If The City of Philadelphia Needs To Sacrifice The 76ers' Financial Future To Completely Cripple The Washington Commanders, Then So Be It
The Eagles are forever and always going to be the #1 team in Philadelphia. Philly is such an incredible sports town, and it's great that we have so many teams. We have a little bit of everything for everyone. Football, basketball, baseball, hockey, soccer, lacrosse, WNBA in the near future. But at the end of the day, the Eagles are always going to rule this town.
As long as the Eagles are winning, the city of Philadelphia can carry on with our lives in a reasonable manner. But if the Eagles were ever to lose their grip on the throats of every other team in the NFC? Especially to a division opponent? The city would devolve into utter chaos.
Which is why we need to be alright with the prospect of using the future of the Sixers to destroy the Commanders. And those wheels are already fully in motion with Terry McLaurin requesting a trade out of Washington.
Josh Harris gave out a 5-year, $180 million contract to Tobias Harris. Josh Harris signed Joel Embiid to a 3-year, $193 million extension last September, and then he proceeded to play 19 games this past season. Josh Harris signed an aging, injury-prone Paul George to a 4-year, $211 million contract. Tyrese Maxey's max extension wasn't a bad signing, but it's still a shit ton of money coming out of Josh Harris' pockets.
Moral of the story here is that Josh Harris and the Philadelphia 76ers have been incredibly donkey-brained with their money when it comes to the Sixers. They've handed out some truly awful contracts. The Paul George contract could very easily be considered the worst in the league. So that's going to give Josh Harris a little hesitation when it comes to paying the best receiver on his football team $40 million per year.
So now your best receiver is pissed off. Even if you don't end up trading him and he doesn't hold out, he's still going to be carrying a shit ton of resentment towards the Commanders heading into the season. At the very least, you've got a distraction on your hands here heading into a season where you need everything to go your way. There are only a couple years left where the Commanders can take advantage of Jayden Daniels on a rookie contract, and they could end up wasting one of them right now because Josh Harris doesn't want to open up his checkbook the same way he has with the Sixers.
Listen. I know it would be great if every team in Philadelphia was contending for a championship every season. Obviously that would be the tits. That would be an ideal scenario that we could all get down with. But unfortunately, that's just not reality. That's not the world we live in. The Sixers are no closer to winning a championship today as they were when Tony Wroten was giving you 30 minutes a night. So if the Sixers aren't going to provide a championship for Philly, then at the very least they can sabotage an Eagles rival from winning one.