Should The Sixers Start Over?

Should The Sixers Start Over?

So last year was pretty bad for the Philadelphia 76ers. Despite signing Paul George in the offseason, the Sixers were wrecked by injuries. They only finished with 24 wins, their worst since 2016. And now we’re getting reports out of Philadelphia that both Embiid and Paul George may not be ready for training camp. So where the hell did the Sixers go from here? Yeah, you got Embiid on the wrong side of 30 and he can just never stay healthy. Paul George coming off that awful season, also injured. And then you got some nice young players as well. So, the 76ers, they’re in a weird spot. of the 76ers, if you haven’t already, make sure you give this video a like, give us a subscribe, and hit that notification bell so you never miss out on one of our videos. So, like we mentioned, reports coming out of Philly haven’t exactly been positive. Now, the Sixers started the offseason pretty damn well. They landed the third overall pick in the NBA draft, took VJ Edge come out of Baylor, may end up being a star. Time will tell. We don’t really know at this point, but recent reports out of Philly have been less than ideal according to Brad Seagull of Clutch Points. Now, it’s important to mention this is the only source that’s put out this report. You know, nothing from Shams, nothing from any of the other big NBA B riders, just this one. So, the latest intel is that Paul George’s surgery this past off seasonason may keep him out of training camp and the preseason. And then the reports about Embiid’s knee is that it’s in really bad shape with one Eastern Conference executive apparently believing that the Sixers are already regretting extending Embiid. Now, look, the Sixers, they still have Maxi. And the hope here is that last year for Embiid and PG, you know, it was a one-off, right? Both missed most of the season with injuries, which wasn’t exactly shocking. What was more concerning is how they played when they were actually in the lineup. PG, he averaged 16.2 points per game. never really settled into a roll with the 76ers. Embiid’s averages though dropped by over 10 points and nearly three boards a game and his shooting percentage plummeted. And if that trend continues, the Sixers could be headed for another disappointing season. So the question is where does Philly go from here. Let’s start with Paul George. There’s less to say about him than Embiid. I mean obviously you got to look to get rid of him. like respect to PG, but that contract when it was signed, it was already like, are they going to regret this contract? The back half of it, that’s a lot of money for an aging Paul George. They’re already regretting that. Paul George struggled to stay healthy and even when he did play, he really wasn’t that good. The question is like how much value is there for PG? There really doesn’t seem like a lot of teams interested. Like around the draft, we heard Utah that was so random. Maybe a team like Miami, but there’s really not a lot of interest given the contract. I mean, even outside of the contract, is it just me or is he redundant for this team now? A little bit. At least like moving forward, you got guys like Jared McCain, you got VJ Edgecom, who plays like a similar position. I didn’t watch a ton of him at Baylor, but you know, seeing him a little bit in the tournament, I’m pretty high on him from what I’ve seen. So, like McCain might have won rookie of the year if he stayed healthy last year. Yeah, they already have the perimeter guys. Are those guys ready to contribute right away if they still want to contend? Probably not. But at least like moving forward the next three, four years. Yeah, you’re right. They have perimeter players there to fill his spot. Yeah, Embiid is the much bigger question. He’s still by far the best and most important player for the Sixers. And look, we’ve been critical of him throughout the years. In some cases, I think very fairly. We’re going to talk a little bit coming up about how maybe he’s been, you know, unfairly maligned and whatnot. I think it’s still important to note he can be a prick on the court. Like he flops. He’s committed plenty of dirty fouls in his time. Like on the court, he could still be a little bit of an right? But with the benefit of hindsight, I think there have been some cases where we have unfairly criticized him. And honestly, we’re kind of getting to the point where I just I feel a little bit bad for him. And a lot of this does come from the recent article by Doun Akintoy. Genuinely one of the best pieces of sports journalism I’ve ever read. If you haven’t read it yet, go do it. It’s long. It’ll take you like an hour to do, but it is really eyeopening. It’s incredibly well written. It’s amazing, honestly. And it really just painted a picture of what Embiid has had to go through since he entered the NBA. A lot of pain, both physical and mental, and just years and years of frustration really. And you know, it’s not just a deep dive into Embiid’s NBA life, but it also kind of serves as a confirmation for something that I think we’ve all really known for the longest time, but again, this really