Joel's MVP Is All the Sixers Have Left to Play For
And yeah, I think they should still play for it.
Andrew Unterberger is a famous writer who invented the nickname 'Sauce Castillo' and writes for The Rights To Ricky Sanchez, as part of the 'If Not, Pick Will Convey As Two Second-Rounders' section of the site. You can follow Andrew on Twitter @AUGetoffmygold and can also read him at Billboard.
Andrew's writing is brought to you by Kinetic Skateboarding! Not only the Ricky's approved skate shop, but the best place to get Chucks, Vans, any apparel. Use code "DAVESILVER" for 9.1% off your order.
The Sixers' regular season effectively wrapped last night. Things could've gotten interesting if the Bucks were able to hold off the Celtics at home, but it appears they used up the remainder of their allotted scoring for the week blowing out the Pacers on Wednesday night -- congrats on the 51, Jrue! -- and they got absolutely steamrolled by Boston, a team who'd just lost by 19 to the Wizards on Tuesday. So instead of dropping back to just one ahead of the Sixers in the loss column, they stay two up with the tiebreaker clinched and only five games left in their season. That means that even if Philly wins their final Boston showdown of the season of Tuesday, they need Boston to lose two more of their final four non-Sixers games (against Utah, Toronto twice and Atlanta -- all at home) while the Sixers go a perfect 6-0 to close the season in order to catch them for the two seed. A De'Anthony Melton-Tobias Harris fast break alley-oop connection feels more probable.
There is good-ish news here. Part of it is that things are mostly locked below us, too: With the Cavs' loss to Atlanta on Tuesday, they're three back of Philly in the loss column without the tiebreaker, meaning they'd have to finish 5-0 and hope the Sixers closed 2-4 to have a chance of passing us at three. And with Miami's loss to New York and Brooklyn's narrow escape against Houston on Wednesday, the Nets are up two on the Heat with the tiebreaker there, all but ensuring they stay at six as our first-round opponent -- as close to a soft opponent to start the playoffs as we could ask for, albeit one that's probably still gonna make our lives miserable for at least a game or two with their shooting and athleticism. But it still means a second-round matchup with Boston (or possibly Milwaukee), without home-court advantage -- so I hope you've been practicing the talking points I outlined three weeks ago, because zero hour is gonna be coming sooner than later there.
And the other thing it means is that with no room to plausibly move up or down in the standings, there's nothing left for them to play for in the final six games of the regular season. That is, except for Joel Embiid's MVP campaign -- which despite what you may have heard is still a very real thing that he can very really win, and despite what you may have heard from the man itself is still something he wants, and should want.
First, we're all still doing our spiels about the implications and consequences of Embiid's no-show against the Nuggets on Jokic, so let me do mine: Yes, it was a very bad look for Embiid to do his BZRP Session with Shams and then not be around to back up his words in Denver, yes it was extremely poor game management for Jo and the team to just assume he could iron-man his way through all three of those four West Coast games when the third was the only one he kinda had to show up for, yes it's going to hurt his MVP campaign and yes it probably should. Where the "yes"es turn to "no"s for me is when anyone suggests this was the final word in the Jokic-Embiid MVP debate, that Embiid was actually scared of Jokic, or that Jokic somehow now has the advantage in their head-to-head matchup when they did already play once this season and Embiid basically left him dangling by his tighty whities from the William Penn statue. Embiid lost a lot of his advantage in the overall race -- maybe all of it -- but acting like the entire race comes down to one game that didn't even happen is just plain silly.
And for the voters whose MVP take does boomerang wildly from one big game to the next... well, Joel's got at least one, possibly two more of those still to play. The Bucks would've had nothing to play for against Philly on Sunday if they'd beaten Boston last night and all but clinched the 1 seed, but now they've got to show up against us if they want to keep Boston at arm's length and fend off possibly having to see us for four to seven more times in May. And if the Sixers can pull that one out and keep that race for the top seed between Milwaukee and Boston tight -- maybe even if they can't -- Boston will still have to come correct against us the following Tuesday to try and get themselves over the top. Those are two marquee opponents (and about one-and-a-half combined fellow MVP candidates) that Embiid can still further prove himself against, potentially swinging the MVP pendulum back in his favor.
