👋 Good morning! 🇨🇮🐘 Les Éléphants!!! 🇨🇮🐘

Côte d'Ivoire beat Ecuador one-nil on a late goal at “Philadelphia Stadium” last night.

Corrupt as FIFA is, this tournament is undefeated. The atmosphere looked great, Ecuador fans were all over the city in their yellow jerseys and Ivory Coast’s late goal was a great moment on a weekend full of them.

Those poor Ecuadorians. They rolled squad deep and were incredibly passionate. I hope they had a wonderful time in our city. But you do not, under any circumstances, put your jersey on that statue. That thing will curse you, we have years of evidence!

Speaking of cursed, $150 to park? What are we doing here?

You can reach me at [email protected]

This is a free edition of The Broad Street Bulletin. These ones come out once every two weeks.

But if you would like to subscribe and get the other nine editions every two weeks (like the one tomorrow), you have one of two options:

If you like what you are reading and want this email in your inbox every weekday, you can upgrade here.

⚾ Phillies lose 2 of 3 in Milwaukee: 70-plus games into the season, the three best teams in baseball both by record and run differential reside in the National League: Los Angeles, Atlanta and Milwaukee.

So, you could argue that three of the Phillies’ toughest four series this season (at Los Angeles, at Milwaukee, one of the two visits to Atlanta) are now in the rear-view mirror. Oddly enough, all three of those weekend series followed the same exact script:

3-6 on the road against The Big Boys. Did this weekend’s series feel particularly good? No. But is salvaging one game a disaster? Also no.

The Phillies went 3-3 in Toronto and Milwaukee this week. I would have signed up for that at the beginning of the road trip. Since Don Mattingly took over, the Phils have managed the schedule just fine. Beat up on the bad teams, don’t get beat up too bad by the good teams. The Phils have four sweeps in The Donnie Baseball Era, and have left the times they got swept in The Rob Thomson Era. While they have not fundamentally changed how we all feel about the team, they have managed to make a move up the standings with this formula.

This weekend sure was feast or famine for the ol’ offense:

On a related note, Milwaukee threw their two best pitchers on Fridee and Sundee.

In Friday’s newsletter, I made a plea to the offense to #DoItForSanchy. It is still early in the season, but Milwaukee’s Jacob Misiorowski is Cristopher Sánchez’s top competition for the National League Cy Young Award, and, more pressingly, the start in the All-Star Game.

Spoiler alert: They did not, in fact, do it for Sanchy.

Jacob Misiorowski is unlike anything I have ever seen on the mound. This pitch below, a 104.5 mph fastball to Kyle Schwarber that was incorrectly called a swinging strike but probably nipped the low-and-away corner anyway, was the fastest pitch ever recorded by a starting pitcher in MLB history. Seriously: No starter had ever done this.

When you take both the velocity (fastest ever) and location (perfect spot) into account, is that the best pitch in the history of baseball? There is probably no way to actually objectively measure that, although modern baseball statheads will certainly try. But subjectively, it honestly might be the best pitch in the history of baseball. Completely unhittable.

Things did not go any better for Trea and Bryce in the top of the first inning.

The Miz is nasty every time that he pitches, but as you can see in the tweet above, he had more juice than usual for this one. His four-seam fastball averages 100 mph on the season, which is already insane. But he threw 69 of those suckers on Friday night for an average of 101.7 mph. Remember when Billy Wagner would occasionally hit triple digits and CBP would clap for the novelty of it? This guy pumped 103 in the ninth inning on pitches 91 through 95!

Misiorowski’s final numbers:

If a “Maddux” is a complete game in under 100 pitches, that is a “Super Maddux.” On second thought, just call it a “Misiorowski.” It was Randy Johnson’s power combined with Greg Maddux’s efficiency. On the night, Misiorowski faced the minimum. He only gave up a single to Schwarber, which was promptly wiped out by a Harper double play. To strike out 15 guys and throw a complete game in 95 pitches is as dominant as dominant gets. I am not even mad at the Phillies. That was some amazing pitching.

The Fightins’ lineup bounced back. Saturday featured a really good offensive performance. Some brutal bullpen outings from Jose Alvarado and Brad Keller made the game closer than it should have been — The Trust Tree is pretty darn small right now, you guys — but the Phils just kept on hitting. Nice 1-2-3 inning by Jhoan Duran to close it, too.

Sunday, though? That level of offensive ineptitude was annoying. Kyle Harrison is one of the National League’s better pitchers, but he is not Misiorowski. He only threw six innings. And yet, the Phillies managed just four hits and no runs. It felt like the Phils were basically already on the plane, just like they were on Sunday in LA and Atlanta.

