Small thoughts about big things: Tender elbows, quarterback contracts, and the Sixers

Clearing out the notebook after an eventful week, with a few thoughts on Andrew Painter, Jalen Hurts and James Harden.

Phillies pitcher Andrew Painter throws the baseball during a spring training game.Read moreYong Kim / Staff Photographer

Published March 6, 2023, 5:00 a.m. ET

Clearing out the notepad after an eventful week . . .

You’ve heard of speaking something into existence. Well, there’s a sports-writing equivalent, and you may have read it last Friday when some ding-dong decided to spend 1,000 words laying out the case for putting a 19-year-old kid on the Phillies Opening Day roster.

Sure enough, the next time Andrew Painter’s name appeared in a headline, it was in relation to the two most ominous words in big league pitching.

Elbow.

Tests.

We’re still waiting on the official diagnosis on Painter’s prized right arm. That usually isn’t a good thing. But, then, teenagers usually aren’t pushing 100 miles per hour on the radar gun while contending for a spot on a big league roster. It behooves everybody to err on the side of extreme caution. The Phillies, Painter, Scott Boras — a lot of people have a lot at stake when a pitcher is this talented and this young.

At the same time, I’ll reiterate something I wrote last week. You can’t predict this stuff. And there is very little to suggest that you can prevent it. The human arm did not evolve in an era where throwing objects 99 mph in an overhead motion was commonplace. The one thing that all modern pitching phenoms have in common is that they all push the limits of what the body can structurally handle. Less than 50 years after Tommy John surgery was invented, it is now more or less a rite of passage. There’s a reason for that.

If Painter does indeed miss an extended period of time, it won’t be an indictment of the Phillies’ decision to put him on the fast track to the majors. Dave Dombrowski is doing the right thing with his assertive handling of young players. Development has an important place in the game of baseball. At some point, though, the only thing left to do is find out. Whenever he gets back on a mound, Painter will still be at that point.

In other news . . .

There’s an argument to be made that Jalen Hurts will enter contract negotiations with the Eagles with more leverage than any rookie-scale quarterback in the last decade or two. While it’s possible that an extension turns out to be the formality that many assume, it won’t be at the Eagles’ discretion. They are not the ones in the driver’s seat.

There are several important points here. The first is the timeline that Hurts is working with. The vast majority of quarterbacks who sign top-of-the-market extensions are early-first-round draft picks who entered the NFL as presumptive franchise quarterbacks. That impacts negotiations in two ways. One, the quarterback has already earned a considerable amount of salary before his extension. Two, the quarterback is two years away from free agency when he is eligible to sign an extension.

Compare Hurts to someone like Justin Herbert, who is also extension-eligible this offseason. Herbert will enter negotiations with $26.7 million in career earnings, compared with $4.6 million for Hurts. It would be a special man who isn’t aware of that $22 million shortfall, particularly given what Hurts accomplished last season. More important is the fact that first-round picks have a fifth-year option on their rookie deals, meaning Herbert can’t become a free agent until after 2024, while Hurts is eligible after this upcoming season. So even if Herbert was just as motivated to milk every possible cent out of his next deal, playing hardball would require him to forego mega-riches for two full years.

Fact is, two of the last four quarterbacks drafted outside the first round who became full-time starters on their rookie contracts ended up reaching free agency without an extension. One is Kirk Cousins, the other Dak Prescott.

Lamar Jackson is Hurts’ closest comp as a player, but it’s their differences that could really complicate negotiations. Through 34 career starts, Hurts has substantively fewer rushing yards (1,898 to 2,555) and passing touchdowns (44 to 59) and a lower passer rating (92.2 to 101.2) than Jackson did at the same juncture. He also has one fewer MVP. That said, Jackson has never been to a Super Bowl. Hurts has, and he darn near was the game’s MVP.

I’m not saying that a deal won’t get done this summer. I just think the circumstances make it difficult to imagine what that deal will end up looking like.

And, finally . . .

If the Sixers play a postseason series against the Bucks, they might not be able to find five guys who can walk by the end of it. But give them credit for what they managed to pull off in one of those randomly great Saturday night games the NBA periodically decides to bestow on us. They are a bedeviling team, but they are an entertaining one.

The difference between the good and the bad is as simple as James Harden having a vintage night from behind the three-point line. The Harden who hit five of his nine shots from deep was the guy we saw every night in Houston and the one the Sixers will need to see every night in the playoffs in order to contend. This was Harden at his best, in all facets of the game. The chemistry between him and Joel Embiid in the two-man can continue to grow. Tyrese Maxey can be even more than he was.

Can they do it for seven games? We’ll see.