That is, of course, if the Sixers show up to the games themselves. If you believe Embiid, his coach or the franchise party line in general, the playoffs (and getting healthy for them) are all that matters -- even at the potential expense of Embiid's MVP run -- and to be fair to them, Jo taking off for the Jokic rematch does support that sentiment. However, nothing else of what we know or have seen from Joel over the years does lend credibility to the idea he could come this close to the MVP finish line -- he is still leading in the final ESPN straw poll tally, even after the Mile High opt-out, albeit only by the finest of margins -- and then shrug it off with an "eh, maybe next year." As Godner pointed out in his most recent Daily Six, even his most recent Not Caring claims about his MVP positioning were followed by a three-graf soliloquy about why the missed game shouldn't actually impact his MVP odds. (To further quote Derek: "Embiid absolutely does care about the MVP award. There's nobody who is around him on a regular basis, that I've met, who believes otherwise.")
All we can really say at this point is... well, we'll see. The Sixers have six games left, with the two most important ones coming in the next three. Considering that they can no longer really affect their own positioning in the standings, and considering both Embiid and (especially) his running mate James Harden are pretty banged up at this point, how much they play and how hard they play in these remaining games will almost certainly tell us something about where their priorities lie. If they opt out of making the trip to Milwaukee, or if at least one of them sits against Milwaukee, then they can preach Playoffs Uber Alles with a straight face and we won't have to add it to the Big Book of Sixers Lies that grows by several volumes every season.
This will of course shock anyone who's read this column for the last three years, but I think Joel & Co. should go for it -- within reason, and maybe even a little bit without reason too. Embiid has never been this close this late in the season before, and while it might be dumb at this point to say "he might never get this close again" when he's still gotten notably better each of the past three seasons... goddamn it, we don't know, he really might never get this close again. If it hurts the Sixers' playoff chances, that blows, but while I may be close to alone in thinking an Embiid MVP should be nearly as important to us and to this franchise as a title run, I can't be that close to alone in thinking the former is a lot more likely to actually happen this year than the latter. Do you want Embiid to peel away from a 50% chance to win the MVP to chase a 10% chance -- maybe -- to win the title? Perhaps you do, and fair enough if so I guess, but I simply cannot co-sign.
Plus, if you'll allow me to get really Galaxy Brained for a minute... I think there's at least a chance that psychically, maybe Embiid kinda has to win the MVP before he can win the title. I've written before about how Embiid's thirst for NBA validation in all its forms ends up working against any part of it ever actually getting quenched; his simultaneous pursuit of all of it ends up ensuring that he gets none of it. An MVP win would finally break the cycle, giving him a form of peace with his place in the NBA world that he's never known before. Not that it would stop him from wanting all that other stuff (occasionally to his own detriment), but it would just be an easing of the overall burden, a lifting of the weight on his oft-injured shoulders. As great and as self-assured as he is already, I would love to see the Duncanian confidence that a post-MVP Joel would play with. I think it would really help him as he sets forth to play the biggest games of his NBA career.
And if you don't buy that, hopefully you'll at least buy this: If Joel wins it this year, we don't have to do any of this bullshit again next year. Yeah sure, he'd still want it and we'd still want it for him -- we're all sickos -- but with one Michael Jordan Trophy (groan) already on his mantle, it'd no longer be his life's pursuit; it could be something he'd say isn't really the priority for him and be surprised by how much he actually meant it. But it'll never be that way until he wins it, and he absolutely can still win it this year if he (and to a slightly lesser extent, the rest of the team) is up for going out and getting it. You don't really want to go through this a fourth time next year, do you? Does Joel?