The Philadelphia 76ers are 5-15 on the season, sitting just one spot above the Washington Wizards. While injuries have hampered the Sixers from putting a complete roster on the floor for the whole season, the team wasn’t set up for success from the start.
Knowing that Joel Embiid had been dealing with his knee issues since he originally injured it in January, in addition to bringing on the often-injured Paul George, the team should have been constructed differently. It’s led to a disappointing and disheartening season for the team to this point.
Management’s role
While the team was going to always belong to Joel Embiid with Tyrese Maxey as the second star, the team had ample opportunity to be built so that they could succeed with Embiid missing games. Instead, it was built purely around the oft-injured center.
Make no mistake about it. The team knew that Embiid wouldn’t play a whole season, and after last year’s injury, it seems that they made a conscious effort to limit his appearances so that he’d be completely healthy for the playoffs.
The Hield situation
At the trade deadline last season, the Sixers acquired Buddy Hield, a career 40.1% three-point shooter. Hield did average 25 minutes per game with the Sixers, but he contributed just 12.2 points for the team and shot 38.9% on his three-pointers. The issue was more with how Hield was used and not given a chance to succeed as he had in the past.
This year, following a sign-and-trade to the Warriors, he’s shooting 43.8% while averaging 14.9 points per game. While the opportunity for success seems better in the Warriors system, the reason he was brought to Philadelphia in the first place was to shoot. Something that they had him force instead of working with him to have him succeed.
Hield is the big one, as the Sixers are currently one of the worst three-point shooting teams in the league. They could use a guy like Hield, who only brought back a 2031 second-round pick in the signing and was traded to the Warriors this past offseason. With Hield’s success and his lack of return out there for all to see, how did management seek to replace him?
Eric Gordon, Reggie Jackson, and Kyle Lowry are well past their primes. The trio has an average age of 35.7, with Gordon soon to be 36 and Lowry turning 39 before the end of the year. Over their careers, the three have combined to shoot 36.1% on their three-point attempts.
Winning without Embiid
If last season had shown the team anything, it was that they couldn’t win without Joel Embiid. When Embiid was on the floor for the team they were winning at a 79% rate with a 31-8 record in comparison to him being out and their 16-27 record, good for a 37.5 winning percentage. The team had to do something to improve this as they knew they’d be without the former MVP for games, if not stretches, throughout this entire season.
They chose to run out a team with newly acquired Paul George and Caleb Martin, while Kyle Lowry and Tyrese Maxey would be the starters alongside Embiid. Kelly Oubre Jr. was counted on as the sixth man, with Andre Drummond returning to the team to give Embiid a break. The idea was fine; with the addition of rookie Jared McCain and the signing of Guerschon Yabusele, the Sixers would have some depth behind their starters. The problem is that they knew they wouldn’t have their starters.
Bringing in Gordon and Jackson while returning Lowry and jettisoning Hield, combined with the fact that Andre Drummond is no longer a starting center in the league, was a failure by management to recognize what they needed. They had to construct a roster that could succeed with and without Embiid. Instead, they chose the glamour of the Paul George signing, despite his injury history. The brought in Caleb Martin, who’s contributions don’t always show up on a stat sheet, similar to Nico Batum last season.
Instead of focusing on players like Malik Beasley, Gary Harris, Royce O’Neal, or even Malik Monk, the Sixers chose to fill out the roster with poor shooting and older players who aren’t very good defensively. They brought in McCain, who’s been a star but not by Philadelphia’s design, as well as the aforementioned injury defense law firm of Lowry, Gordon, and Jackson. The team is constructed to win when healthy and only when healthy, despite management being aware of the injury history of its two biggest stars.
The Sixers have the ninth-highest payroll in the league while also fielding the oldest team in the league.
Coaching dilemma
Head coach Nick Nurse was brought in to do what Doc Rivers did not: win a championship in Philadelphia. What Nurse has given in return is a tenure of head-scratching moves. Sixers fans had already dealt with the misuse of Hield, but Nurse never seemed to be able to get the Sixers to find a good style to play while Embiid was out for the second half of last season.
