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The Philadelphia 76ers should be a complete joke.

They’ve shut down Joel Embiid for the season. They’ve shut down Paul George for the season (just a couple of weeks after he shut down his podcast to heal up and “compete for a championship”). Tyrese Maxey hasn’t been officially shut down, but he’s missed the team’s last eight games; his future attendance will be as reliable as a high school dropout’s. Add the since-traded Caleb Martin, and the 76ers are currently down four of their preseason ideal starting lineup.

Embiid’s inability to return to health spurred the franchise into tank mode. They have a top-six protected pick in this year’s draft, meaning that if they end up with a draft selection seventh or higher, they must FedEx it to Oklahoma City.

Right this second, Philly has the sixth-best draft odds, but they’re a half-game better than Brooklyn (fifth-best odds) and just a half-game worse than Toronto (seventh-best odds). Fifth would likely be good enough to keep their pick, as it would mean one of the teams below them could leap ahead of them, and they’d still be okay. Sixth is iffy. Seventh would mean it’s time to whip out the rosary.

If Philly really wants to commit, they need to adjust to the month we’re playing. Here’s how March in the NBA works.

On February 26th, the Philadelphia 76ers lost to the New York Knicks. Quentin Grimes played 21 minutes and scored three points.

On March 1st, his next game, Grimes played 37 minutes and scored a whopping 44 points as the 76ers beat Golden State. He hasn’t stopped scoring since, as the 76ers are 3-7 in their last 10 (Brooklyn’s gone 2-8, for comparison).

The career 9.8 points per gamer has dropped 25 or more in seven of his last nine games, including a career-high 46 two nights ago against Houston in a game that Philly should have won six times over (but lost — whew!).

March is the NBA’s silly season. There’s a weird concoction of teams desperately trying to win and desperately trying to lose shaken together with a mixer of injuries (both real and imaginary) and pre-playoff rest. That opens the door for unusual playing time patterns, creative coaching, and disparate levels of competition.

I wanted to discuss three guys taking advantage.

Quentin Grimes, Philadelphia 76ers

We’ve already talked about the headliner here. Grimes has been a scorer possessed. He lives for pull-up threes now, hunting them like a starving man. Prior to March, Grimes was averaging 1.2 pull-up triples per game. In the madness month, he’s averaging 5.0. (For comparison, Steph Curry is attempting six per game.).

Don’t let his pull-up three-point percentage (33%) dismay you; he’s lost a lot of percentage points taking no-hope shots at the end of close games. On the other hand, finishing 63% of his twos on significant volume impresses, although not as much as the sheer gall.

Grimes has shown a level of brazen self-creation that even his biggest optimists wouldn’t have expected, both pulling up from deep:

…and in the lane. What is this?

A moment of self-reflection: I use the word ludicrous too often; maybe a foggy brain remnant of my first-ever unedited CD. But those shots are ludicrous.

Grimes is also averaging nearly five assists per game, a surprising increase, even given the number of touches he’s receiving. Grimes has shown a bit of heretofore-unseen whimsy:

Listen, none of this is for-real, for real. March is the month of illusions; it’s not a hot take to suggest Grimes won’t average 29 points in a full month of games again. But these skills have flashed, and they aren’t totally fake. It’s easier now to envision Grimes having a randomly huge Game 4 in a future May, or helping carry the offensive load for a few games when stars are hurt or resting.

Remember that Grimes is in a contract year. You’d better believe he’ll point toward his play this month as a reason the 76ers need to pay up to keep him, and since they won’t have cap room to replace him if he leaves, he’ll have a lot of leverage (particularly if the Brooklyn Nets are interested in his services and drive up the bidding).

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