The Philadelphia 76ers have long been connected to a pursuit of Paul George this offseason.

"The player at the top of theeir list is Paul George," said Brian Windhorst on Get Up on Friday morning. "His contract extension discussions with the Clippers have not led to an agreement. The Clippers are fighting for their playoff lives tonight in Dallas. They have not wanted to offer the max contract. They got Kawhi to accept an extension at less than a max, that has been the standard.

"I think Philly is going to come out with a max offer to Paul George. The Clippers are going to have to decide max or not. Paul George is going to have to decide 'Do I want to stay here or not?'

"But you don't just to have use cap space on free agents. You can use it in trade. This is where I think Daryl Morey is going to go to work. There's going to be a number of names who are going to come up, but I'm going to give you two off the bat here. Both involve who can get extensions with their teams, but for various reasons will not.

"The first name to watch is Jimmy Butler from the Miami Heat. He has two years left on his contract. There is interest in him extending... If Jimmy Butler wants to extend and the Heat are not willing to do it facing heavy luxury tax penalties, is there a way to revisit that?

"Also, another player to watch is Brandon Ingram. He had a very poor playoff session for the Pelicans. He is due a contact extension. The Pelicans have never paid the tax in the history of their franchise. They are set to sign Trey Murphy as a big dollar player alongside Zion Williamson. This is a player who might be on the market and again, I don't think even their No. 1 choice behind Paul George, but this type of player is who Philly can potentially look at to add firepower and offense to this team.

After the Philadelphia 76ers were eliminated by the New York Knicks in Game 6 of the first round of the NBA playoffs, Joel Embiid conducted his postgame interview with Tyrese Maxey by his side. Embiid typically addresses the media at the podium by himself.

Embiid spoke optimistically about the partnership he has formed with Maxey and the Sixers' ability to improve the roster this offseason via cap space and future draft capital.

"It kind of looks exciting," Embiid said. "I don't know what they're going to do. But they do have a lot of cap space and picks, so they have the opportunity to do something good. [But] that's a great position to be in.

"You got a young superstar, face of the franchise for his whole career, really, in Philly. That's exciting ... [we're] trying to build something great here."

Maxey will also be a free agent and he is expected to sign a max contract.

Tobias Harris is expected to leave the Philadelphia 76ers in free agency, sources tell Tim Bontemps of ESPN.

Harris is coming off a five-year, $180 million contract signed with the Sixers during the 2019 offseason when they also elected to let Jimmy Butler leave via a sign-and-trade. 

Harris averaged 10.8 points per game in the Sixers' first round series loss to the New York Knicks and was scoreless in Game 6.

Harris has been a source of frustration among Sixers' fans.

Joel Embiid was mostly upset at how his team played down the stretch of the Philadelphia 76ers Game 4 loss to the New York Knicks. That lost left the Sixers on the verge of elimination, as the Knicks lead the series 3-1.

However, Embiid was also upset at the number of New York fans in the building for Games 3 and 4 of the series in Philadelphia. At various points through both games, it sounded as if the crowd was at least 50-50. Embiid called that "disappointing".

"I love our fans. Think it's unfortunate and I'm not calling them out, but it is disappointing. Obviously, you got a lot of Knicks fans and they're down the road and I've never seen it," Embiid said. "And I've been here for 10 years. Yeah, it kind of pisses me off, especially because Philly is considered a sports town. They've always shown up and I don't think that should happen. Yeah. It's not okay."

Game 5 shifts back to New York on Tuesday, with the Knicks having a chance to close out the series in front of their home fans.

Host Danny Leroux talks with Jared Dubin of Last Night in Basketball about the playoffs and Anthony Slater of The Athletic about the Warriors.

Dubin and Leroux discuss the Knicks going up 3-1 on the 76ers, a bizarre Clippers/Mavericks series, which teams have been most impressive so far and much more. After that, RealGM Radio debuts the “Exit Interview” as Slater joins to break down what happened to the Warriors this season and where they go from here, including young player development, ownership’s willingness to pay the tax, Klay Thompson’s future and much more.

Subscribe to RealGM Radio on Apple Podcasts or via the RSS feed. 

Joel Embiid has been treated for a mild case of Bell's palsy over the past week. Bell's palsy is an unexplained episode of facial muscle weakness or paralysis. 

The condition began during the Philadelphia 76ers' Play-In win last week against the Miami Heat. Embiid has been spotted wearing sunglasses inside, which is related to the condition. Embiid had wanted to keep the situation private to avoid distractions for the Sixers.

Embiid had 50 points in Philadelphia's Game 3 win over the New York Knicks.

Tyrese Maxey has been named the NBA's Most Improved Player for the 23-24 season.

Maxey’s scoring rose for the third consecutive year, and he finished the regular season averaging 25.9 points, 6.2 assists, 3.7 rebounds and 1.0 steals per game.

“It feels great,” Maxey said on the TNT broadcast where the award was announced. “Somebody like myself, who prides myself on putting in a lot of work and outworking people and finding ways to get 1% better every single time I step in the gym, it feels good for that to come to light, honestly.”

Maxey received just over half of the first-place votes.

Coby White finished second while Alperen Sengun was voted third.

The rest of the voting: Oklahoma City’s Jalen Williams was fourth, Jalen Brunson was fifth, Washington’s Deni Avdija sixth, Brooklyn’s Cam Thomas seventh, Orlando’s Jalen Suggs eighth, Indiana’s Tyrese Haliburton ninth, Phoenix’s Grayson Allen and Miami’s Duncan Robinson tied for 10th, San Antonio’s Devin Vassell and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander tied for 12th, and Indiana’s Aaron Nesmith was 14th.

The Philadelphia 76ers trail the New York Knicks 0-2 in their first round series after losing two close games at Madison Square Garden, but Joel Embiid remains optimistic his team can win four out of the next five games.

"We're good," Embiid said. "We're going to win this series.

"We are going to win this. We know what we got to fix. We did a better job today, so we are going to fix it.

"We are the better team. We are going to keep fighting."

Embiid had 34 points, 10 rebounds and six assists in the game.

The Philadelphia 76ers plan to file a grievance with the NBA over the officiating across the first two games of their first round series against the New York Knicks, according to ESPN's Tim Bontemps.

The Sixers trail New York 0-2 after the first two games.

New York was trailing Philadelphia by five points with less than 30 seconds remaining in the game when Jalen Brunson bounced in a three-pointer. Josh Hart then stole the ball from Tyrese Maxey with ball eventually finding its way to Donte DiVincenzo who missed a three-pointer, but Isaiah Hartenstein collected the offensive rebound, passed it to OG Anuonby who then found DiVincenzo for a three-pointer to go up by one.

Nick Nurse claimed he was trying to call timeout before Maxey had the ball stolen to begin the sequence.

Joel Embiid described the officiating at the end of the game as "[expletive] unacceptable."

Tyrese Maxey missed Monday's shootaround with the Philadelphia 76ers ahead of Game 2 due to an illness and is listed as questionable.

Maxey had 33 points in 44 minutes in Philadelphia's Game 1 loss.

Maxey was the only player missing from shootaround.

Joel Embiid is also questionable due to left knee injury recovery.