👋 Good morning! Four days later, still one of the most impressive catches I have ever seen.

It is not Aaron Rowand breaking his nose, but still pretty good. — Rich Hofmann

As always, you can reach me @[email protected]

We did a lot of Sixers draft yesterday, only fair to talk about the Flyers today.

Sometimes, in listening to our daily podcasts, I can get caught in the weeds. That is not a bad thing, I love being in the weeds. “Being in the weeds” might be the motto for The ALLCITY Network for all I know. But sometimes, it is nice to take a 30,000-foot view. And I thought yesterday’s Flyers podcast, with hockey prospect writer Corey Pronman, did a nice job of giving us some of the macro and micro.

We can get into the weeds plenty over the next two weeks, but three big-picture Flyers questions that I am interested in heading into the draft…

(1) How badly do they want a center? Everyone is looking for a legit 1C and 2C. Goaltender is still the most important position in the sport IMO, but a 1C is right up there. Just look at the Stanley Cup Finals. Aleksander Barkov and Sam Bennett on one side, Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl on the other. Great against great.

We know that the Flyers do not have a 1C or 2C at the moment. Let’s hope Jett Luchanko becomes one of them in the future, but there is a lot for The Jett to prove. So, will the Orange and Black want to take another swing at center? Ideally, I think the answer is yes. But the tricky part of the top-six in this draft is that there are a bunch of forwards who could stick at center, but might be a wing.

The real swing piece here: Porter Martone, who is a bigger player who profiles strictly as a wing. Martone very well might be the most talented player on the board for the Flyers at No. 6. How much do they care about positional value? Speaking of that…

(2) How much will size play a factor? And yes, I could have phrased that another way. Get your mind out of the gutter.

Matvei Michkov and Jett Luchanko, the Flyers’ last two first-round picks, are generally not very big guys. At some point, that has to change. Look at the Florida Panthers, the biggest and most physical team in the NHL. That style of roster tends to fare well in the postseason. Bennett is about to get paid by someone.

One player who could be available for the Flyers at 6 is Boston College’s James Hagens. He is a center who might have the highest skill level in the draft. But he is tiny, just 5-foot-10. Would the Flyers go small again?

(3) How deep is the draft? Remember last year? The Flyers traded a late first-round pick to the Oilers for a first-round pick in this year’s draft. Their calculus was that they thought this year’s draft was better and deeper.

Now, is that true? At the top, most people do not think the No. 1 pick nor picks 7 through 13ish are as good as last year’s crop. Not a huge deal for the Flyers. But Pronman basically said that year-to-year, the late first round and early second round are roughly the same. You are making the same types of bets on the same types of talent level.

That said, the Flyers sure hope this is a deep draft. They have seven picks in the first two rounds!

Madden Draft: In honor of Saquon Barkley gracing the cover of Madden, Jamie and I drafted former video game Eagles the other day (just Madden, not Tecmo Bowl). I have been informed that my trophy is in the mail.

Exciting Mics: Reed and Coop seem to get good guests. Perks of being on the team, I guess. The most recent one? The $51 Million Man, Zack Baun. Please make sure to check out Exciting Mics wherever you get your podcasts.

Max Kepler, feared: No real Phillies news yesterday. But I did want to point out something from the The Athletic’s anonymous player poll. These things do a ton of traffic and generate a ton of subscriptions, and in the case of Tyrese Haliburton being voted overrated, sometimes they become a story of their own.

Anyway, this is the MLB poll. And while it was nice to see Bryce Harper crack the list below (he probably should be higher), I want to point out something else. This is why you always read the fine print, kids.

Big spot in Game 7 of the World Series, who is the last guy in bigs you want to see up at the dish?

Max Kepler.

You have all of Major League Baseball to choose fr —

Max Kepler.

Movin’ on up? Old friend Michael Scotto gave Sixers writers/talkers their content for Thursday with the following report. Bless you, Mike. Anyway, Devon, Derek and Kyle knew what to do with this (podcast about it).

