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On Tuesday , the Sixers traded for, and waived, former #2 pick, Hasheem Thabeet. And this means only one thing: Time to dust the moth balls off my seven year-old laptop and open up a Microsoft Word Doc. Sorry, Stevie Ray, it's not Slapjack Time. It's RTG Time!
*Please be sure to leave your favorite Thabeet moment as a Sixer in the comments section below.
Name: Hasheem Thabeet
College: UCONN
Height: 7'3"
Sixers Tenure: Sometime in the afternoon of August 26th, 2014
Sadness Scale: Level 3, Bummed.
Actual Text Exchange from Tuesday:
Friend: "The Sixers waived Thabeet."
Me: "Wait, you mean Davies?"
It's difficult to put the Hasheem Thabeet Era into words, but I suppose the below two tweets are a pretty good start.
Basically my conclusion on this Thabeet deal is that it's the most pointless thing ever.
— Jake Pavorsky (@JakePavorsky) August 26, 2014
Going to need a 60 Minutes-esque sitdown interview with Thabeet and Bennett on what it was like to be Sixers for like 20 minutes
— Kyle Neubeck (@KyleNeubeck) August 26, 2014
This unshakable feeling I have post-Thabeet is a feeling of regret. I regret missing the actual acquisition - those precious few moments that every fan has when they justify even the most absurd of moves. That brief moment, when you envision a front court of Thabeet and Noel and Matt Geiger and Manute's son, Bol Bol, patrolling the paint, drop stepping and jump hooking their way into our hearts.
"If Thabeet improves his conditioning ..."
"If Thabeet develops a low-post game ..."
"If Thabeet dedicates himself in the weight room ..."
"If Thabeet ..."
I regret going to work on Tuesday afternoon. That's on me. I need to put myself in a better position to schedule time off. If only I was home, if only I was glued to Marc Stein's Twitter page, I could've enjoyed all the fruits of the Thabeet Experience. I could've basked in the breaking news. I could've showed off my new center, like a fiancée flashing her engagement ring to all her friends.
"It's no big deal, really. This is just a 7'3" center we got. It's nothing. Really. Did I mention he's 7'3"?"
I was disappointed that I spent Glen Rice Jr's entire Sixers tenure in the bathroom, but at least I felt it, experienced it. I spent those few moments conjuring up rice puns and prospective nine-man rotations while simultaneously playing Firefighter, Firefighter in the urinal. No one can take that away from me.
I won't tell you how to mourn. Come to grips with this loss on your own terms. Personally, I just wish Thabeet and we had a few more days together. And in a time of hot takes, here's a scorching one: I miss my center. I miss my friend.
So today, we remember Hasheem Thabeet. For most of the NBA, it was just another Tuesday afternoon. For us? It was so much more.
I don't care what the truth is. Hinkie got Thabeet and Bennett in the same offseason and I'm king of the world.
— Michael Levin (@Michael_Levin) August 26, 2014