The Philadelphia 76ers didn’t begin the 2018-19 NBA season like the same team that became the darling of the league with a magical Youth Julio Jones Jersey , improbable 52-win season. While many teams in the Eastern Conference improved over the summer, the 76ers seem like one that regressed. They picked up Wilson Chandler in a trade, but he’s been out with a hamstring injury. Chandler is solid, but since he didn’t move the needle, this threatened to spell bad news for Philly. It wasn’t clear if there was an answer that can elevate them to the heights they want to achieve this season. That is, until they traded for Jimmy Butler in a deal with the Minnesota Timberwolves for a package centered around Robert Covington and Dario Saric.That’ll move the needle.Everything you need to know about the Jimmy Butler dramaJimmy Butler wants out of Minnesota. This is how we got here.Winners and Losers from the 76ers-Wolves blockbusterJimmy Butler’s ‘vociferous’ return to Timberwolves practice, explainedThe 7 most savage moments from Jimmy Butler’s interview with Rachel NicholsThe Timberwolves let the Jimmy Butler mess happenJimmy Butler was ruining the Timberwolves’ season, and maybe their futureInside the state of the 76ers before the Jimmy Butler tradeThis was always an option, even if you didn’t hear much noise about itIf there’s one thing Butler wants, it’s to win, and that’s a vision that aligns with the 76ers’. He didn’t mesh well with Karl-Anthony Towns and Andrew Wiggins, but a change of scenery to a bigger market could be what Butler needs.If it doesn’t work out, Butler only has one year on his deal anyway, so Philly will free up $20 million in cap space to sign additional free agents. Prior to the trade, Philly had enough money to go after at least one maximum contract. Adding Butler via trade and retaining the rights to re-sign him still gives Philly up to $21 million to sign another player — and even more if they trade Markelle Fultz.Minnesota’s Tom Thibodeau had been stingy in trade negotiations and was shaking teams down for every penny they’ve got. Ultimately, though http://www.authenticsatlantafalcons.com/cheap-ryan-schraeder-jersey , Philly had what Thibs wants in a Butler trade: Young, promising players (Saric), a current impact player (Covington) and a draft pick (well, kinda, in the 2022 second-round pick). That said, Philly still has one big question to answer: What about Markelle?The 76ers hoped some of the help they needed before the season would come in the form of a healthy Markelle Fultz. Ben Simmons looks like the second coming of LeBron James, and Joel Embiid could be the modern-day Hakeem Olajuwon. What Philly needed more than anything was a dynamic perimeter playmaker: a consistent threat from behind the arc who can take the ball out of Simmons’ hands and the pressure off Embiid’s back. That player is Butler, now, but it wasn’t supposed to be. Fultz was that threat at Washington; it’s why Philly traded the No. 3 pick in 2017 and the Kings’ pick in 2019 to move up and get him. But Fultz had to re-learn how to shoot a basketball after injuring his shoulder. Now, he plays timid behind the three-point line, turning down open shots outside of 15 feet. The NBA is driven by perimeter scoring, and the 76ers didn’t have enough of it. That all doesn’t fall on Fultz’s shoulder, but the team drafted him in hopes of being the third star. He looks far from it early on, so they traded for Butler to be that player instead. There’s still time for Fultz to get that glow back, but the clock is ticking quickly.It ticked faster because the rest of the East improvedSave for Cleveland and Washington, the East’s best teams found a way to get better http://www.authenticsatlantafalcons.com/cheap-ricardo-allen-jersey , and even the teams at the bottom are punching up for playoff spots.The Celtics were a game away from the NBA Finals. They’ve welcomed Kyrie Irving, Gordon Hayward, and Daniel Theis all back from season-ending surgeries, while hitting the lotto when Robert Williams slid down the draft board. They’ve also starting slowly, but did drill Philly on opening night. The Raptors had the best season in their history, then traded DeMar DeRozan and Jakob Poeltl for Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green. Leonard is fully healthy and Green is what he’s always been: a reliable 3-and-D role player. Toronto looks terrific.The Bucks put a legitimate scoring big man in Brook Lopez next to Giannis Antetokounmpo. Lopez hit five threes in a row against the 76ers, so he’s already proven to be a difference maker.The Pacers pushed the Cavaliers to seven games in the first