Roughly a month in, the Philadelphia 76ers‘ 2024-25 season has not gone according to plan.
After falling into the deepest depths of the Eastern Conference standings and having the events of a private team meeting leaked, the Sixers are at a crossroads staring down two paths. This could be where their season takes a turn and they start looking like the playoff contender they’ve touted themselves as. Or, they could fail to correct their putrid course and plunge into the history books as one of the most epic failures in NBA history.
An exposé from ESPN’s Shams Charania into the team meeting after their brutal loss to the Miami Heat revealed some sources of tension. Tyrese Maxey was frustrated with Joel Embiid being late “for everything” while Embiid, who was reportedly receptive to that message, expressed confusion at what the team is trying to do on the court. Players and coaches both want more out of the other.
The 76ers were dealt some unfortunate hands to start the season, watching each member of their star trio miss several games at a time. It’s almost Thanksgiving but the Big 3 has yet to play its first second on the court together. Even when the injury storm clears, a lot has to change for the Sixers to get to where they want to be — and that goes beyond just improving on its 2-11 record.
Everything starts and ends with Joel Embiid
Embiid has already done more for the 76ers that they can repay or thank him for. Sticking it out through personal tragedies, organizational incompetence and more injuries to count than there are fingers on your hands — all of this in a country he is not native to — has required an unimaginable level of mental fortitude that saved the franchise from falling deeper into despair following the ousting of Sam Hinkie. The Sixers are a winning team year after year for over half a decade primarily because of him.
If Embiid is comfortable where his legacy is at right now, he doesn’t have much to push himself for. But if he truly does want to solidify his place in NBA history by leading the 76ers to a championship, achieving the goal he has said to be setting out for for years, he has to get his season on the right track. There’s not a second to waste.
Charania’s report mentioned how Maxey confronted Embiid about his tardiness, an eye-opening instance of tough love from the teammate he calls his favorite. How Embiid handles himself is indeed important, though that’s mostly a matter of what he does on the court.
NBA stars generally get treated differently than others on the roster. It can be off-putting in many cases, yes, but also not a huge deal if the team is doing well. When they lead the team on the court night after night, handling the bulk of the responsibility and doing the toughest jobs, it doesn’t have to be a hindrance. From Michael Jordan to Allen Iverson to James Harden, plenty of superstars were able to do their thing off the court and still dominate on it. Winning, as they say, cures everything.
The 76ers, of course, are not close to doing well. Embiid may have built up a profound, well-deserved reputation within the organization but if he’s not going to play like a superstar, bending the rules like one becomes harder to allow. He has opened himself up to criticism by playing way, way below his usual level for three games now.
When he plays, Embiid has to be great. He may not be able to jump back into games and perform at an MVP level but he must be a positive player at the bare minimum. When the defense invites him to go one-on-one with a defender, he needs to take that. On defense and on the glass, he has to be forceful and authoritative. Charania’s report mentioned Embiid’s confusion in the team’s execution. As he plays more, it’s something that can be smoothed out, though it’s also on the coaching staff to make sure its schemes work (more on that later).
Of course, the elephant in this room is that Embiid is still clearly bothered by his left knee. He wears a brace the size of a pillow on it and doesn’t look comfortable exploding to the rim in traffic. His lack of burst is the culprit for his timidness when it comes to attacking defenders. This is an issue with no clear end date in sight.
The 76ers and Embiid both wanted him to make the comeback that he did at the end of the 2023-24 season. After suffering a tear in his left meniscus in late January, he went under the knife in early February and jumped back into action in early April. Despite some moments of brilliance in the first round of the playoffs, his efforts were for naught.
Trying to fast-track his recovery has led to complications that will probably follow him for the rest of his career. He was able to play in the Paris Olympics, a once-in-a-lifetime chance that he understandably took. But choosing to return for the playoffs and play in the Games (despite not looking like his normal self for much of them) came at the cost of time to recover — and he’s paying for that right now. It’s not an easy toll but one that he needs to figure out how to pass through as soon as possible.
The 76ers are still better off resting Embiid for back-to-backs during the season. He has damaged and sacrificed his body as much as any NBA player ever has, so he and the Sixers have to remain diligent in keeping him as healthy as possible. But as badly as he needs to start playing better, this is far from a one-man solution.
