A tumultuous season has landed the Sixers at 20-37, losers of eight straight and 12th in the Eastern Conference. It has also put them in a position nobody expected when they signed Paul George this past summer.
Injuries have devastated a team that expected to compete for a championship, turning them into one of the worst in the league on both sides of the ball. A 3-14 start put early pressure on the team, and even after a good stretch in December, Philadelphia couldn’t climb out of its own grave that it had dug.
After back-to-back losses to the Brooklyn Nets and Chicago Bulls, the Sixers have reached a turning point both this season and in this era of basketball. Their first-round pick this spring is top-six protected and would be conveyed to the Oklahoma City Thunder if it falls outside of that range. The organization needs to decide if they are going to fight for the 10th spot in the East and the play-in tournament or to tank to improve their chances even to keep their own pick.
At this point in the season, most fans and media members believe it would be best for the organization to try to keep the pick. Joel Embiid is currently missing an indefinite amount of time re-evaluating his knee condition with the team. There remains a chance he could be ruled out for the season in the coming days or weeks; Paul George has struggled to stay on the court and could use some time off for his finger to heal. Tyrese Maxey has been dinged up throughout the year and playing extended minutes, and the organization could decide to rest him as well.
Some of the Sixers’ performances in recent weeks have shown no urgency and have revealed that the players are not all as locked in as they need to be to compete each night. They may say the right things after the game, but actions speak louder than words, and this team seems disinterested on most nights except for a few players. If they decide to tank quietly, this is not only a turning point in this season but could be a turning point in the Embiid era.
With expectations of this upcoming draft being one of the deeper drafts in recent history, the Sixers could also use this opportunity to pivot out of the Joel Embiid era if they are able to keep their pick. Embiid is one of the best individual players in the team’s history, if not the best, but his injury history has always held them back. With his current injury prognosis, they can try to rebuild around younger players like Maxey and Jared McCain.
If they pivoted and tried to trade Joel Embiid and Paul George for whatever assets they could recoup, they could use those to help rebuild a roster around the young guards and who they pick in the top six if they keep their pick. Adding a top talent to a team with all three stars could make this team more dangerous, but injuries will always be a factor, and continuing to build around a star who struggles to stay on the court isn’t the best decision.
If the season were to end today, the Sixers would only have a 45.8% chance of keeping their pick, so a decision has to be made soon if they want to attempt to keep the asset this year. It’s a hard choice for a franchise that came into the season with such high expectations — especially after they purposely tanked to rebuild only to have the NBA step in and interfere to change the philosophy on team building.
A team that has been focused on winning during the prime of a generational player has to make a decision whether to move on or restart the “process.” Whatever decision is made will be the turning point for so many players who play for the Sixers or could potentially play for the Sixers, and being the decision maker is not an envious place to be in.
