sending the Raptors to the Eastern conference finals. The shot gives the Raptors a bit of breathing space and leaves the 76ers with a lot of question marks, but it could’ve very well been a whole lot different.
The 76ers
Philadelphia’s season is now over after Kawhi’s shot and it left Embiid visibly upset after the game. After all, this was a great opportunity for the 76ers to get to the Eastern conference finals for the first time since 2001. They, and by they I mean GM Elton Brand, moved heaven and earth to put themselves in a position like this. They lost a big part of their bench in the offseason but were able to retain their entire starting lineup.
That lineup was shaken up before the season even really started. After a few games, the Sixers traded away a package centered around Dario Saric and Robert Covington to get All-Star Jimmy Butler in return. “The Process” was accelerated by quite a bit, and when they acquired Tobias Harris before the trade deadline it looked like “The Process” was complete. They now sported one of the absolute best starting lineups in all of basketball. All-Stars Ben Simmons, Jimmy Butler and Joel Embiid with a sharpshooter in J.J. Redick and a fringe All-Star in Tobias Harris, who was averaging 21 points a game before arriving in Philly.
Yet, there were some glaring holes in the roster. Shooting and spacing was a problem and the bench was almost entirely depleted after giving up nearly everything to acquire Butler and Harris. They were able to make it past the Nets quite easily in the first round, even though they dropped game 1 in the Well Fargo Center. Then came the Toronto Raptors, the team with the second best record in the league, even with Kawhi Leonard missing 22 games.
It was a close series the entire way. No team ever took a 2-game advantage and so we went to game 7 in Toronto. Kawhi Leonard had absolutely dominated in the series, being the leading scorer in every game but one. Game 7 was exactly like the entire series, very close. No team was ever able to take a double-digit lead and the game was tied with less than 5 seconds to go in the ballgame. Then, Kawhi Leonard happened.
Kawhi hit an incredible shot over Joel Embiid in the corner after shaking off Ben Simmons. His shot hit front iron twice and landed on the other side of the rim, where it bounced another 2 times before eventually falling and sending the Sixers home. It left Philadelphia with a lot of tough decisions and a scary summer.
They already assured head coach Brett Brown that he will stay on board for next season, even though it looked like he was going to get fired if he wasn’t able to make the conference finals. Still, that was the least of their worries. The market for head coaches is very thin right now, just look at how hard the Lakers struggled to find one.
Their bigger problems lie in the free agent market. Ben Simmons is still on his rookie contract through next season before entering the summer as a restricted free agent and Joel Embiid is signed until the 2023 summer, so that’s not going to keep Elton Brand awake. The problem is that the other 3 starters are all unrestricted free agents this summer. Redick only signed a one-year deal last summer, while Butler and Harris are putting pen to paper this summer for the first time since 2015.
Philly is of course able to offer a longer and better deal to their players, but a lot of big markets are flooded with cap space this summer. Both LA teams have a lot of money to spend, same goes for both NY teams and Chicago is looming as well. The Sixers organization are entering what may be the hardest summer yet, as there is no ‘Process’ to build on anymore. They can’t experiment anymore, they have to deliver now.
The Raptors
Like I said, the Toronto Raptors buy themselves some time. Well actually, Kawhi Leonard is carrying the franchise which will then result in the Raptors being able to make a better pitch to Kawhi in the offseason. Because you see, the Sixers weren’t the only ones with free agents to deal with. Kawhi Leonard is hitting the market too and he has been arguably the biggest gamble the franchise took. They traded away their established All-Star in DeMar DeRozan alongside their young center Jakob Poeltl to the San Antonio Spurs in return for Leonard and Danny Green.
Both of them are free agents this summer, and yet it still looks the Raptors made the right decision. GM Masai Ujiri took the gamble to make the Raptors better this year, title contenders even. The Raptors are just so much better with Kawhi and he himself is arguably the best player on the planet right now. Them getting to the conference finals is great to make Kawhi stay. Why would he leave after just one year with a franchise that has given him so much freedom and has reached the conference finals (or even further perhaps)?
Because Kawhi was hell-bent on going to his hometown of Los Angeles last summer, according to various reports. Since Leonard is not the most talkative person, we don’t know where his mind is at. We do know however that both teams in L.A. have cap space and are very desirable markets.
The Raptors exiting in the second round would have been terrible for the team, as Kawhi was the leading scorer in 6 out of the 7 games. He would have done everything just for the team to lose after round 2, why would he stay then? Luckily, that didn’t happen for Toronto, but the rest of the team has to step up. Losing Kawhi would be a fatal blow for the franchise and Ujiri, one that might send them to a rebuild mode, even though they were perennial playoff contenders before the Kawhi trade. High risk high reward, let’s just hope it pays off for the Raptors.
Courtside 