Kyle confirmed the report, and also offered the following nugget:

Biggest winner of the day’s reporting: Derek, who I sat next to on lottery night and who immediately said, “It’s great that they kept the pick. But man, it would be so much better if they were at No. 2.”

The biggest losers: The Kon Heads. Probably at least, who knows, maybe the Sixers have him rated higher that I think. I always felt like the best Kon Knueppel scenarios involved a trade-back, though.

So, what do we make of all this?

I still think the likeliest scenario is that the Spurs pick Dylan Harper at No. 2 and the Sixers stick-and-pick (shoutout to ZBerm) at No. 3. The Spurs have been a pretty conservative organization over the years, one that does not make a ton of trades. My guess is they will go with the consensus No. 2 overall pick in Harper. But we will see.

Yes, this exact scenario sounds a whole lot like the Markelle Fultz trade. A good organization (more on that in a second) moves back in the Top-3 with the Sixers in a deal that goes strongly against consensus? Throw in the questions about Harper’s shooting and it is enough for me to think Ace Bailey is gonna become the next Jayson Tatum by default. I get it, we all have Fultz PTSD.

(By the way, I still consider Fultz a much bigger missed opportunity than Ben Simmons. Ben never demonstrated that he could shoot. And while he was a lower-level all-star because of the rest of his game, Ben’s ceiling was capped. In my best Bill Simmons impression, “It just was.” Fultz, on the other hand, was one of the nastiest college players I have seen. I do understand the, “Why was his team so bad then?” criticisms, but he legitimately forgot how to shoot a basketball in 2017. He was great at it, and then terrible at it. Fultz would have become Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, I am convinced. And if he was SGA, maybe Ben’s career goes different.)

I have all the respect in the world for Gregg Popovich, but the Spurs have not been THE SPURS as an organization since Kawhi Leonard left. A lot of middling, directionless teams. Some hits (Dejounte Murray trade) and some misses (Kawhi trade, Derrick White trade), but not a super encouraging eight years in San Antonio. I will hand it to them, they do get incredibly lucky in the right lotteries. But I do not give your front office credit for that.

Why would the Spurs think about doing this? They already have two guards in De’Aaron Fox and Stephon Castle. I think Castle is one of the more overrated players in the league, he just won an MCW-esque Rookie of the Year while shooting 43 percent from the field and 29 percent from deep. I like some of the other stuff he does, but I am not passing on Dylan Harper because of his presence. Maybe the Spurs think otherwise.

Like Derek, I hope the Spurs think otherwise. And hopefully, they think otherwise and are motivated to pick someone like VJ Edgecombe or Ace Bailey at No. 3. I thought the discussion on the pod about what the Sixers would give up in such a move was fascinating. The guys said that they would not trade Jared McCain but would trade the Sixers’ top draft asset: The unprotected 2028 pick from the Los Angeles Clippers acquired in the James Harden deal. I would do that in a heartbeat. Call it in to the league office.

There are questions about Harper’s shot (33 percent at Rutgers), but I would rather make that bet than the ones you are making with the rest of these prospects. Harper is an incredible pick-and-roll player who gets to the rim a ton and has the size to guard 2s and some 3s. That makes him an excellent fit with both Maxey and McCain. Maxey, in particular, becomes more dangerous the more you move him off the ball.

Anyway, I do not see the Spurs trading out of No. 2. If it happens, great. But if not, thank you Mike Scotto for the content.

Here is what we are looking at this weekend.

Nationally, we have U.S. Open golf plus some NBA Finals and Stanley Cup Finals action. Locally, the first-place Union have a home match against Charlotte on Saturday night. And we also have the Phillies taking on the Toronto Blue Jays in a rare interleague return series. Your pitching matchups are as follows…

See y’all at the golf outing on Saturday!

Your tentative Friday schedule at ​PHLY​:

Have a great weekend. Let's make it a good one today.

Rich Hofmann

Daily Newsletter Editor

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