The best hope for the struggling Sixers? Plan for the best and hope for the worst.
On paper, the Sixers have a more complete and complementary team than they’ve ever managed to build around Joel Embiid. They are trying like hell to win. And they cannot win a game.
A big part of life is wrestling with one’s internal contradictions. For instance, I believe that optimal decisions are built on a foundation of dispassionate analysis, sound logic, and a willingness to follow wherever those two things may lead.
But I also believe in sports karma. I believe in the existence in the Gods of Play, and I believe that they are a vengeful lot. If you offend their sensibilities, they will spite you. Whatever can go wrong will go wrong if you dare it to. You don’t walk a leadoff man. You don’t fake a punt inside your own territory. You don’t talk smack to visiting fans while jogging back to defend a last-second Hail Mary.
But all of these unwritten rules pale in comparison to the Golden Commandment of sports karma: You never, ever, ever try to lose.
For the first time since Sam Hinkie began his rebuild of the Sixers, I find myself willing to entertain the notion that he got it wrong.
The rationale behind The Process was sound. It made sense on a logical level, and on a strategic level. It led to seven years in which the Sixers were more relevant than they’d been in any of seven seasons prior. It led to a No. 1 seed and three Game 7s and an individual MVP award for a superstar center who carved his name onto the shortest of short lists of all-time franchise greats. It led to six straight years of sellouts, perhaps the era’s greatest testament.
» READ MORE: Joel Embiid needs to find himself, fast, if the Sixers are to turn it around
Yet maybe it also led to this. To the 2024-25 season. To 15 losses in 20 games. To the fourth-worst record in the NBA. The post-Process Era is ending exactly where it started. Back in the tank.
The Gods are poets. They are also gangsters. Like Chazz Palminteri in A Bronx Tale, their message to the Sixers is, “Now youse can’t leave.”
The Sixers have the team they’ve always wanted, in a lot of ways. They have the team they claimed they were positioning themselves to have as Hinkie accrued draft capital and kept the cap sheet clean.
In Tyrese Maxey and Jared McCain, they have two young stars who have given them a lot of what they thought they were getting when they drafted Ben Simmons and Markelle Fultz at No. 1 overall in back-to-back years. In Guerschon Yabusele, they have a bargain-basement glue guy not unlike the one they had in Dario Šarić. In Paul George, they have the name-brand superstar they lusted after.
On paper, they have a more complete and complementary team than they’ve ever managed to build around Joel Embiid.
A decade after doing everything in their power to lose, the Sixers are trying like hell to win. And they cannot win a game.
The optimal path forward is clear. If that wasn’t the case before their 106-102 loss to the Orlando Magic on Wednesday night, it certainly is now. At 5-15, they are closer in the standings to the tanking Wizards (2-17) than they are to the quartet of contenders atop the conference.
If the fourth-seeded New York Knicks continue on their 50-win pace, the Sixers would need to go 45-17 in their last 62 games to catch them in the standings. Meanwhile, the title favorite Boston Celtics are on pace for 67 wins and a rightful place in the conversation about the greatest of all-time. The odds say overwhelmingly that the Sixers’ best chance at a title is to lose enough games to draft the star who will someday lead them to one.
» READ MORE: Breaking down Sixers injuries and the impact they've had this season
The good news is, they may not have a choice. Sixers president Daryl Morey did a hell of a sales job on his skeptics this summer. Turns out, he was the one who should have listened. George returned from a 10-game absence to play 53 combined minutes against the lowly Pistons and Hornets. He then sat one out against the third-seeded Magic. Embiid wasn’t on the court for any of it, nor is it clear when that may change.
Superstars are great, but when you roster two players who miss more regular-season games than any, you may not survive the regular season. Who would have thought?
In Morey’s defense, he is like every general manager before him, imprisoned by Embiid’s health, and Stockholm Syndromed by the potential. After inexplicably handing Embiid a three-year, $193 million contract extension this summer, the Sixers are not allowed to trade him this season even if there were a market. Morey will have little leverage in any trade talks about George, thanks to his knee issues and five-year max contract. The only option is to soldier on and hope that things don’t get any better and secure a draft pick that turns The End into a new beginning.
They can’t tank, though. They just can’t. Not again. Not even for a season. Morey must walk a finer line than Hinkie. He must look for growth and only hope for losses. The NBA is a weird league, with weird market dynamics. From a utilitarian perspective, 2024-25 could end up being a success. If it does, it must come the old-fashioned way. The Gods will spite you if it doesn’t.