10 Big Sixers Questions
We knew it would look like this.
1. Is it time to pull the plug?
No way. I said a few newsletters ago that it would get uglier before it got better and more than half the season has been nutty, certainly, but can’t wave the white flag on a season where you got an All-Star appearance from your No. 2 and gave up real assets for a presumed No. 3-4 guy. They’re going to end up in the play-in, and if you believe in 21 like we all should, then you don’t have any problem with that. However, if you’re still feeling dicey about it, just read this.
2. What to make of Nick Nurse’s lineups recently?
Credit and grace to him working with what he has but full stop, they’ve mostly sucked. I was much more lenient at the All-Star break but now the training wheels are off – can’t keep running out lineups where three of the five players have a basketball IQ of six and expect different results.
3. What do you think of the backup big situation currently?
Who they have is who they have. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that this team in any iteration will never have a functional backup giant. I really think Daryl Morey and Co. goofed big time at the deadline by not locking that rotation up. I know the Andre Drummond price was too high for their liking but curious as to who else they could have had and just didn’t shoot for.
4. What, if anything can be learned from these last 17 games?
I don’t want to spew some “how bad do they want it” type bullshit because I don’t think it’s the case with this team at all, sans the spells of straight airhead basketball play. What I will say is, we’ll find out just how creative this coaching staff is. There’s an obvious talent gap right now between the current team and pretty much whoever they play outside of a few teams – so I think it’s even more incumbent on Nick Nurse and his staff to find something, anything that replicates the execution and play they’ve gotten out of this roster during the non-Embiid wins, and bottle it up for recycled use until the big guy returns.
5. How does Buddy Hield project heading into the playoffs?
He’s been fine but can be better and drifts away from the game far too often which kind of surprises me given the caliber of shooter he is. That said, outside of Tyrese Maxey I don’t think anyone will benefit more from Embiid being back than him.
6. Cam Payne?
He doesn’t stink, but there’s an element to his game that makes him a tad slower – and not even in a deliberate Kyle Anderson way. He’s just no frills, and while sometimes it’s OK, most of the time you want more.
7. Have the team’s major struggles dampened the Maxey experience for you?
Unfortunately, yes. I would say it isn’t over something he’s done in particular, but more the fact that he’s asked to do so much with a bunch of guys that are sparingly good helpers. When he does go into those modes recently, it’s been needed and not an added cherry like usual.
8. Which one Non-Embiid guy do they miss the most?
They could really use De'Anthony Melton right about now. His active hands on defense, his energy – they sorely lack both too many times during games.
9. Do you think Embiid is really coming back?
I know Sixers history in general will tell us in these cases that it’s a hard no, but I really believe he is – probably during the last week and change of the season. The bottom line is this entire roster is built for him and his strengths, and it would really suck to not see how well it could fare in the postseason with a healthy leader.
10. What can the Sixers learn from the Eagles’ recent free agency frenzy?
Pay everyone except Tobias Harris.
SPIKE’S CORNER - THERE IS NO WORLD IN WHICH TRADING JOEL EMBIID IS THE RIGHT MOVE
We are bored. I get it. Embiid has been on the shelf for what seems like six months, and with or without Tyrese Maxey, the Sixers usually look pretty putrid. Another season feels like it’s slipping away. We’re all 100 years older than we were 10 years ago, and time has taken its toll.
That’s probably why I get a few emails, tweets and YouTube comments every week saying some version of the same thing; trade Embiid.
Sorry, not happening. It’s a bad idea. When you play out all of the scenarios in your head that could result from a Joel deal, none of them make sense. We are in a world where we only have painful choices, and believe it or not, “Keep Embiid and pray for rain” is the least painful.
I know it’s hard to believe, given the situation we’re in this year. As I’ve written before, even in the best-case situation here, we all basically know how this goes, even if we don’t want to say it out loud. Embiid comes back in April, looks rusty for a game, then looks great for a game, then has a bad game and is grabbing his knee. Then he’ll miss a game or two in the playoffs, where they ultimately lose in the first or second round while Embiid looks nowhere near his MVP self, and the knee either is or isn’t the source of the underperformance.
