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76ers' Sunday Morning Shootaround: What Did The Fox Say?

In this edition of the Sunday Morning Shootaround, the Sevens unveil a mascot, Joel Embiid has harsh words for Nicki Minaj's new video, and a Nerlens Noel deep cut emerges from the Internet abyss.

By Roy Burton
The 87ers unveiled their mascot last week, and they found a way not to Sixer it up. Progress.
The 87ers unveiled their mascot last week, and they found a way not to Sixer it up. Progress.

The times they are a-changin'...

Not only has the Sixers' social media game improved exponentially over the past few months, but the Sevens debuted a new mascot last week that... isn't... terrible.

Caesar the Fox is a nod to former Delaware state representative Caesar Rodney, who signed the Declaration of Independence back in 1776. The fox also happens to be the official wildlife animal of the state of Delaware, and the "1st" on Caesar's jersey is in reference to DE's status as the first state. It all makes sense, and the fox is far less scary than those Betsy Ross/Ben Franklin monstrosities the Sixers had running around last year.

Part of me was hoping that they could somehow work a Delaware angle for B. Franklin Dogg, but he's been pretty silent for the past couple of years over on Twitter. And speaking of silence on Twitter... I miss Adam Aron.

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Already missing you, Thad. We all knew that this was a foregone conclusion, but as Derek Bodner wrote last week, that doesn't necessarily make this any easier to deal with.

All of us here at Liberty Ballers wish you nothing but the best going forward. I hope that for your sake, the winter in Minnesota is milder than usual this year, and maybe.... just maybe... Prince will invite you over to his house for pancakes.

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Ignore the link in the tweet above - we've already seen the video of Nerlens spitting 16 bars in the studio with Jadakiss. But did you know that Noel's rap debut actually came during his freshman year in Kentucky?

Skip to 1:49 for the start of Noel's verse - the first half of the song could literally cause you to bleed from your ears (as well as your other orifices).

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If I was the intern that got fired for putting "Joel SHMURDA Embiid" up on the screen during the Little League World Series, I'd probably use this image as a desktop background for the rest of my life.

(Note: Shout-out to the Taney Dragons who put up a tremendous fight before falling to the eventual U.S. champion Jackie Robinson West team from Chicago. And the story of Mo'ne Davis is great and all, but Zion Spearman is my favorite baseball player since Ricky Jordan.)

(FWIW, The "Shmurda" in Embiid's Twitter name is a reference to New York rapper Bobby Shmurda, who inadvertently created the hip-hop dance craze of the summer.)

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Joel Embiid's tweets above are in reference to Nicki Minaj's new "Anaconda" video.

(Usually, I would include a link to said video, but we are a family Web site.)

Let's be honest here for a second: In a vacuum, the song itself is trash. HOWEVER, as young Jake Pavorsky will find out one Thursday night down in College Park this semester, it's a song that will invariably get the women out onto the dance floor, and that alone makes the song great.

As far as the video is concerned, my current marital status won't allow me to comment as much as I'd like to, but I will say that it's a fine work of cinematography. I'm not the only one who thinks so: 19.6 million degenerates people clicked on the video link within the first 24 hours of its release.

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And finally, here's a picture of a young Brandon Davies looking into the future at the 2014-15 Sixers' roster and wondering what the hell he signed up for.

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