Is TJ Jefferson Really on the Verge of Abandoning His 76ers Fandom?!?!

TJ Jefferson is a 76ers fan. The Knicks just swept his team. Rich asked the question every Sixers fan has been thinking. Is TJ done?

He almost was.

"If I had that paper in front of me, it probably would have gotten signed," TJ told Rich.

The breaking point, TJ said, was the news that the Indiana Pacers' fifth overall pick in this year's draft now belongs to the Clippers, via the Ivica Zubac trade. The Sixers cannot get out of their own contracts and a rival division's loss now puts another player on the Clippers.

"This team is where they're at," TJ said. "They owe Embiid 180 million over the next 3 years. You can't get rid of him."

The Joel Embiid problem, by TJ's own diagnosis going back to 2020, has never been about effort or talent. It is about the body.

"He's too big to constantly be falling like the way he does," TJ said. "It's frustrating to watch as a fan of his. It's frustrating to watch as a Sixers fan. Literally every play it seems like he's on the ground more than he's up."

He stopped short of calling it flopping. He also stopped short of calling it anything else.

"I don't even know what that is," TJ said.

Rich pushed on the one outlier moment of the Sixers' season. The team came back from 3-1 down to eliminate the Celtics. TJ called it the highlight of the basketball year for him. He also said, plainly, that he would not sit on the show and try to argue the Sixers are a championship contender.

"I'm not," TJ said. "How the hell did they beat your team three games in a row? Look at the three-point shooting percentage."

Brad Stevens, in his postseason postmortem in Boston, said the Celtics need to get better around the rim. He mentioned dunks repeatedly. TJ noted, dryly, that Stevens should talk to his coach about that.

Rich, with his Knicks fan hat firmly on, used the moment to point out how absurd New York's last few years have been. The franchise tried to lure Kevin Durant by putting his face on a season-ticket email before he was even a free agent. They were embarrassing about it. They eventually bounced Tom Thibodeau and went coach-shopping in other teams' houses. They were embarrassing about that too.

Now they have Jalen Brunson, seven straight playoff wins, the Sixers swept out of their own building by fans the team tried to block from buying tickets, and the Celtics out of the way of the road ahead.

"So yeah," Rich said, "you're wondering why Knicks fans are out of their skulls right now."

TJ kept his paper unsigned. For now.