just confirms it. 76 is a horribly run franchise. Yeah. Now, the Embiid era as a whole, like it’s going to have to get its own video one day when it’s all said and done. But really, this reinforced a saying we’ve heard before that adult life, you know, it’s kind of like high school. It’s just all high school is what it is. The petty drama really, it just never goes away. Like this one, especially when I read this in the article, an intern was handling Embiid’s rehab when he first entered the league. That is outright insane. That’s appalling. That’s unbelievable. And like it gets worse. He had like 76ers execs and personnel basically like getting into clicks early in Embiid’s career whether they like believed in him or not. Brian Kangelo using burner accounts to take yeah to take shots at his own players. His relationship with James Harden falling apart because apparently Harden believed Embiid forced him out. And just recently like the details of that players only meeting they had at the beginning of last season leaking out. That’s a players only meeting. There’s no coaches in there, no assistant coaches, no trainers, nothing. They had a big confrontation where Maxi like confronted Embiid about, you know, bringing the morale of the team down and someone on his own team, one of his teammates, one of his brothers he’s supposed to trust, leaked it to the media. God damn. Yeah. And that’s not even talking about like all the wasted draft picks, player personnel moves that completely backfired. Joel does bear some responsibility in all of this. Like he isn’t without fault. The article did mention at times skipping medical appointments. I know like there’s a trust thing there where Embiid needs to be able to trust these players to like go to these appointments. If it’s an hour appointment a couple times a week, you’re getting Yeah, you’re getting paid all this money. You got to go. And also like Kangelo is a scumbag for using burners to criticize his own players. But if I was the GM of the Sixers at that time, I would be a little frustrated if my star big man was dancing at a concert with Meek Mill while he’s out injured with a leg injury. Like it’s just not the best look in the world, right? But the past is the past though. Like you got to move forward. It looks like the Sixers are taking the right approach now with Embiid. They’re not rushing anything. Like the past few seasons, it’s felt like, you know, the start of the regular season for some reason has been this like deadline like got to have him ready by the start of the regular season. And it feels like now they’re finally taking the approach of just like give it time. Like he’ll be ready when he’s ready. I’m sure that’s going to piss some people off. Like he’s getting paid all this money. We don’t really like load management. We want to see stars play. But like given Embiid’s career, looking at the amount of games he’s played per season, realistically, if you want a deep playoff push, the dude’s probably going to play like 50 games. I mean, that is what it is. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if they want any chance of him returning to MVP form, they got to take their time because realistically, this could end up being their last chance. I mean, back to Akentoya’s article, and Beat sounded pretty content that his career was winding down. Like, reading the article, he sounded pretty optimistic about his life after basketball. Now, some may take that as, oh, you know, he doesn’t love the game and whatnot. He’s not committed to the game. I read it more so as he feels like the same way Andrew Luck did when he retired. Like if you remember when Andrew Luck retired, he basically said that like the cycle of injuries and rehab and injuries and more rehab, it just robbed him of his joy of playing the game of football. Now Luck got beat the up because the Colts refused to put a solid offensive line in front of him. But he only missed one full season and one half season. Other than that, he played every game, all 16, every year for the Colts. Embid has missed far more time for the Sixers and had to go through far more injury rehabs, surgeries than what Andrew Luck had. And just speaking from like my own personal experience, I broke my leg when I was in high school and it took like 7 months for me to recover. And Beas kind of had to go through something like that basically like once every 18 months and like it was hard enough on me, just a random person to spend 7 months recovering from a broken leg. I can’t imagine what a guy like him is having to go through having to do that on a such a regular basis. Yeah. and he’s already got all this money like he could retire now and be set for generations to come. But also he would be giving up a ton of money like that player option in 2029 even if he’s you know 35 years old at the time it’s like 67 million which is absolutely crazy. But letting the past go, let’s talk about this upcoming season. I mean, unfortunately for the 76ers, their entire hopes for competing, regardless of how open the East is, relies on Joel Embiid’s health. And technically, that exists for every team. Like, if Shay gets