Three Paths for the Next Two Months & An Official Prediction
Zo looks into his crystal ball to see what awaits the 5-15 Sixers.
By the time January 31st hits, the 5-15, second-to-last-place-in-the-East Sixers will have played their 27th game in a month and a half span, and 47th overall, giving us all a very good look at whichever way this ship will officially be going in. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about said ship, new hobbies, Nerlens being traded for a fake first rounder etc. and have come to the conclusion of three possible paths:
Path 1: Tank Mode Engage
This is a supremely tricky one. The most unintentional of tanks if you will. This course presumes that the most talked about left knee this side of the Mississippi never fully heals, Paul George never really gets going and Nick Nurse has smoke coming out of Tyrese Maxey’s transmission.
Now, all extremely possible — honestly most likely at this point — but what makes it tricky is the Sixers don’t own full control of their 2025 first round pick outside of the top six (Presti you fuck) — and regardless of abysmal record, there’s never any telling of how the lottery gods will treat you on ping pong night. All that to say, missing the playoffs, having a bottom 5 record, compounded with not having a shiny Flagg/Bailey/Harper/Queen to show for it would be a special kind of fucking around and finding out.
Path 2: Just Enough to Lose in the First Round
Literally similar to last year except the the excruciating first round exit is at the hands of the Magic and we collectively spend all five games lamenting the fact that they’re young and fun on both ends and Eric Gordon had to play 38 minutes in game two. This one seems more probable to me. The Sixers have too much invested in this roster to even remotely visit a tank scenario and there’s a ton of prideful vets in that locker room, so mix those two with a little delusion and you’re cooking baby.
Path 3: Pie in the Sky
Pretty simple, Embiid gets it right, PG & Maxey get into a groove, and a 10-12-game hot streak gets us right into the mix for a 5/6/7 seed where we stay for the entirety of the second half of the season. I personally don’t see this happening at all but I have to have a third path.
What will really happen
This may never get right. I don’t think the players will quit, but I also don’t think this is the kind of roster built to fight its way out of anything. I could actually see a post-December 15th scenario where Daryl Morey covers his bases and either parlays another first round pick or somehow wipes OKC’s fingerprints off of the protections on the Sixers one, cuts his losses and decides it’s time to shut Joel down for the season and explore the PG/Maxey two-headed monster.