This season, to start, the coach should be given some leeway as he does not have his complete roster available to him, but he, as being hailed as an excellent coach, has known that he’d be missing at least Embiid for a while to start the season and for periods throughout the year. As the coach, he should have been working in the pre-season to ensure that the team was ready to compete without Embiid. What they’ve looked like is a team that’s void of any identity or scheme.
The role management played in constructing the roster had a huge impact on the team, but as the head coach, especially one that everyone expected to take the team to the next level, Nurse’s responsibility was to have this team prepared to operate in a few different ways, counting on the fact that Embiid and George would each miss time this season.
His refusal to use Jared McCain until he was forced to is a complete failure. McCain has been the best and most consistent player on the team to start the year, yet after a good preseason, McCain was on the bench with limited minutes to start the year. Once given a chance and with extended minutes, McCain has shown that he was well ahead of where anyone anticipated.
Yet, as the team battled a Hornets comeback last weekend, McCain wasn’t on the floor for the last eight minutes of the game despite shooting 70% from the floor and 75% on his threes up until that point in the game. While the Sixers couldn’t make a shot, McCain could do nothing but watch.
With George and his knee a continuing issue and Embiid’s status completely unclear, the coach must figure out a game plan for his team to succeed before it’s too late. As the Sixers approach the quarter mark of the season, the fear is that it’s already too late. If you’re going to accept the accolades and adoration that go along with being a success, then you must face the fire when it’s time. A good leader has his troops prepared, and the Sixers have looked anything but prepared this year.
In the end
With the Sixers a quarterway through the season and no foreseeable future that includes a complete lineup for any extended amount of time, the team has to face some hard truths for this year. Embiid and George should get extended vacations to handle themselves and their injuries completely before coming back and having the team deal with them throughout the season. If the concern is that Embiid needs to come back and play, then he needs to be healthy. No more fireman’s schedule with one day on and two off. Embiid should be shut down, at least for the immediate future and let him work on getting completely healthy.
The same would go for Paul George. While George competed in 74 games last season for the Clippers, that was the most he’d played in five years. This year started off poorly with the unfortunate knee injury he suffered in the preseason and then re-injured just after returning to the lineup. While he’s looked better the past couple of games he’s played, he’s not regularly available and that’s the real issue for the Sixers. Shut him down as well, for the immediate future, to rest the knee and be completely healthy when he returns.
After you deal with the two big stars, then you have to address the rest of the roster. It has to be accepted throughout the entire organization that, after 19 games, this team isn’t going anywhere without a healthy Embid on the court. So, while you’re going to be piling up losses, the coach should be using the younger players and growing a different style of game that the smaller lineup could start producing.
When you return Embiid, you do so in the role of a compliment, not as the centerpiece. Embiid shouldn’t be touching the ball on the perimeter or handling the ball walking up the court. He stays in the post and works with the team that’s going to be building itself over the next few months.
When Tyrese Maxey and Jared McCain are on the court, they can be a truly special duo, but only if Maxey realizes that he doesn’t have to do it all as he was forced to last season. If he’s going to be the leader, especially in the absence of Embiid and George, then he has to work with his teammates to play as a team, not just the Embiid and four guys show. Maxey, utilizing McCain, would be a special player, while McCain has shown the icy nerve that some players never get, despite being 20 games into his professional career.
In addition to the backcourt duo, find time for Ricky Council IV, KJ Martin, and Adam Bona to see what you have and how you can utilize their strengths instead of facing them into roles that are mainly for players that have a different skill set. That’s the mark of a good coach. While you’re not going to always see wins, you will be able to see positive results. Whether that is player growth, team harmony, or just recognizing what each player can bring to the table in specific situations, you’ll learn and grow.
The sad part about all of this is that with each passing day, it’s becoming painfully obvious that this season is lost. In the end, winning is all that matters.
