Well, because of the global conspiracy to make sure there are never any good healthy Philadelphia 76ers available for Saturday or Sunday of All-Star Weekend, the Sixers' sole contributions to the NBA's mid-season break came on Friday night. Joel Embiid tweeted from the bench as Dario Saric and Jahlil Okafor participated on opposite sides of the U.S. vs. World competition of the NBA's Rising Stars Challenge. (Kevin Hart, former Philly representative at the All-Star Celebrity game, has apparently ridden off into the sunset with his four MVPs.)
Saric, unsurprisingly, acquitted himself admirably in the competition. Super Dario scored 17 points on 7-10 shooting -- including hitting his last three triples, after missing his first two attempts -- to go with five rebounds and four dimes and just one turnover. (Kevin Pelton of ESPN also points out that Saric was forced to play out of position at the three for most of the game, though it's kinda hilarious that he even noticed or thinks it matters in a game like this.) With a game built on transition play, passing and taking advantage of open space, Dario's game was obviously kinda tailor-made for a Rising Stars challenge, and he represented well as the World took down the States 150-141. (Also, Zach Lowe loves him, hooray.)
Jahlil Okafor allegedly scored ten points in this game, but I saw none of them. In fact, outside of some vague recollections of him maybe missing some free throws, I have zero memory of him even appearing in this game. (Pelton tweeted about Okafor handling the ball in transition, but I suspect he was mixing Jah up with Nikola Jokic.) If this was in fact Jahlil's last game as a Sixer, I don't know what that says about his overall legacy -- though 10 points on 5-6 shooting in 14 minutes, as the box score claims he had (with two boards and no assists), is still pretty respectable.
That's it. No more Sixers until next Wednesday. Have fun coveting some All-Stars and figuring out how we can turn Jah, Nik and a couple future firsts into Jimmy Butler. Stay tuned to Embiid's social accounts.
