I agree with this by and large. But I do think you, and so many others, accidentally wind up arguing that in order for the team to be better, they need more good players.
Which is both true but also obvious.
When you list Sixers bench players who can only do one(ish) thing, and say “we should, instead, have players like X who can do two or more things” you’re really just saying “what if our bad players were, instead, better players?” Which, yes. But also…duh!
That said, I think the call out of the other portions of the organization aside from Morey is valuable and underdone in the wake of his firing.
I think the main argument is that to get those good players you need the money to afford them, and by having three max contract guys, you are at a distinct disadvantage on that front. You’ll hit on some of the minimum contract/two-way guys sometimes if you’re good, but that’s not a way to survive in today’s NBA.
I agree with all of your analysis about the kind of play that wins in the NBA in 2026. I agree that we've given up bench players who have the potential to fit into those kinds of teams. Hell, that's obvious when you see our ex-players in rotations that have played in the conference finals this year. I would just add one key detail you left out of your analysis. Ownership...front office management...coaching staff...ALL bought into building a roster around one SPECIFIC star player. Embiid. Joel's style of play, his preferences, his needs, his salary, have all dictated how our rosters have been constructed. It has always started with Embiid at the center of that Sixers solar system and then all the planets were selected to align with him and revolve around him.
All of this COULD have been fine, had Embiid ever been able to stay healthy for even a single regular season and playoff run. But the team has never been able to have the kind of continuity with Embiid that allowed the Sixers to play a couple months of its best basketball once the postseason began. It's like ownership, front office and coaching has never been able to have "proof of concept" with their strategy of building a winning team around Joel Embiid. He always has a health issue of one sort or another and can't play at 100% for long enough. It's conceivable that had Embiid ever put together a healthy 8-9 months in a row of NBA basketball that we'd have seen one of these rosters WORK. We'd have understood why the team felt it could move on from players like Shamet, Joe, Champagnie, Reed, McCain (etc) and kept the players they chose to keep. But that never happened, so we're left to blame the Sixers for moving on from clearly useful players while watching the team roster a bunch of one-dimensional bench pieces who are not capable of picking up the slack when the centerpiece of the team has more health issues.
It's now clear that nobody in team ownership or management had the boldness to put their foot down, at any point, and declare that the Embiid-focused roster needed to stop. Nobody was able to make that "sell high" case on Embiid and allow the team to pivot to a different approach - maybe one with a deeper roster of players capable of playing the kind of modern winning basketball that you explained in your essay. So, for that, I think they're culpable for not correctly "processing The Process" and helping the franchise avoid hitting this Embiid iceberg that is now clearly sinking our ship - as well as the career of Tyrese Maxey.
The thing that really bothers me about this organization is that the McCain trade may put them in a spot where they make a poor decision on whether to resign Grimes just to maintain guard depth when they already had McCain locked up on a rookie deal at a much lower salary.
I agree with this by and large. But I do think you, and so many others, accidentally wind up arguing that in order for the team to be better, they need more good players.
Which is both true but also obvious.
When you list Sixers bench players who can only do one(ish) thing, and say “we should, instead, have players like X who can do two or more things” you’re really just saying “what if our bad players were, instead, better players?” Which, yes. But also…duh!
That said, I think the call out of the other portions of the organization aside from Morey is valuable and underdone in the wake of his firing.
I think the main argument is that to get those good players you need the money to afford them, and by having three max contract guys, you are at a distinct disadvantage on that front. You’ll hit on some of the minimum contract/two-way guys sometimes if you’re good, but that’s not a way to survive in today’s NBA.
I agree with all of your analysis about the kind of play that wins in the NBA in 2026. I agree that we've given up bench players who have the potential to fit into those kinds of teams. Hell, that's obvious when you see our ex-players in rotations that have played in the conference finals this year. I would just add one key detail you left out of your analysis. Ownership...front office management...coaching staff...ALL bought into building a roster around one SPECIFIC star player. Embiid. Joel's style of play, his preferences, his needs, his salary, have all dictated how our rosters have been constructed. It has always started with Embiid at the center of that Sixers solar system and then all the planets were selected to align with him and revolve around him.
All of this COULD have been fine, had Embiid ever been able to stay healthy for even a single regular season and playoff run. But the team has never been able to have the kind of continuity with Embiid that allowed the Sixers to play a couple months of its best basketball once the postseason began. It's like ownership, front office and coaching has never been able to have "proof of concept" with their strategy of building a winning team around Joel Embiid. He always has a health issue of one sort or another and can't play at 100% for long enough. It's conceivable that had Embiid ever put together a healthy 8-9 months in a row of NBA basketball that we'd have seen one of these rosters WORK. We'd have understood why the team felt it could move on from players like Shamet, Joe, Champagnie, Reed, McCain (etc) and kept the players they chose to keep. But that never happened, so we're left to blame the Sixers for moving on from clearly useful players while watching the team roster a bunch of one-dimensional bench pieces who are not capable of picking up the slack when the centerpiece of the team has more health issues.
It's now clear that nobody in team ownership or management had the boldness to put their foot down, at any point, and declare that the Embiid-focused roster needed to stop. Nobody was able to make that "sell high" case on Embiid and allow the team to pivot to a different approach - maybe one with a deeper roster of players capable of playing the kind of modern winning basketball that you explained in your essay. So, for that, I think they're culpable for not correctly "processing The Process" and helping the franchise avoid hitting this Embiid iceberg that is now clearly sinking our ship - as well as the career of Tyrese Maxey.
Good essay. Enjoyed reading it.
The thing that really bothers me about this organization is that the McCain trade may put them in a spot where they make a poor decision on whether to resign Grimes just to maintain guard depth when they already had McCain locked up on a rookie deal at a much lower salary.