You get to thinking what we all have, “It’s just not going to happen with this guy.” And you’re probably correct. But I am here to tell you, that as unlikely as it may be to happen with this guy, it’s still more likely than any of our other options. Let’s go through them…
Trade Him for Another Star
History tells us that you more than likely need a top five player in the NBA to win a title. There are some exceptions (the last Duncan title, the Mavs win over the Heatles, the Ben Wallace Pistons championship that everyone brings up), but the general rule is that you need a top five player.
Joel Embiid is a top five player. Jokic, Giannis, Luka, Steph and SGA aren’t getting traded unless they demand it. Once you get past that list, there is a mix of “not getting traded,” “not good enough to be the centerpiece on a title team and of course, “bad idea.” Go through the list: Tatum (not getting traded), Booker (not good enough), Haliburton (not good enough), Kawhi (bad idea), Durant (bad idea), Butler (not good enough, bad idea), Mitchell (not good enough), etc… etc…
Build Around Maxey
Tyrese Maxey has gotten better every year, and will continue to get better. There is no world in which this guy is good enough to be the centerpiece of the team who is trying to win a title. He’s too small, he’s not a dominant scorer or great at getting others involved, and he’s at best an average defensive player. Becky Hammon got a lot of criticism for saying that Jalen Brunson was too small to be the best player on a title team but she’s probably right.
I suppose you can build around Maxey if one of the players you build around him with is a top five player in the NBA.
Do The Process Again
I have to admit, this would be great for the podcast. People who called bullshit on Hinkie used to say slow-playing the Sixers’ rebuild was job security for him. Not true. It was job security for us. We could do another decade easily. The Process Again is the easiest way for us to not have to answer “how would the podcast end?” Because it never would. I’m 47 years old, there’s a better chance I’d die before the podcast would end if they did the Process again.
What I want you to do is think about teams that have had top draft picks over the last 20 years. First, think about the Sixers’ top draft picks! Nerlens Noel (close enough), Jahlil Okafor, Markelle Fultz, Ben Simmons. As painful as the Embiid experience has been at times, imagine if that one pick out of five never happened.
Joel Embiid is an amazing outcome for a top five pick. Over the last three years he’s won the MVP, and been the runner up twice. He’s the best player on offense and the best player on defense on a team that plays on a 60-win pace when he’s on the court. Look at the rest of the top ten of that draft! Andrew Wiggins, Jabari Parker, Aaron Gordon, Dante Exum, Marcus Smart, Julius Randle, Nik Stauskas (shout out Sauce), Noah Vonleh (shout out ESP) and Elfrid Payton. Some good players in there sure, but outside of maybe Randle (during a season with no fans in the stands), nobody is the best player on a team that wins any more than what, 35 games?
As horrifying as the last decade has been, it actually worked out well given the alternatives.
Our Best Chance Is Hoping We Get ‘The Year’
Giannis has been in the NBA for more than a decade, largely healthy and supremely dominant. He has won one title, and it debatably wouldn’t have even happened if Kevin Durant wore a shoe that was 1.5 sizes smaller. Even the great ones need to get lucky sometimes.
Seeing through Embiid’s prime and hoping he’s healthy at the right time gives the Sixers a better chance at a title than any of the above choices. Is it likely to happen? No, it is not. But it is still more likely than doing so after drafting the next Jabari Parker.
I know you are tired. I would like to tell you there are better days ahead. There probably aren’t. But there might be, and still having that chance is as good as it’s going to get for now.
I understand that people are bored and tired but I think they're missing the obvious solution: just stop watching the team. The moment Embiid went down I switched from a Sixers fan to a RTRS fan and it's honestly been pretty fun. The content on the pod and here is great, I am aware of what is going on with the team - not great! - but not actually suffering through it.
The other benefit is that I'm not getting warped ideas about this team while they play without the best player in the league. I've been arguing for years that the team should be built specifically to maximize Joel, that this was a more proven route to contention than "stah hunting," and thankfully they've done it. Of course they're going to be ass without him. I'd rather this than having a few extra wins with, say, James Harden here and no realistic hope of winning anything in the spring.
I'm happy to keep reading about Cam Payne and Doc Rivers and wait for Embiid to get back and watch him be the historically dominant player we know he is.
Spike, thanks for laying out your rationale behind your position that the Sixers can’t (or shouldn’t) consider trading Embiid. Even though I think your argument is really flawed, I won’t call it “galaxy brain stuff,” as you termed my entire argument for trading JoJo. Your position on this trade idea really flies against most of what Rights to Ricky Sanchez has been about for me. And that is this idea that the Sixers, at whatever the present point in time is, are not good enough to win a title. Thus the podcast talks about how we make them better.
