[UPDATE: On the very first day of training camp, Jared McCain tore the UCL in his thumb. In case you were wondering, he needs the UCL in his thumb. No timetable yet, but this stinks]
The offseason isn’t quite done yet considering Quentin Grimes is still out there, but I think we’ve seen enough. The team has already given new draft pick VJ Edgecombe the morphing-injury treatment, they refuse to commit to Joel Embiid playing basketball, and Paul George is hurt. That’s fine. We need to be realistic. So, what are we?
Contenders?
The team is set up to be a contender in a weak Eastern Conference. They have a former MVP, All-NBA guy, and a rising star. Payroll is nearly maxed out. They worked around the edges this offseason to bring in talent at positions of need despite having limited resources and have role playing guards all around. Doesn’t that sound nice?
All of that is true, but it obviously buries the lede that those first two guys probably won’t be adding much to the team this year. Both Joel Embiid and Paul George are on max contracts, both were injured most of last season, and both are hurt right now. Awesome. Joel is 31 and his knees are so bad that there is literally nothing to be done about them. The team has thrown around the word “optimism” when it comes to Joel’s recovery, but that is a legal word called fluff. It’s non-committal while sounding nice and meaning nothing. The position I’ve heard is that he is never going to play without pain again. That sucks for him and for us. The MVP we once knew is not coming through that door.
George is what he is: a fluid moving, injury prone, talented, walking brain aneurysm. He will always miss games and is never going to be the leader of the team. When he’s there he can give you a tantalizing combination of 3-level scoring and defense that you should not count on night-to-night under any circumstances. There’s an odd understanding in sports that you should listen to the player’s old fan base when you want to know about that player. No Clippers fans were terribly upset to see him go. I can see why. This is the Paul George experience, just another year older.
With these two taking up 69.1% of the salary cap, the Sixers have no chance at contention. It would take some kind of miracle of modern medicine to change that. Do not hold your breath.
Tankers?
Whoa, let’s not get crazy now. Last season was a one off trying to lose. The stars aligned in that everything went wrong and “cautiously” holding out players down the stretch made all the difference. They had a small window to keep their draft pick by staying in the Top 6 and they did. That is not the case this season.
Our draft pick this year is Top 4 protected. That’s a lot tougher to get to than Top 6 because they would need to win the lottery. This isn’t like the NHL where they only draw the top 2 and, if you lose enough, you could guarantee your spot. Even if you lose the most games, there is no guarantee that you stick in the Top 4, just ask Utah. Finishing in the bottom 4 only gets you a roughly 50% chance of keeping the pick. That’s not enough to justify wasting a season.
Plus, assuming even decent health, this team is not going to lose enough games to bottom out accidentally. The East is simply not good enough for the Sixers to tumble too far down the standings with the guard play we have. There are no elite teams to really throttle the Sixers without a challenge and rack up losses
Realists.
Unlike last year, the Sixers should have a ball handler or two on the floor at all times between Maxey, Grimes, McCain, and Edgecombe. Even though that should encourage competence, it will not lead to elite play. There are just too many holes in the front court. Without a healthy Embiid or George, it will be tough to stop anyone down low. We should beat the bad teams and be competitive against the good teams. That’s probably enough to win between 30-35 games with no Embiid and maybe 40-45 with him.
That’s good news! This season could actually be fun as long as you temper your expectations away from contention. We drafted VJ Edgecombe, the most athletic Sixer we have probably EVER seen. Tyrese Maxey is a joy to watch play basketball, and he will finally have someone besides Joel to pass to or even, god forbid, receive passes! Jared McCain is back and he was electrifying last season. Then there’s Quentin Grimes who might be playing for a contract and should be our Derrick White.
On the downside, we are looking at a competitive team that we don’t hate that has an outside shot at either winning the lottery or squeaking into the playoffs. Over the last few years, 30-35 wins would land as the 5th-9th worst record in the league (20% to 42% chance of keeping the pick) but is also damn near the play-in. We wouldn’t be trying to be bad though. This young core will be trying to win every night and wouldn’t be the worst watch in the world. We could all get invested in these players and be happy when they show improvement rather than nervously hope for losses, worried about keeping our draft pick. If we serendipitously won the lottery, that would be fantastic.
Embiid and George playing would be a bonus. If they can give us half a season of adequate health, we would make the playoffs and go about as far as we usually do, just without the constant feeling of angst. No one would have any expectations. I’ll take it!
The Future
Even though I am resigned to this being a lost year in terms of overall competitiveness, it is not a lost year of development. In McCain and Edgecombe, we have two possible all-star level players that just need time to play. The more they get on the floor the better, regardless of the results. Let’s look ahead.
By ’26-’27, George and Embiid will still be taking up too much space on the salary cap, but will be another year closer to the end. We should know by then if Embiid will be able to adapt to a lesser role and be effective on the court. If he can’t, the term medical retirement will be thrown around. That’s not the worst thing in the world.
Next year’s cap and draft pick situation looks a lot better too (though it won’t be great until after George and Embiid are gone). Between the Big 3, Edgecombe, McCain, and Grimes, we will be at around $182m (using $15m for Grimes). That’s over the cap, but not anywhere near the first apron or tax. If they could somehow move George, they have a path to being an under the cap team again. What would we do with that space? Why, we could make trades!
Our draft pick situation is as follows:
- Sixers 2027 pick, not tradeable until draft night
- Clippers 2028 pick, not tradeable with 2027
- Sixers or Clippers 2029 pick
- All picks from 2030-2033
One of the good parts of not being in contention is that you don’t waste picks trying to acquire anyone. This team is going to try to play the next 2 years with an arm tied behind its back and force us to rebuild on the fly. In the end, we might be better for it, but it’s going to take awhile.
Philly Front Office 
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