After the Philadelphia 76ers lost the first three games of their second-round series to the New York Knicks, Paul George was asked what the message should be. His reply was simple: he cursed and said “win a game.”
[Narrator]: They did not win a game.
That was to be expected. With the Sixers, you always know how it will end — badly, and usually sooner rather than later. Their annual summer vacation was slightly delayed this season when they upset the Celtics in the first round, beating Boston in the playoffs for the first time since 1982. Any goodwill accrued from that Game 7 win in Boston was undone in eight days by a no-show effort against the Knicks, who put the Sixers out of their misery and finished off the sweep on Sunday. Philly lost to New York by an average of 22.2 points per game. Game 2 — played without Joel Embiid who suddenly popped up on the injury report with knee and hip issues, because of course he did — was the only flicker of fight the Sixers showed in the series, and that faded quickly. As Embiid said when it was all over, the Knicks “were just better than us in everything.”
Adding insult to injury, Knicks fans swarmed South Philadelphia like locusts and comported themselves with roughly the same grace. (A Knicks fan interrupted a moment of silence for Sixers head coach Nick Nurse’s recently deceased brother and was booed for the lack of decorum.) The overall experience prompted more than one Sixers fan on social media to post something along the lines of how it would have been better to lose to the Celtics than get swept by the Knicks. The way the season ended for the Sixers was that deflating — but it wasn’t surprising.
A familiar Philly feeling
Crashing out of the postseason in abject fashion has become a franchise hallmark. The Sixers have lost in the first or second round in each of the last nine seasons — except for last year, when they didn’t make the playoffs at all. They haven’t reached the conference finals since 2001. That remains one of the principal knocks against Embiid, who remains the only MVP in league history never to make it out of the second round.
In fairness, Embiid playing in the Celtics series just 17 days after having an emergency appendectomy was remarkable. It was yet another entry in a long list of ailments suffered shortly before or during the postseason, including a bout with Bell’s Palsy, two orbital fractures, two torn meniscuses and a torn thumb ligament. Despite the latest medical procedure, he played well in four games against Boston, and they couldn’t have beaten the Celtics without him. But as with all things related to the Sixers and Embiid, the good times didn’t last. They never do. He played better than any of his teammates in Game 4 against the Knicks, but by then it didn’t matter anyway. It was too late. That’s how it invariably goes with the Sixers.
Just a few months ago, there was cause for some optimism with regard to the Sixers. Or if not exactly optimism, then at least not the usual overarching dread that has defined the organization for so long. The season began with low-to-no expectations. Whatever the oft-injured Embiid and uneven Paul George could produce was seen as a bonus. The immediate and future focus instead shifted to the promising young backcourt of Tyrese Maxey and VJ Edgecombe, as dynamic a guard combination as Philly had ever seen.
During the All-Star festivities in Los Angeles, I asked Maxey about teaming up with Edgecombe. He replied that Edgecombe “is like a little brother to me” and said “he’s great, man. Not just basketball-wise, but for our team personality-wise and culture-wise for our organization.” After winning just 24 games the season before due to various injuries and a back-end tanking effort that ultimately resulted in drafting Edgecombe, Maxey added that “this year we’ve done a really good job of turning things around.”
[Narrator]: They did not, in fact, turn things around.
That is not Maxey or Edgecombe’s fault. Maxey was an All-Star and is almost certain to make All-NBA, while Edgecombe finished third in the Rookie of the Year voting and even got one curious second-place vote, most likely cast from a pub in deep South Philly with spotty wifi.
The pair got some playoff experience together and even beat Boston. Those are positives to build on moving forward. But it’s also fair to wonder if that pair would have been better suited this season and long term if they were still a trio.
So.., can anything change?
At the trade deadline, the Sixers opted to duck the luxury tax and ship underappreciated and underutilized fan favorite Jared McCain to the Thunder. At the time, President of basketball operations Daryl Morey said the Sixers were “playing well” and he was “trying to upgrade the team and add now” but “nothing materialized.” So instead of adding, they subtracted McCain. A lot of people had a hard time understanding that math. Morey took a lot of heat for that move — especially for smugly claiming he was “quite confident that we are selling high.”
Anyone who has watched the Thunder since then has probably noticed McCain flourishing with his new team. He recently had 18 points in 18 critical minutes off the bench in a Game 3 win over the Lakers, then laughed in the postgame interview that the Sixers didn’t sell high enough. Ouch. No one is saying the Sixers would have beaten the Knicks if only they had McCain, but it certainly wouldn’t have hurt Philly to have a shooter of that caliber coming off its painfully thin bench. That the Thunder, inarguably the deepest team in the league, figured out how to use McCain when the Sixers let him atrophy before “selling high” was a gross indictment of the front office and Nurse, who might not be head coach for much longer.
And so the Sixers enter another offseason with no easy answers. The obvious lever to pull is the head coach, who in terms of wins and losses was somehow less successful in the role than his much-maligned predecessor, Doc Rivers. Hard to imagine, but true. There’s an outside shot that the ownership group kicks Morey to the curb along with Nurse, but that seems less likely. Though there’s a case to be made for it.
In addition to the McCain mess and a host of other questionable decisions, Morey is responsible for two of the worst contracts in the NBA. George still has two more years left on the four-year, $211 million deal that the team used to lure him away from LA. In retrospect, the luring should have cost a lot less. George will be 37 in the final year of the contract, which has a player option at $56.6 million. Meanwhile, Embiid — who has missed 150 games over the last three years and has never played more than 68 in a single season — has two more seasons remaining on his three-year, $187 million extension. In his final year, which is also a player option, the Sixers will pay the then-34-year-old $67.2 million. Toss up on which of those two contracts is worse, but they’re both basically unmovable.
The Sixers also have decisions to make with some of their rotation pieces. Kelly Oubre, Quentin Grimes and Andre Drummond are all unrestricted free agents. They’d probably like to retain Oubre. Grimes is another matter that very much depends on the price point, which was an issue last offseason and the reason why he’s headed for free agency this summer.
As for the draft pick situation, it could be worse. But, as with all things Sixers-related, it could also be better. They have the Rockets first-round pick in the upcoming draft, which will be 22nd overall. Astute draft watchers and the Philly faithful have pointed out that the team drafted Maxey one slot higher. Perhaps they get lucky again and land on someone talented in what has been touted as a loaded draft.
Their own first-round pick, 17th overall, is owed to the Oklahoma City Thunder. That pick was top-four protected. Had the Sixers crashed out of the play-in and lost both games rather than advancing as the 7-seed, they would have had less than a 3% chance to land in the top four and keep their pick. In retrospect, even after beating the Celtics, that still might have been the better option, considering getting past Boston led to getting humiliated by New York. But who knows, maybe the draft gods will smile favorably on the Sixers this summer. Maybe they’ll make a series of inspired moves to bolster the bench and pad out the roster. Maybe George won’t get suspended next season and miss 25 games. Maybe Embiid will be (relatively) healthy. Maybe it will all finally fall into place for them.
[Narrator]: You don’t need a narrator to know how this will likely turn out.