Unfortunately, The Miz pulled ahead of Sánchez in the Cy Young race this weekend. That is fine, lotta season left. But Sanchy gave up a four-spot on Sunday, the big mistake a hanging slider to Blake Perkins for a three-run home run.

Tough start, but I cannot even be a little annoyed at Sanchy.

You know who I can be plenty annoyed at, though? Trea Turner.

That homer that Sanchy gave up to Perkins? It came with two outs. And in the beginning of that fourth inning, William Contreras (a slow runner) beat out a ground ball with a .080 expected batting average because Turner took forever to field it and even longer to get it out of his glove. If Turner makes that play, which he unequivocally should have, maybe Perkins is leading off the next inning with nobody on base. Instead, Sanchy gets tagged with three earned runs.

It has gone under the radar locally how bad this Turner season truly has been. People know it is bad, but this is replacement-level stuff. We are almost at the midway point, and Turner has been one of the worst regulars in the entire sport.

As Destiny Lugardo pointed out, the lowest that Turner’s OPS got during The Standing Ovation Season of 2023 was .642 on June 4th. Well, it’s June 15th and Turner’s OPS is down to .599.

That is…

I do not trust defensive metrics, but Trea weirdly fared well in some of those stats (outs above average, fielding run value, etc.) a season ago. Those metrics say that he has been a well below-average shortstop this season. That certainly matches the eye test.

I know that Turner is capable of ripping off six weeks of insanely good baseball. He is very talented. But compare him to guys like Bohm and Stott. They are less talented than him, but they have an actual approach at the plate that they can fall back on when they are struggling mightily. That is why they have been better over the past five or six weeks. Turner does not seem to have that approach to fall back on. Frustrating.

If the Sixers’ own failures over the past decade were not painful enough, their two biggest rivals now also have won NBA titles in two of the past three seasons.

Insult, meet injury.

Who knows what the future holds? Maybe the Sixers exorcise their demons against the Knicks in the next few years, just like they improbably did against the Celtics in the last few months. But today, the Knicks’ last four seasons serve as a double-whammy of sorts for fans of the local professional basketball team: The Sixers flat-out have not gotten it done at even close to the same level as the Knicks, over a contention window that was twice as long as New York’s.

(My general thoughts on the Knicks’ title? They are a totally deserving champion that played lights-out ball over the last two months, with a bunch of admirable players… and it stinks. I hate how deserving they were! I will have more on them below.)

I do not know what to think of Mike Gansey, but one positive is that he does not have any of that Sixers Baggage. It will be up to The Atlantic 10 Front Office of Gansey and Jameer Nelson to reverse that kinda-close-but-no-cigar trend, a process that will start in earnest next week with the NBA Draft.

And ironically, it will be Gansey who determines if Daryl Morey “sold high” on Jared McCain.

That is why I am dubbing this “The Most Scrutinized 22nd Pick in NBA History.” And while I do not believe the #DoItForDaryl hashtag will gain any steam in the Delaware Valley anytime soon, it is critically important that Gansey hits on this pick. The Sixers have a shallow roster with a top-heavy salary structure, so they need cheap contributors. This is their best chance to get one of those cheap contributors this offseason, for four cost-controlled years.

Unlike Morey, Gansey was not particularly forthcoming in a press conference setting. In fact, the only tangible thing that he might have said was, “I ran the draft in Cleveland.”

OK, then. Here is Cleveland’s draft record when Gansey was general manager:

So, nothing to write home about. The best pick of the bunch is Tyson, the exact type of 3-and-D player that the Sixers could use. Tyson is a 6-foot-6 wing that shot 45 percent from beyond the arc on decent volume this past season. He also plays the style of full-court, aggressive defense that has become more en vogue over the past five years. Some of Tyson’s best moments this season came against the Sixers, harassing Tyrese Maxey for 94 feet. He had the game of his life in Philly back in January, scoring 39 points on 13-17 shooting. Tyson struggled in these past playoffs, but that was still a value pick for The Gan Man at 20.

Before that, when Gansey was the assistant general manager, Cleveland picked in the top-five for three years in a row: Darius Garland, Isaac Okoro, Evan Mobley. Two out of three, although those two were pretty obvious choices at the time.

You know who probably had a better draft record over that period, especially after factoring in where he was picking? Daryl Morey!

I have written that whatever the Sixers were doing under Morey draft-wise, they should not touch a thing. Analytics, scouting, background research, the takeout order to the draft room, etc. Whatever you are doing, continue to do the same thing. And it does sound like most of the staff is sticking around through this transaction window. Prosper Karangwa, the assistant general manager who just re-upped after receiving interest from multiple other teams, seems like an important person in the Sixers’ draft room.