injured, the Thunder aren’t going to be good next year. The Celtics basically their title hopes over because Tatum’s out. But with Embiid, like it’s a realistic possibility that once again he’s injured this season. It feels more of like a when, not if. Yeah, it’s very plausible that that could happen. And with that level of uncertainty, you have to look at possibly moving Joel Embiid. Now, we may disagree on this a little bit, but I don’t know how much value they could get from Embiid, you know, just given the contract extension, given his situation, but at the very least with the young players you still have, you at least got to explore it. I mean, I would be actively exploring it. Maybe this is just me being a little optimistic. I think you could get something for him. you know, you’re not going to get a KD level package where, you know, you get Mikuel Bridges, you know, four first round picks, two swaps, whatever they ended up getting. You’re not getting that kind of package. But could you get like a a prospect, a first round pick or two and salary filler? Again, maybe I’m being optimistic, but I think you could get something along those lines. I think you could find a contending team that is really desperate and it’s like, oh, maybe if we add Embiid and he stays healthy, he could be the final piece to get us over the hump. Or maybe you could just find some team that’s super poorly run and just like, you know what, it just like bring up Charlotte. see if they take him for like I don’t even know what they have on their roster now, but you know, see if Charlotte would take him for a decent young player and some picks. Maybe, maybe not. I mean, Sacramento, it seems like they don’t want to rebuild. So, why not? I mean, if you’re Sacramento, would you swap him for Sabonis? Maybe. I don’t know. Maybe. I’d have to think more about it. But if you do send him away and say like you get any positive value, like Philly does have a decent group of young players. Tyrese Maxi, even though he’s already an all-star level player. He’s only 24 years old. Jared McCain, as you mentioned earlier in the video, to start the season, he was the leader for rookie of the year. And then VJ Edgecom, like I said, I like him. I think he has star potential. So, you had like a couple more first round picks. You do have a bright future there. And they have most of their first round picks remaining. They have control over them. There’s a couple that are protected in the future. But I still think though going into next season, you give it one more year. And I’m basically just saying that cuz the East is so open. Like sure the Knicks are there. You got other teams like the Magic, but Cleveland. Yeah, Cleveland, of course, those are the favorites. But outside of that, like the East is so wide open. This might be able to be the year that he at least makes the conference finals. Like maybe even the finals if everyone stays healthy and everything goes right, like the East is that wide open. Okay, I’ll soften a little bit on the trade him now stance. It’s just one of those tough situations that Philly management is in. And speaking of Philly management, I mean, we mentioned in the Rockets video we just made last week, how the hell does Daryl my still have a job. I mean, bro, stop yapping about how the 2020 bubble championship doesn’t count and start working on your own roster, man. Like, come on. Even if era doesn’t ever produce any success, say you never make the conference finals, at the very least, you got a young core there. You didn’t make some dumbass trade sending away a ton of future picks. I don’t think they’re in the worst position whatsoever. No, they’re not in the worst position whatsoever. And then there’s an old saying in sports like it’s better to pull the plug on a team or player a year or two early than a year too late. Unfortunately, I think the Sixers are maybe like two or three years too late at this point. But yeah, if they start over right now, solid foundation, solid young players, you got your draft picks. Considering all the bad moves they’ve made over the year, not that bad of a starting point.

The 76ers are currently in a very weird spot. They are coming off their worst season in nearly a decade that was completely derailed by injuries and are seemingly running it back. A huge portion of their salary cap is tied up in contracts to Joel Embiid and Paul George, two players with superstar ability… when they are healthy. The problem is they rarely are healthy and even when they were last year, their production was the lowest it had been in years. Despite having these two albatross contracts to often injured stars, the Sixers also have a pretty solid core of young players headlined by All Star Tyrese Maxey. So with the Sixers potentially at a crossroads, is it time to blow it up?

Subscribe Here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiDPnh65zGGFwVJ0jRMB7Ug?sub_confirmation=1

Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SyntheticSports

Business Inquiries: syntheticsportsbusiness@gmail.com

Music Used:
WWE Roman Reigns “Head Of The Table” Entrance Theme – INNES:

#76ers #sixers #joelembiid