I’m not going to sit here and tell you I don’t get frustrated with this guys game at times but I think we are really hating on the contract vs the player.
Barkley said that the biggest beneficiary to Harden leaving is Harris as he is now the 3rd option.
This season he is averaging 19.7 pts and shooting .545 from 3.
In addition to the off the court contributions, I think we are overlooking how difficult it may be to replace Tobias. Is he currently overpayed, absolutely.
However, we should make a strong effort to sign/extend him to a fair contract in the offseason.
2-0 against lottery teams. When is the parade ?
I think we do this every year. He is who he is and that’s fine. An above average player. Who at some points looks like a fringe all star (maybe a couple years ago). He’s the prime “you need 15 he’ll get you 20, you need 25, he’ll get you 20”. It’s always just been that contract. If the contract was like 10M less, people wouldn’t care as much. He’s a top 100 player in the league who makes the contract of a top 20 player and that’s the only issue. His production is of Andrew Wiggins but his contract is of Pascal Siakam.
He’s not the defender Andrew Wiggins is and shoots the ball like shit against good teams in the playoffs so no he’s not Andrew Wiggins level at all. The Warriors wouldn’t have won the chip in 2022 if they replaced Wiggins with Tobias.
He’s been efficient but has been ass in every other way. He has no hustle, the Bucks game everytime he was our the team was deflated af, he doesnt box out, guys just blow by him on D
It’s not that he’s undervalued, it’s that people have been burned by him too many times after similar stretches in the past. He’s off to a great start but it’s just 3 games in. If he maintains near the same level of production for an extended period of time, like say through the playoffs, then people might actually trust him again.
The other thing is that in the past he had a lot of stretches where he played low energy and low effort which was infuriating to watch. If the dude stay engaged as the season progresses, it’ll bode very well for the team this year.
The only catch with a “good” Tobias though is that he might end up pricing himself out of the Sixers plans and even then his next fanbase would have to worry whether he was for real or playing for a contract.