Nick Nurse and other 76ers players, especially Paul George and Tyrese Maxey, must step up
Daryl Morey’s share of blame for this mess is significant but he can’t do much to turn the tides right now. Some of his offseason additions have looked good, the jury is out on a few and several others have been straight-up duds so far. Most of their roster is ineligible to be traded until later, so Morey’s job for the time being is to evaluate who works, who doesn’t and who can make the team better. He should also maintain a critical eye on his head coach.
Being the head coach of the Philadelphia 76ers requires a balancing act of coaching a star player who is guaranteed to miss a big chunk of games. It’s not easy to manage a team like that, especially when Embiid’s co-star, Paul George, also has a worrisome injury history.
But the upside is that when Embiid plays, he makes coach’s lives easier. Nurse has done the easy part of his job as well as, if not better than, his predecessors, Doc Rivers and Brett Brown. The rate at which the Sixers won with Embiid to start last season was nothing short of incredible. After already winning the MVP, Embiid took another sizable step in his individual play under Nurse.
However, Nurse’s Embiid-less Sixers look monumentally worse than Rivers’ and Brown’s squads without the big man. In the three years that the Sixers were a playoff-caliber team under Brown, they went 32-30 in regular-season and playoff games when Embiid sat out. When Doc Rivers didn’t have Embiid, he went 30-26, including 11-5 in his last regular season. Under Nurse, the Embiid-less Sixers are 18-35.
The ethos of this season was that they would finally not be wholly dependent on Embiid to be a good team. Nurse was tapped as an innovative thinker who would get the most of the roster Morey and the front office assembled. As evidenced by the Sixers ranking last or second-to-last in most offensive stats, he has only innovated ways to make NBA basketball hard to watch. It can also be true that Morey’s roster is not nearly as deep and dynamic as it was made out to be.
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The Sixers’ defense turns opponents over at an elite rate and their defensive rating is middle-of-the-pack. Nonetheless, their net rating is one of the worst in the league. The roster is very new, with many of its key contributors in their first season with the team, but most of the newcomers are established NBA veterans. They should not be this horrible.
For as much blame as there is for Nurse’s poor coaching and the gaping holes in the roster Morey assembled, the players could also be paying much, much better. Jared McCain has managed to cut through the vines and press onward with his season, emerging as a legitimate star-level player for the past few weeks. If the rookie can drown out the noise and ball out, so can the veterans, even if their ways of playing well look different.
Motivating players falls under the umbrella of responsibility for a head coach. But in fairness to Nurse, it’s one that NBA head coaches shouldn’t have to worry about that much. His players are veterans, ones who came here with the goal of winning a championship. That alone should be enough for them to, as Charania wrote of the coaches’ desires, “practice with purpose and attention to detail.”
Nurse doesn’t have to be a rah-rah-rah guy to motivate his players. Instead, he can devise game plans they are more excited to buy into. His rotations also have to sharpen up, finding more pairings that work and others that don’t (hint: no more playing Caleb Martin and Kelly Oubre Jr. together). He has to get more out of the roster around Embiid — and so do the other stars.
Once Maxey gets back from his hamstring injury, he has to be a real playmaking threat, tighten up his defense and get his scoring efficiency back up. George has to start hitting his shots, too, a big part of which is to rely less on tough jumpers off the dribble. They have to be stars every time they step on the court, not just when a healthy Embiid allows them to be.
George, Maxey and Embiid can’t allow their synergy to turn into a glorified your-turn-my-turn dynamic. It will take time but they have to generate chemistry that highlights their skills on and off the ball. They have to work together to lead the 76ers to wins and help the roster come together.
The Sixers are down but, in such a weak Eastern Conference, they are far from out. They’re less than five games away from being in the middle of the playoff picture. Their schedule features plenty of games against bad teams to close out the calendar year. Philly has plenty of time to get into the playoff picture. If it can — and avoid these flare-ups — this season may not be a total waste.
The 76ers didn’t have control over everything that happened to them to start the season. Some things they could control and handled poorly. Regardless of what they could and could not manage, all of it is behind them now. They’re in the driver’s seat for their own destiny. They decide if this brutal season-opening stretch is a road bump or a wall.
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