21–22 NBA Previews: The Philadelphia 76ers (#16)
This is some true hater-shit from me; I know. The 76ers should not be merely a league-average basketball team this year. They have Joel Embiid, who, on any given night, might actually be the most impactful player in the NBA. Theoretically, if Embiid is playing, the 76ers should be able to rack up regular season wins the same way they did last season, when they finished with the best record in the Eastern Conference.
I think, however, that the shit is, as they say, about to hit the fan in Philadelphia. This team finished 13th in offense last season and second in defense. I bring that up to point out that the defensive side of the ball is where they were special. They managed to carve out a league-average offense on the strength of some shooting numbers I’m not sure can sustain (more on that below). Even if they do sustain, I’m not sure it matters: against the Hawks in the second round of the playoffs, the Sixers made over 40% of their 3s over the seven games, and it simply wasn’t enough.
That’s because this team’s offense is based almost entirely on the ability of Joel Embiid to make jump shots and draw fouls. Generally, that’s a tough combination of things to do, and the league’s new emphasis on cleaning up bullshit defensive fouls against shooters who lurch and lunge into defenders certainly isn’t going to help in this case. Last season, Embiid took more mid-range shots than ever, and he shattered his career highs in his percentage of makes on those same shots. He’s about to play his age 27 season, and you could imagine a world where he keeps getting better, but I’m not so sure I see it.
Instead, I see a bigger problem, which is that this team had exactly one really good passer on the roster, and that player is at this moment insisting he’s never playing for this franchise again. He also happens to be their most versatile and most consistent defensive player. Hate Ben Simmons all you’d like, but this matters, again, because defense is how they win games.
As an aside, doesn’t it seem weird to you that the Ben Simmons disaster and the Markelle Fultz disaster both happened to the same franchise? Embiid is so special that we seem to have glazed over this, but how is it possible that two separate players good enough to be selected first overall in their respective drafts turned out to both have inscrutable and bizarre mental blocks against shooting the basketball? The tendency is to blame Simmons and Fultz for not improving, and I think in the case of Simmons especially that take is mostly fair. Still, maybe there’s something shitty going on in Philly’s player development process, no?
Anyway, the point I’m trying to make here is that this team, aside from Embiid, simply is not very good. Tobias Harris seems a lot better when he’s the third best player on your team than he does when he’s a clear second. You can feel annoyed at Ben Simmons’ willful insistence on never getting better in the offseason and still acknowledge the gaping hole he’s going to leave behind him. It’s absolutely fair to look at this roster and expect them to take a step back on both ends of the ball this season. At any rate, it’s going to take a superhuman effort from Embiid if that’s not going to happen.
I keep wanting to pencil in the Sixers for 50 wins this season, but I look around at the other teams in the East, and I see teams more equipped to deal with the night-to-night nonsense of regular season basketball. The Sixers have the goods to make a trade, but they’re probably right to hold their chips for the right moment, even if the right moment might not be happening anytime soon. The Sixers are relying on a whole bunch of Tobias Harris, Danny Green, and Seth Curry in order to tread water. I’m skeptical. Either Embiid wins MVP this season, or these guys could very well miss the playoffs. I’m guessing it’s the latter, but we’ll see.