The Philadelphia 76ers had a relatively successful offseason after they were able to upgrade their roster depth surrounding their star duo of Joel Embiid and James Harden. They brought in toughness and players who can produce on both ends of the floor which obviously helps.
The Sixers made a draft night trade for De’Anthony Melton and then they also went out in free agency and brought in PJ Tucker and Danuel House Jr. on deals in order to upgrade the roster.
However, the Sixers are currently under investigation for tampering by the NBA after Harden took a big pay cut in order to get Tucker and House Jr. The league thinks that there is some tampering involved, but coach Doc Rivers joined “The VC Show with Vince Carter” to discuss the charges as well as the new additions to his roster.
Rivers on handling the tampering charges
“You just do. You handle it because it’s not true. I mean, honestly, when James did this and said this, first of all, we didn’t know what we were going to do and the money we were getting, and listen James won too because James could’ve opted into a 1- year deal instead. We gave him three years and parties won in a lot of ways and yes. Listen, it worked out for us. It worked out for James. This is not something. I guarantee you Daryl (Morey) had no idea what James is gonna do. I remember talking to him on the eve of when James could opt in or out, and he’s like, we got five hours left. I mean, that was Daryl Morey. He had no idea. Honestly, I really believed that James was not going to opt-in. That he was going to try to do a longer-term deal, but I didn’t know. I can tell you that. That’s for sure.”
Rivers on the new additions
“You have 29 competitors against you. So there’s no doubt that some team, especially probably the team that we took players from, they’re like… That’s the way it works and I get that I’ve been on it. When I was with the Clippers, we ended up getting Kawhi (Leonard), right? Yeah, the whole league was all over us about it. So it’s just the way it works, but this is a Competition Bureau and you know, not only getting PJ Tucker. I think one of the moves that people aren’t looking at is De’Anthony Melton. I love the kid. I think he fits our DNA and I was honest with our team and our organization after the season, right? We weren’t good enough to beat Miami. They were tougher. They were more bought in and we needed to add some toughness to our team and getting PJ obviously handles a lot of that, but De’Anthony Melton has the same DNA as that as well. So we needed that on this team, and he can make shots. He can shoot the ball, and playing with Joel and James, the fact that you can make 3s and make plays is going to be huge for us.”
The video clip
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Story originally appeared on Sixers Wire