Now, Gansey gets dropped into that mostly successful environment. As Bob Myers pointed out, the Cavs are picking 29th in the upcoming draft. If Gansey was running their drafts, then he likely knows this area of the board pretty well. And while there is a degree of “shotgun wedding” within the current dynamic, we have seen it work before. Morey took the POBO job just a few weeks before the 2020 NBA Draft. He huddled up with Elton Brand for those weeks during the height of COVID, and then delivered a great draft (Tyrese Maxey, Isaiah Joe, Paul Reed) while also executing some important trades (Green-for-Horford, Curry-for-Richardson).

Oh yeah, the draft prospects.

The Sixers seem pretty set at guard for the near future with Tyrese Maxey and VJ Edgecombe. If the board falls a certain way and the Sixers feel like a guard is the best overall prospect on the board, they should take that player. First and foremost, the draft is about talent acquisition. But ideally, The Most Scrutinized 22nd Pick in NBA History would be a wing, forward or even a center.

With that in mind, eight players who could be available at 22, with a quick bio on each of them that is 50 words or less…

🏀 Yaxel Landenborg, 6-foot-9 wing, Michigan: South Jersey kid (Pennsauken) who was a late bloomer. Pretty much an ideal 3-and-D prospect, who won a national title at Michigan. Honestly might start right away for the Sixers. The only reason he could slide to the their range? Yaxel is geriatric for a prospect, at 24 years old.

🏀 Koa Peat, 6-foot-7 wing, Arizona: Highly-rated high school prospect that checks many boxes: Can play the 3 or 4, strong and nimble, good feel as a passer, projects as a versatile defender. The big question for Peat: After a freshman season with almost no jump shooting and poor free-throw numbers, can the shot be rescued?

🏀 Dailyn Swain, 6-foot-7 wing, Texas: Rim pressure is his strength. Got to the rim a ton in college and converted at a high clip once he got there. Projects as a decent defender. Teams can never have enough self-creation, but Swain has a questionable jumper. You have to be able to make 3s off-ball, too.

🏀 Cameron Carr, 6-foot-4 guard, Baylor: Good athlete with an incredibly long wingspan (over 7-feet), and to boot, he is a volume 3-point sniper. Projects more as an off-ball than on-ball player, at least at the beginning of his career. Needs to get stronger, but don’t we all? There is a pretty intriguing skill set here.

🏀 Joshua Jefferson, 6-foot-8 forward, Iowa State: A very skilled point forward type, it seems like playmaking is Jefferson’s best attribute. He might be the best passer in the class. On the downside, he is an older prospect and an average to below-average athlete for the NBA.

🏀 Morez Johnson, 6-foot-9 forward, Michigan: The Sixers have been smaller and less physically imposing than their opponents for years. This guy would help in that regard. He plays the 4 (and might be able to play 5), can switch and can rebound. Is he anything more than an energy big, though? That depends on the shot.

🏀 Allen Graves, 6-foot-8 forward, Santa Clara: The most interesting man in the draft, a substitute on a WCC team that produced at a high level. Got a ton of rebounds, steals and blocks. Made a bunch of 3s. He is a connective passer. The analytics love Graves, but the tape seems to leave reason for skepticism.

🏀 Chris Cenac Jr., 6-foot-10 forward, Houston: Eye-popping athlete who has a bunch of tools, but one who did not process the game all that fast for Kevin Sampson’s Cougars. Cenac might take some time to pop in the NBA, if he pops at all.

There are so many other prospects that we can get to. Guards like Alabama’s Labaron Philon or Texas Tech’s Christian Anderson. Wings like Mexico’s Karim Lopez. Bigs like Washington’s Hannes Steinbach.

That is the beauty of this part of the draft, you do not have to focus on just one player. By this time last year, we were locked in on VJ Edgecombe and clowning Ace Bailey. 20 spots later, beauty can be in the eye of the beholder.

Once more information becomes available, we will focus in on specific prospects.

The news and notes of the day…

Adolis García: As it turns out, Adolis has too strong of an arm for his own good. He tore his right lat and will be placed on the 60-day IL. Nothing official yet, but it sounds like he could miss the rest of the season. Bummer.

In Adolis’ place, the Phils did exactly what we thought on Friday: Newly called-up Gabriel Rincones Jr. against righties, newly acquired Derek Hill against lefties. Hill had a couple of hits this weekend, that was cool. Poor Rincones had to face The Miz in his debut and then sat for two days. Hopefully he gets his first career hit against the Marlins tonight.