It's inarguable that the Sixers have not been a title contender during the Embiid years. You’ve spent hours upon hours detailing all of the ways in which the team around JoJo (and Embiid himself) have not been good enough to win. Even at times when the roster has been more stacked and talented than it is right now (assuming a healthy Embiid), you’ve devoted endless podcasts discussing why this wasn’t enough.
And NOW, you’re arguing that we should just be happy having a middling team with a guy on it who is a top five player in the league because…well, top five players are really impossible to get. Is THAT what this has all come to? You sound like the ownership group of a franchise trying to sell season tickets for a team nobody thinks has a chance to win.
What this ignores is that this top five player has never been enough, even with a good roster around him, to get past the second round. What this ignores is that this top five player is now 30 years old and plays a position where guys don’t have a lot of productive years after that age. What this ignores is the state of the Sixers roster when this current mess of Sixers season ends. It’s like you’re making the argument to keep an Embiid that we had five years ago, not the one we have now.
Many Sixers fans (apparently you included) are hopelessly stuck on this idea that the only way to look at the post-Embiid era is “Process II.” In other words, without Embiid we’re all stuck with a sub-15 win team for years on end. And who wants THAT? So…keep Embiid.
Give me a break.
The Process was a very specific approach to rebuilding a team that was centered on bottoming out in pursuit of a top three pick across multiple years. Look, I agree that there’s no guarantee you get franchise players in the top three picks. And that’s one of the reasons why that old Hinkie strategy was problematic. That kind of tanking isn’t the only way to fix a roster and take a team back to the playoffs. Surely we can agree on that. OKC currently has the second best record in the NBA. And they didn’t tank for years to get there. That franchise made the playoffs every year but one during their last great era from 2009 to 2020 (and these appearances weren’t all just second round flameouts). Then the last three seasons they have retooled and missed the playoffs. Now they’re back again as a favorite. They built around young players and the draft. Sixers fans need to stop it with the copout that Trading Embiid this offseason means an immediate return to 5+ years of “The Process.”
Embiid has a significant value right now. We already know what that value is to us if he remains on the team. And it’s not good enough to win a title with Maxey and some supporting guys. It’s not good enough to attract top free agents to sign and play here. And he’s such a specific kind of player that when he gets injured (which he does every season) the team isn’t constructed to win without him.
So the obvious conclusion should be to investigate what his current value is to the Sixers as a trade asset. In your essay you assume that the value would be as almost a straight-up, one-for-one swap for some other superstar. But the last 2-3 comparable players to get traded in the NBA were Durant, Irving and Gobert. And those three all returned both first round picks and young, talented players. So to PROPERLY evaluate the case for trading Embiid, you absolutely have to consider what THAT kind of return would mean to the Sixers franchise.
This offseason, one where we enter it with only Embiid under contract for 2024-25, getting several young, talented players and several first round picks would absolutely be important to the franchise. The alternative to that is what? Signing a half a roster full of guys on one-year cheap deals…a half-roster worth of Mo Bambas and Kenyon Martins?
You also don’t explain how, should the team KEEP Embiid, the Sixers prevent a “Process II” from immediately being triggered by the end of the productive part of JoJo’s career. And that end could be in two seasons…in three seasons…but it’s more near than it has ever been. This also could be triggered by Embiid just deciding to demand a trade. And the instant he does that, his value drops. The opportunity cost for not trading Embiid NOW is that when he’s all used up he will not be able to return any value to help with the eventual re-tooling. And we KNOW how this goes because we’ve already watched what happens when the Sixers trade a Charles Barkley or an Allen Iverson too late to get any real value. Shouldn’t we have learned from these mistakes when it comes to thanking your superstar player for some great years in Philly and sending him out of town at a high water mark on his own trade value?
In the end, I have no doubt you and Mike and the others here on your Rights to Ricky team will come around and be ready declare the Sixers should trade Embiid – or even be ok when he eventually asks for a trade. It will surely be for essentially all the same reasons I have explained here and before. You’re holding such an obvious losing hand on this position of “keep building around Embiid.” This season has been a disaster for your side of the argument. And yet, you still hold firm to it – for now. Tick tock…