It will take longer because these arent things that are easily looked up and are often extremely contextual in the moment that happened. It will require me to actually remember the specific scenario, do a stats dive, and show the proof and context. I believe there are plenty of examples, but they arent easily searchable. It's often a star or key player going down, which opens up the game for other players and gets them to play with more confidence. A good example of the top of my head and one that was fairly recent would be the Grizzlies without Morant. Obviously they are better with Morant overall, but last year they played so well without him I belive it gave the team confidence to overachieve and play great into the playoffs and outperform what they would be capable of if Ja never missed time. Also there is the whole thing of taking out a defensive weak link and having the juice to mantain the offense (which I believe will be the case with the Sixers). Maxy will get more touches, Embiid will get more touches, and they will have more opportunity to play some defenders they havent been playing. Obviously the overall CEILING is higher with Harden, which is why they dont just trade him if they play better without him. Sometimes it's easier for a team to gel once the team gets going and you insert another element, rather trying to get all the elements going at once.
Sexton has a career sample size of 3 years.
