Bryan Toporek

@btoporek.bsky.social

14656 Followers 601 Following

Senior multiplatform editor at Bleacher Report, contributor at On SI, Forbes Sports, FanSided and Silver Screen & Roll, and a Process truster until the bitter end.

A picture of skinny Joel Embiid and yoked VJ Edgecombe on LeBron's Instagram story with a caption "Trust the Process"
Jayson "Big Deuce" Tatum
Howie Roseman smoking a cigar with a giant gash on his head after someone accidentally hit him with a beer can during the Eagles' Super Bowl parade. Go Birds.
From Sam Hinkie's resignation letter: "There has been much criticism of our approach. There will be more. A competitive league like the NBA necessitates a zig while our competitors comfortably zag. We often chose not to defend ourselves against much of the criticism, largely in an effort to stay true to the ideal of having the longest view in the room. To attempt to convince others that our actions are just will serve to paint us in a different light among some of our competitors as progressives worth emulating, versus adversaries worthy of their disdain. Call me old-fashioned, but sometimes the optimal place for your light is hiding directly under a bushel."
In Philly, they like to say "Trust the Process," a nickname Embiid has fully embraced, too. But when they met with George on Sunday night -- just a few weeks after Embiid gave George a side-eyed smile on "NBA Countdown" before Game 4 of the NBA Finals in Dallas -- the Sixers said something else. They told him they believed in him and what he could do for their team. Dr. J told George how much he enjoyed playing in Philly, and how important it was for him when the team traded for Moses Malone, a move that led to a championship in 1983. The franchise has been waiting for another one ever since. Then, they all thanked Paul George, again, for waiting.
A scene from Happy Gilmore with the caption "Happy learned how to putt, uh oh"
Deion "Coach Prime" Sanders
A Darren Rovell tweet from 2016: "I feel bad for our country. But this is tremendous content."
An electoral map that is all blue
Adam Silver in 2018: “You still have two teams that are significantly above, not just the cap, but the tax,” Silver said. “Now [the hard cap is] something that we’ll continue to look at. There are pros and cons to doing it. Historically, one of the issues in our league was we didn’t necessarily want to break up teams. There is a different sense in the NBA than the NFL, and the chemistry and dynamic that comes together with a group of players.” Any changes in the cap system would need to be collectively bargained, of course, with the National Basketball Players Association. “You could do more to achieve parity, but you also don’t want parity of mediocrity either,” Silver said. The NBA wants its Larry O’Brien Trophy to still celebrate excellence, not participation. And excellence isn’t only a function of finance. “Not to take anything away from strong coaching and general managing and ownership,” Silver said, “but you have certain players in our league that are so transcendent that their team is always probably going to be in the hunt.” Take this for data, from the commissioner via a story on TheRinger.com. “I looked this up: LeBron, now over the course of the last eight Finals, has played with 59 different players,” Silver said. “It means that presumably the team LeBron is on is going to be a dominant team.” So to get back to the original question: Is it a good thing for the NBA to have the same two teams in the Finals four years in a row? “The greater the competition you can create, the greater their interests will be,” Silver said at one point. “At the same time, I don’t think it’s inconsistent to celebrate greatness and to say, my God, look what these two teams are doing.”
A CNN story from 2015: "HitchBOT, the hitchhiking robot, gets beheaded in Philadelphia"
Sam Altman with a speech bubble below him
Donald Trump sharing a dumbass AI slop video of him flying a plane and dropping diarrhea everywhere
A French flag crying
Nik “Sauce Castillo” Stauskas
A clip from the movie Old School with the caption “I’m here for the gangbang”
Gas that costs 3.47 a gallon
From a Politico article: The White House has said only that the venture is a private company willing to take a hit on its profit margins to help American drivers struggling with high prices following the war in Iran. Trump himself said on social media it is backed by a “VERY smart Retailer” that is “doing this because they love the U.S.A.”
