In today's episode of the Sixers beat, Rich and I go over the Sixers big but frustrating

win over the Cleveland Cavaliers, give updated impressions on Jalen McDaniels during his short Sixers'

tenure so far, and go over whether or not Dwayne Deadman can solve the Sixers backup center problems.

Enjoy the podcast.

All right. Welcome, everybody. This is Derek Bodner, joined by our Choffman on a Sixers Beat, part of the Athletics Podcast Network. Hey, Dorn Rich. The quote-unquote midway point of the season. It's nice. It's nice to have a break at really the two-thirds mark of the season. But I'm doing great, man. We have a week off. I know as we talk about

off-air a lot, we are not going to the All-Star game, this time in beautiful Salt Lake City.

We are not making the trip there. Salt Lake City is beautiful. I will push back on that if that was

sarcasm. No, no, I actually agree. I told you about this a couple episodes ago. It's a cool city in that it's got the downtown. It's almost like, I don't know, half of Center City, Philadelphia, obviously the buildings aren't as big and all those things. But it's just wild how it's surrounded by mountains like right there and like pretty

mountains like white city is necessarily one that I would love although I will say like I'm big on

like a drivability score oh and when I was there I rented a car because that is something that I

tend to do and being able to like just drive anywhere or like you're at the arena and, like, five blocks downtown, you're, like, in the middle of, like, residential homes. It's very weird as an East Coast person. The Center City downtown area is just not the same when you get outside of the East Coast. But it seems like a livable city. I'm not sure I would want to live

there long term, but I love going through it. It's very beautiful. I don't think I'd want to live there long term either, but yes, I agree. It's a nice, nice city. That said, we're not going, and it has nothing to do with Salt Lake City. It has to do with the All-Star game is terrible. the event to cover is terrible. And it's just a nice break for all of us in the middle of the season. Also, Joel-A-Meed might not even be going. He put some doubt on that there last night when he talked about how he needs to get his foot right, which quite honestly, and I think some people come up with injuries so they don't have to play in the All-Star game.

I think Joe's might be pretty legitimate. Like, we've been talking for a long time, like, hey, that foot looks pretty bad. I'm not sure if it's going to get better playing on at night in and night out. Is it going to magically get better here with a week off? Probably not, but it still might be the right thing to do.

So it looks like Joe may or may not play.

He said he will figure that out in the coming days.

He pretty much has to because the All-Star games on Sunday. But imagine if we were going out there and Hardin's not playing, Jewel ends up not playing. There's nothing to cover in a bad event anyway. I'm not missing it. You still have two-way player, Mac McLung, read my story on the Athletic. That's true. That's true. Yeah. Go read Rich's a feature on Mac there at theathletic.com slash Sixers. So, yeah, there's just not a lot of Sixers-based people going on. Maxie has graduated out of the, the Rising Stars game, which, by the way,

the Rising Stars game is even worse than the All-Star game. Like the first two years, guys,

you would think they'd be anxious and ready to play. No, I think they'd try and take it even cooler than the, you know, than the actual All-Stars, which many of them become in a few years.

It's, uh, look, I just, I don't, I don't really like All-Star weekend. I think I've made that clear. I, uh, I am a curmudgeon in that way. But yeah, there's just not a ton of six-year stuff going on. Uh, to your point on it. It might be different. Like, I'm honestly interested if like there are a lot of fans who love it.

Because I think for us, it's like a little bit of a downtime, a little break, caught up on some personal things. The basketball isn't good. How could you love it? The event isn't good to cover. Like, you don't get good access. Like, a whole bunch of reasons as a journalist is probably not interesting. I wonder fans, like, you know, you can get into some stuff.

The dunk contest used to be fun until they changed the rules every other

year. The three point contest I think is fun. It's the game that I just find really bad. When I was a kid

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