Liberty Links: We’re Not Dead Yet

Understandably, reading the comments on Kyle Neubeck’s goodbye post yesterday was reminiscent of a funeral for a beloved community member that died unexpectedly. It was sad, and no one knew what was next. And I understand that it’s kind of appropriate. Kyle, mostly by himself (with help from the inimitable Roy Burton, and like two posts from me) ran Liberty Ballers for the last two months, and all of a sudden he’s gone. This comes less than two months after Jake Pavorsky and Shamus Clancy left the site on the same day. It’s been a summer of change as the voice of LB has grown up right as the team we cover’s fortunes have turned around.

That being said, for those of you who are newer to the site, hi! I’m Sean. You may remember me from classic hits such as “why do I follow this guy on Twitter if all he tweets about is Big Brother?” and a completely outdated Liberty Ballers profile photo. But more notably, I am a former co-managing editor of this site who won’t let this ship sail in an aimless direction for too long. I owe too many of my joys in life to being a part of the Sixers web community, to things such as the four lottery parties and community-based self-loathing, and I’m here to help out where I can while the powers that be find a blog manager.

I don’t know how long it’ll be until we find a new lead voice. I was thrilled to be involved in bringing people in previously as writers, including Kyle, and I encourage anyone with interest to apply here. And I note that unless you’re me, blog managers here have a fairly high future success rate (and since I have an inkling of where Kyle’s unique voice is going, you can count him in that bucket). We’ve had so many interesting, talented, funny, witty writers contribute in some way to the site, and I’m confident we’ll continue to do that well into the future.

In the meantime, here are some things I think you’ll find interesting:

What we learned from the Sixers media luncheon, non-Embiid edition (Rich Hofmann, for The Athletic Philadelphia - subscription only but recommended)

The Sixers run these media lunches every year, and news almost always comes out of it. I haven’t been to any of these, but Brett Brown and management seem to have looser lips when eating fine Italian food. Anyway, the tone of language has been evaluated ad nauseam across Sixers media, with not knowing Embiid’s actual injury status and Ben Simmons’ health, but Rich’s dive into the other topics at this feast is worth your while.

Side note: I never spell Rich’s last name correctly. Not even when he wrote here.

Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot will have to fight for minutes (Jake Pavorsky, NJ.com)

TLC’s visible progression from “unable to dribble” to “reasonable rotation player” was one of the more encouraging subplots of the post-January Sixers. His minutes only increased once Jerryd Bayless was lost for the season, and now he’s fighting for minutes with Nik Stauskas, Bayless, Furkan Korkmaz, and Justin Anderson. I, for one, would rather see the Frenchman play ahead of all those jokers, but he’ll understandably need to earn playing time given the crowd. Here, Jake highlights what TLC needs to show in order to stand out, with video bonuses.

The Live Ricky Podcast with The Paywall and Teej

Sources: Andrew Wiggins progressing toward $148M deal with Minnesota (Shams Charania, The Vertical)

That’s a lot of walleye converted to empty calories. Godspeed, Minnesota.