Gilbert Arenas talking about why he took only $111M instead of $127M "What can I do for my family with $127 million that I can't do with $111 million?" he told The Washington Post. The unpredictable three-time All-Star point guard, in vintage Agent Zero fashion, told the Post and the Washington Times on Thursday that he has agreed to re-sign for $111 million over six years, considerably less than the maximum deal he said the Wizards offered him when the free agency period began on Tuesday. Arenas negotiated the deal from China, where is traveling as part of promotional tour for a shoe company, and did so without an agent. "I'm basically giving back $16 million," Arenas told the Washington Times. "This is in line with what I've been saying the whole time. You see players take max deals and they financially bind their teams. I don't wanna be one of those players and three years down the road your team is strapped and can't do anything about it."
A suave looking man saying "Donovan Mitchell on a 35% max deal" and a woman saying "Aww, you're sweet" An overweight man with glasses saying "Jaylen Brown on a 35% max deal" with a woman saying "HELLO, HUMAN RESOURCES?!"
A Barack Obama campaign poster with the slogan "Yes we can"
Josh Harris attempting the most awkward handshake in human history
Some of the contracts handed out during NBA free agency in 2016, nearly all of which were war crimes
The NBA announcing the salary cap for the 2026-27 season
The 2016 NBA offseason, which was a complete shitshow of awful contracts
A sticker of Donald Trump pointing to $5 gas with the caption “I did that!”
A WWE event called "Night of Champions" that's airing at 1 p.m. ET because it's taking place in Saudi Arabia
Brian Windhorst pointing both index fingers to the sky and asking "Now why is that?"
Elon Musk trying to light your money on fire
A tweet from Terry Rozier: "Osama shouldve hooped instead of tryna kill ppl cause he tall as hell"
ABOUT THE PHILADELPHIA 76ERS: The Philadelphia 76ers are one of the most storied franchises in the National Basketball Association, having won three World Championships, earning nine trips to The Finals and making 53 playoff appearances over 74 seasons. The Philadelphia 76ers organization is a Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment property.
Someone looking happy with the caption "Acquiring Trae Young for peanuts" and someone looking sad with teh caption "Giving Trae Young way too much money four months later"
Turkey annihilating Paraguay everywhere but the scoreboard
From the NYT: A major flu outbreak has sickened nearly 160 troops at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas less than two months after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that U.S. troops would no longer be required to be vaccinated for the flu, defense officials said.
A tweet from @screaminbutcalm: Me sowing: Haha fuck yeah!!! Yes!! Me reaping: Well this fucking sucks. What the fuck.
A bunch of smaller but still mostly terrible contracts
A list of some of the worst contracts in NBA history, all handed out in 2016
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has described AI as the next leap forward in the evolution of his platforms. “Social media has gone through two eras so far. First was when all content was from friends, family, and accounts that you followed directly. The second was when we added all the creator content,” he said on an October earnings call. “Now, as AI makes it easier to create and remix content, we’re going to add yet another huge corpus of content on top of those.”
Ka$h Patel chugging a beer with the boys (Team USA’s men’s hockey team)
Josh Harris in 2017
Cavs coach Kenny Atkinson crossing his arms
Philadelphia 76ers president of basketball operations Daryl Morey doesn't seem too worried about any of the moves his Eastern Conference competitors made ahead of Thursday's NBA trade deadline, including the Cleveland Cavaliers acquiring James Harden. "Folks have speculated on the improvements of our East competitors, I don't see it personally," told reporters when revealing he still likes his team's chances. "... There weren't any needle movers in my opinion."
a tweet from @mattomic: "every time I see an Angels highlight it's like 'Mike Trout hit three homes runs and raised his average to .528 while Shohei Ohtani did something that hasn't been done since Tungsten Arm O'Doyle of the 1921 Akron Groomsmen, as the Tigers defeated the Angels 8-3"
From Henry Abbott of TrueHoop: "In the first Trump administration, a plan emerged to build 30 nuclear facilities, based on American technology, in the UAE and Saudi Arabia. However, there are strict laws against selling nuclear technology to overseas firms, so the deal was set up to run through the private equity firms Blackstone and Apollo. The 76ers have two equal lead investors. David Blitzer of Blackstone and Josh Harris of Apollo. At Apollo, the point person for that nuclear program was reportedly Josh Harris himself. Around that time, Harris began making regular visits to the White House. In the second Trump administration, the U.S. began a war against Iran."
