Forcing Blake to guard Embiid and Kyrie to guard Dame... at least makes the potential offensive battle interesting. And you've gotta factor in the possibility that, if they did bring in Dame, Philly suddenly becomes far more attractive to some of the veterans that are available or will become available around the deadline.

Philly's problem against Brooklyn and Milwaukee is that they have absolutely no one to even pretend to guard Durant and Giannis (once they trade Simmons). And, if they got Dame, I think Morey would be savvy enough to look to immediately swap Tobias Harris for someone better to try to deal with that issue-- or at least stack up a potent enough perimeter offense that it could give Milwaukee and Brooklyn a real fight (since no one can guard Durant or Giannis anyway, really).

Dame and Embiid together make them at *least* the three seed. I think that team's better than Miami and Atlanta right away. Whereas, like I said above, I think a deal for CJ bumps them down to 4 seed at best, more realistically 5 seed (unless it's CJ and the right pieces).