Dan Vladar: Kevin Weekes, who is pretty plugged-in, is speculatin’ that Vladar’s Flyers extension is five years and “in the mid-5s” for the AAV. I touched on this in our Flyers Summer Checklist last week, an extension for Vladdy would qualify as #AsExpected.

Love the player, love the person. But this was an outlier season for Vladar, so the Flyers are really betting here that what we saw this past season — the team’s first real No. 1 goaltender in years — is real. If they are right, that deal is a bargain. There is clearly some risk-reward on both sides here.

The deal cannot be official until July 1st. We will talk more about it more once the details are fully reported.

🇮🇹 Luigi on the Main Line: I have to admit, I had a bad experience with a Villanova fan this past week.

I watched Game 3 of the NBA Finals at my local watering hole. And I sat next to a gentleman, rooting on his ‘Nova Knicks.

That part was fine. Not who I was rooting for, but to each their own. But in the middle of this awesome game, this guy was screaming at the television, after every foul, claiming that Adam Silver was conspiring against the New York Knicks. Josh Hart gives a take (intentional) foul, and this guy is screaming BS at the top of his lungs. Tough scene.

Well, that guy is gonna be screaming for Luigi Suigo next year. In addition to the Knicks winning the NBA title, ‘Nova fans got a huge commitment over the weekend. Like literally, huge.

Suigo is a gigantic center at 7-foot-4. He played for Serbian club team Mega Superbet, which longtime Process Heads might remember as Mega Leks. The one with the pink jerseys. Timothé Luwawu-Cabarrot and Vasilije Micić walked so Luigi could run.

Europeans are becoming a more constant presence in NCAA basketball in the NIL era. Michigan center Aday Mara (who is built similarly to Luigi) made a huge impact this season and will likely be a lottery pick. Luigi might have been picked in the first round of the NBA Draft this year as well, had he stayed in. But he went to Villanova to improve his draft stock.

I thought Kevin Willard did a good job this past season. The Wildcats basically beat everyone that they should have and got throttled by anyone with a pulse. The personnel was only capable of so much. But it seems like Willard’s reworked roster will have much more talent next season. We will see.

When it came to recruiting Luigi, I am sure that opening game in Rome (perhaps in front of the school’s most famous alum?) did not hurt the sales pitch.

🤌🤌🤌🤌

Congrats to Villanova fans, except the guy at the bar.

Remember this?

That was not that long ago! Ben Simmons played his whole Sixers career and never lost to the Knicks. Went up to MSG twice a year and beat ‘em, and then beat ‘em twice a year in Philly. This was every year. Ben went 14-0. The Knicks were consistently terrible. James Dolan was one of the worst owners in sports.

Even after Simmons got traded, the Sixers still owned the Knicks. I remember James Harden’s second and third games as a Sixer, both against the Knicks. The Sixers destroyed them both times. The Knicks were an afterthought.

And then, out of nowhere basically, the Knicks became good. Credit to Cherry Hill native Leon Rose, who acquired four members of his starting lineup via trade and the most important member (Jalen Brunson) via unrestricted free agency. An incredibly unique and difficult-to-pull-off team-build. 🫡

I despise the Knicks, but those ‘Nova guys are such killers. Credit where it’s due. Brunson is a borderline top-five player in the world. What an unbelievable story. He was the best player in college basketball and the whole league passed on him in the first round… and I did not think it was that crazy at the time. Well, it was.

The NBA is a league of dynasties no more. Eight different champs in the last eight years:

Maybe Wemby and OKC change that at some point. But as we saw this year, it is really hard to win a title.

And congrats to the Carolina Hurricanes for winning the Stanley Cup. That one, I did want to happen. I am leaving here with something.

If you are keeping score at home, both Philly teams got swept in the second round… and for good reason. They got swept by teams that marched to the championship!

In Carolina’s case, Gary Bettman said it while handing over Lord Stanley’s Cup with his usual charisma: The Canes have won more regular season and playoff games than any NHL franchise over the last eight years. They were due. Eric Tulsky did a great job of putting that team together. Rod The Bod is such a steady presence behind the bench. They worked together beautifully.

The Sixers will not be able to copy the Knicks’ team-building, just like the Flyers will not be able to copy the Hurricanes’ unique style of play. But I do think that basketball is becoming a bit more like hockey, an unpredictable sport that is a complete grind. One that relies on depth and toughness just as much as high-end talent and skill.

So, my lessons to take from the Knicks and Hurricanes are very basic:

Let’s fatten up on the Fish and Mets at home this week. Wheels on the bump tonight (6:40 p.m., NBC Sports Philly).

Let’s make it a good one.