From Sam Vecenie's mock draft: "This draft is considered a strong one at the top and throughout the lottery, although withdrawals of college players lured by NIL riches have substantially hindered the depth of the class. Most executives I speak with have first-round grades on about 20 to 25 players and think the final 20 picks of the draft could result in some interesting selections. They say teams could be making deals with players ahead of time to lock them in on two-way contracts, as they don’t see much difference in talent level between players ranked from, say, No. 45 to No. 100."
Spencer Pratt's Wikipedia page, which begins: "Spencer William Pratt (Born August 14, 1983) is an American reality television personality and unsuccessful candidate in the 2026 Los Angeles mayoral election"
a man about to push a small domino into a stack of larger dominoes bottom domino: "The Sixers trade Landry Shamet + the 1st-round pick they got for Mikal Bridges to the Clippers for Tobias Harris" top domino: "The Knicks win the championship in 2026"
July 11, 2012: Traded by the Los Angeles Lakers (as a future 2018 1st round draft pick) with a 2013 1st round draft pick (Nemanja Nedović was later selected), a 2013 2nd round draft pick (Alex Oriakhi was later selected) and a 2014 2nd round draft pick (Johnny O'Bryant was later selected) to the Phoenix Suns for Steve Nash. February 19, 2015: As part of a 3-team trade, traded by the Phoenix Suns (as a future 2018 1st round draft pick) to the Philadelphia 76ers; the Milwaukee Bucks traded Brandon Knight and Kendall Marshall to the Phoenix Suns; the Philadelphia 76ers traded Michael Carter-Williams to the Milwaukee Bucks; and the Phoenix Suns traded Tyler Ennis and Miles Plumlee to the Milwaukee Bucks. June 21, 2018: Drafted by the Philadelphia 76ers in the 1st round (10th pick) of the 2018 NBA Draft. June 21, 2018: Traded by the Philadelphia 76ers to the Phoenix Suns for Zhaire Smith and a 2021 1st round draft pick (Tre Mann was later selected). 2021 1st-rd pick is MIA own
A man tipping over a domino that reads "The Sixers trade Mikal Bridges for Zhaire Smith and the 1st-round pick they later traded for Tobias Harris in 2018" heading into a stack of larger dominos, the last of which reads "The Knicks win the championship in 2026"
Jose Alvarado ranking high every year in defensive EPM
A 17-0 team with Lamar Jackson, Bijan Robinson, Puka Nacua, Trey McBride, Jaguars D/ST, Dan Quinn as HC
A team with SGA, Kobe, LeBron, Tatum and Boogie Cousins
From Pro Football Talk on AJ Brown's tenure with the Eagles: It’s a glass-half-full assessment of the situation. Ultimately, the Eagles got only four seasons from Brown in exchange for the first-round pick they sacrificed in 2022. And he helped them win a Super Bowl. Still, if they’d used that selection, they could have gotten a player who could be entering his prime in 2026. Instead, after four years with Brown, they’ll get a first-round pick six years after the first-round pick they gave up to get Brown in the first place.
A man staring blankly with the headline: “Heartbreaking: The Worst Person You Know Just Made A Great Point”
The NBA's new lottery system, which is an over-complicated disaster waiting to happen
Joel Embiid talking a ton of shit to Hassan Whiteside about his performance in a PRESEASON GAME
Headline from May 27: “President Donald Trump plans to attend NBA Finals game at MSG”
A bunch of articles asking whether Jalen Williams is playing tonight that don't answer the question of whether Jalen Williams is playing tonight