round, then added Tyreke Evans, Doug McDermott, and Kyle O’Quinn this summer to improve their depth.Even the Pistons look good with reigning Coach of the Year Dwane Casey at the helm and a rejuvenated Blake Griffin in the fold for a full summer. Griffin, Andre Drummond, and Reggie Jackson look poised to end Detroit’s playoff drought.The 76ers were still one of the four best teams in the East prior to the trade for Butler, but they weren’t playing for another second-round exit. Philadelphia wants to compete for something bigger, but if they’re going to make a deeper run into the postseason while other teams in their conference have improved, the Sixers eventually had to shake things up.Now, they have Youth Takkarist McKinley Jersey , in a big way.Editor’s Note: This piece was originally published on Oct. 26 and updated on Nov. 10.Final few plays showcase Falcons’ offensive red zone ineptitude In Week 1’s defeat to the Philadelphia Eagles, the Atlanta Falcons, found themselves in the exact same scenario as the one they were in to close out the Divisional Round of the playoffs back in January — the offense had the ball and needed to drive downfield and score a touchdown to win the game.In both scenarios they got the first part of that equation right — through the might of Julio Jones, the offense did indeed drive downfield to put themselves in position to win the game. In a case of d茅j脿 vu, however, they stalled out inside Philadelphia’s 10-yard line and lost the game.Matt Ryan completed a 3rd-and-8 pass to Mohamed Sanu for 10 yards to the Philadelphia 10-yard-line, and the team took its final timeout with 24 seconds remaining, putting themselves in position to attempt four more passes into the end zone. That was the last bit of success the offense would have in the game. But when you look at the deeper intricacies of the next few plays, it’s infuriating.Following an incompletion to the right, where nothing was available for Ryan, offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian dialed up a verticals play three straight times on 2nd, 3rd, and 4th-and-goal. I’ll let Twitter user Justis Mosqueda tell you about it:Yes, that really happened. For three straight plays to end the game, the Falcons lined up in an empty set shotgun formation and sent all five pass catchers on a go route. I would say they did this as if it were a game of Madden, but not even Madden players would call that same play over and over again. Against the Eagles’ zone http://www.authenticsatlantafalcons.com/cheap-jake-matthews-jersey , nobody was open once on those three plays.If you think it can’t get worse than that, you’d be wrong, because it’s about to get so much worse. Let me allow Hall of Fame quarterback Kurt Warner to tell you about it:Yes, you read that correctly: The Eagles literally ran the exact same defense on every one of those four final plays. Instead of seeing the defense and adjusting accordingly to beat the zone by overloading it after the first failed attempt, Sarkisian dialed up the same play (verts) again. And then, after it didn’t work the second time, he called it yet again. Albert Einstein once said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.The Falcons were bailed out on that final 4th-and-goal play when Eagles’ LB Jordan Hicks was called for an illegal contact penalty which put Atlanta on the 5-yard line and gave them one more chance. Matt Ryan targeted Julio Jones on a fade pattern, and Jones caught the ball out of bounds.Giving credit where it’s due, Sarkisian actually dialed up an excellent play call after those initial three failures. Twitter user Joel Bishop has the goods here:The Falcons utilize the pick play to near perfection, with Calvin Ridley’s brush block opening Tevin Coleman up for what should have been an easy touchdown pass for Ryan to make. Unfortunately, Ryan seemed to have made up his mind to target Julio on the fade before the play even began.Give the Eagles’ defensive line credit for consistently hounding Ryan to the point where he was seemingly hearing footsteps on the final play and rushing the throw instead of looking to see what was happening right in front of him. However, you still expect a quarterback of Ryan’s caliber to make the right play here, or to at the very least give Jones a chance of catching the ball inbounds (which he didn’t have because the pass was poor).Awful play calling followed by a lack of execution on a good play call ended up burying the Falcons on the final drive of the game. The red zone woes from a year ago are as prevalent as ever, and if they aren’t fixed, then this team has no chance of reaching its potential.